"Strange, very strange!" Frayne remarked. "Didn't you discover what craft it was making the signals?"
"No, sir. They are a mystery to this day. We reported by wire to the Admiralty, of course, but we've never found out who it was a-signalling. It's a complete mystery—and it gave us a bit of an alarm at the time, I can tell you," he laughed. "There was a big Italian yacht, called the Carlo Alberta, reported next day from Hunstanton, and it may, of course, have been her. But I am not inclined to think so."
CHAPTER IV OPENS SEVERAL QUESTIONS
Our next step in the inquiry was a domiciliary visit to Beacon House.
While the public, including Mr. Day, were expecting to see his nephew, we, of course, were hoping to find old Gregory.
In this we were disappointed. Already Treeton knew that both men were missing from their lodgings. Yet while the police were watching everywhere for the dandified young man from London, the queer, white-haired old Sheffield steel manufacturer had slipped through their fingers and vanished as though the earth had swallowed him up.
Mrs. Dean's house was a typical seaside lodging-house, plainly and comfortably furnished—a double-fronted house painted pale blue, with large airy rooms and bay windows, which, situated high up and on the very edge of the cliff, commanded extensive views up and down the coast.
The sitting-room occupied by uncle and nephew, proved to be a big apartment on the first-floor, to the left of the entrance. The houses in that row had a front door from the asphalt path along the edge of the cliff and also a back entrance abutting upon the narrow street which ran into the centre of the town. Therefore, the hall went from back to front, the staircase ascending in the centre.
The room in which I stood with the detectives, was large, with a cheerful lattice-work wall-paper, and substantial leather-covered furniture. In the window was placed a writing-table, and upon it a telescope mounted on a stand. A comfortable couch was placed against the wall, while before the fire-place were a couple of deep-seated easy chairs, and a large oval table in the centre.