“Did you know him?” said Susan.
“Of course we did,” said Captain Nancy. “His mother used to be mother’s nurse, and she was our nurse too when we were very young. He’s our policeman. He isn’t afraid of anybody except his mother … and us, of course. I say, you know what’s happened?”
“What?”
“You know that message the old Billies gave you to give to us, about telling Uncle Jim to put a padlock on his houseboat? Well, they were right.”
“Uncle Jim’s houseboat has been burgled,” said Peggy.
“I knew something had happened when I saw all those boats there this morning,” said John.
“The other pirates attacked Captain Flint’s ship while he was away,” said Captain Nancy. “He had gone, you know, when you said he had. We were wrong. Those lights we saw in the houseboat when we were sailing down here in the dark weren’t his. They belonged to the burglars, to the other pirates. At that very moment they were about their fell work.”
“Someone else saw those lights too,” said Peggy. “The motorman who knew that Uncle Jim was away. So in the morning he went to see and found the cabin door swinging open and