“My sister is in bed with influenza. And anyway, she’s not expecting you. I doubt if she knows of your existence.”
He rose, and surveyed with a ferocious scowl his bewildered victims.
“I’ve abducted you!” quoth Stuart. “I’ve told you often enough that I was a pirate in disguise. You wouldn’t believe me. You played with fire. Now you’re abducted without the option of a fine. Open your mouths and scream, if you like; I don’t mind.”
Peter eyed him sternly: “You mean that the invitation was a hoax? You lured us from our homes on false pretences?”
He was humming a tune from the “Pirates of Penzance,” and at the same time polishing his eye-glass. So he merely nodded assent.
Merle said quietly: “This will mean an awful row for me.”
“No, it won’t,” he reassured her; “because nobody need ever know. To all intents and purposes we’re staying at Orson Manor. Dorothy only comes to town about once every four years, and I’ll tip her the wink to play up. She’ll do it for me,” finished the lord of the house of Heron.
“But where are we going?”
“Haven’t the remotest notion. We’ll see when we get to Penzance. And I’ll let you both have a say in the matter, though it isn’t usual in cases of abduction.”