so confidently with a stranger seemed out of character. Investigators theorised that the children had perhaps met the man during a previous visit or visits and had grown to trust him. A chance remark at home, which seemed insignificant at the time, supports this theory. Arnna had told her mother that Jane had "got a boyfriend down the beach". Nancy thought she meant a playmate and took no further notice until after the disappearance. A shopkeeper at nearby Wenzel's Bakery also reported Jane had bought pasties and a meat pie with a £1 note. Police viewed this as further evidence that the children had been with another person, for two reasons: the shopkeeper knew the children well from previous visits and reported that they had never purchased a meat pie before, and the children's mother had given them only six shillings and six pence, enough for their bus fare and lunch, and not £1. Police believed the money had been given to them by somebody else. Other sightings According to an initial statement, the Beaumont children were seen walking alone at about 3:00 pm, away from the beach along Jetty Road, in the general direction of their home. The witness, a postman, knew the children well, and his statement was regarded as reliable. He said the children were "holding hands and laughing" in the main street. Police could not determine why the reliable children, already one hour late, were strolling alone and seemingly unconcerned. This was the last confirmed sighting of the children. The postman contacted police two days after his initial statement and said that he thought he saw them in the morning, not the afternoon as he had previously said. A local resident, Miss Daphne Gregory, reportedly sighted the children at 3:00 pm with a man who "carried an airlines bag, similar to one owned by Jane Beaumont." Several months later, a woman reported that on the night of the disappearance, a man, accompanied by two girls and a boy, entered a neighbouring house that she had believed empty. Later, the woman said she had seen the boy walking alone along a lane where he was pursued and roughly caught by the man. The next morning the house appeared to be deserted again, and she saw neither the man nor the children again. Police could not establish why she had failed to provide this information earlier. Other reported