CHAPTER 12
Locked outWhen the group burst into the hotel lobby that evening, tired and dusty as usual, with plenty to talk and think about, they noticed the desk clerk, usually so disinterested and noncommittal, animated almost to the point of excitement.
Jack, seeing how his eyes lit up with anticipation when he saw them, asked if there were any messages.
This time he got more than a grumpy ‘no’.
There were several messages, all from England, from a Mrs Brown, ‘and...’ he was beginning to say, when Jack interrupted him to call out to the others that there were at last messages from Mary. They crowded round at once, grabbing the slips of paper from the desk clerk’s hand and reading them eagerly. All were written in a spidery, almost illegible hand and badly mis-spelt. There was nothing
