Al raised an eyebrow as it took him a while to understand why Mr. Jake was irritated. Poor choice of words apparently.
"I see. Thank you for what you've done so far. I am taking over the problem. It wasn't my intention to insult you, I apologize."
Before he adressed the others, a thought crossed his mind. It was perfectly possible the others had been watching someone to get here and the danger was, that they still were. The question might be irritating Mr. Jake further but the matter had to be adressed.
"Do you happen to have an educated guess, Mr. Jake, how those unknown persons managed to follow the trail of their intended prey here ?"
It took a while of thinking to formulate a plan, but after a while he had the nucleus of one. There would need to be input and opinions from the others, of course as he perhaps wasn't having the picture in mind the others had and he wasn't in a position or careless enough to think he could just give them orders. While still thinking he straightened his back clasping his hands behind his back and looked at the others assertively and with authority, as this was more or less his responsibility and his duty.
"Right, the plan. We will speak to the parties that are less difficult to find, meaning Miss Rowland and Mrs. McIntyre. The actual persuasion of Mrs. McIntyre will need to wait until we have found Mr. Camp. Then, finally after that, we will focus our efforts into locating, identifying and neutralising the threat of the arsonists. Questions? Proposals? Ideas? Input?"