"I say!" exclaimed Beverley in desperation. "Can you send an express messenger to Thalassa Towers?"
"Sorry," was the calm reply. "You must try a post office. It opens at nine on Sundays."
Beverley replaced the receiver with a vicious bang. Then he rang up again, this time obtaining a call to the yard-manager's private house.
That functionary's temper was far from amiable when he found himself called from his bed, in the early hours of a chilly late-autumn morning, to receive a bald announcement from the intruder's own lips that the latter had deliberately broken a window in the office and had temporarily installed himself.
"There's no need to bring a policeman along with you," added Beverley reassuringly, "but come as soon as possible. No, I've disturbed nothing. There's no cause for alarm as far as you are concerned."
Bobby replaced the instrument and sat down in the padded-leather arm-chair, the while keeping a look-out upon the Titania.
In about twenty minutes the manager arrived, unkempt and unshorn. To him Beverley explained the situation, requesting that someone could be sent either in a car or on a motor-cycle to inform Sir Hugh Harborough of the grave news.
"Have you informed the police?" asked the manager, the while covertly glancing round the room to assure himself that nothing had been tampered with.
"I'd rather wait till I've seen Sir Hugh," replied Bobby. "Of course the whole thing may turn out to be a mare's nest; but the dog——"
"Where is the dog?" asked the manager.