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THE MEETING AT GOVERNMENT HOUSE ran on until one o’clock, and so Bob didn’t return home for lunch until half past. He was immediately alarmed to find that the children were not home when he arrived. Their bicycles weren’t there, and so they hadn’t returned and then gone out again somewhere. Even allowing for a puncture, they should have been home half an hour earlier. Bob didn’t know if anyone had phoned. There would have been no one to take a message because it was Sunday, Peter’s day-off. He called the Swimming Club and learned that the children had left on the return journey across the creek at a quarter to twelve.
His first thought was to trace the route the children usually took back from the Old Port and then make enquiries at the Port if he hadn’t come across them on t
