the explanation of this extraordinary behaviour! I
gave instructions to be driven to the Moat."

"Our instructions were to bring you here. You are expected. I must
ask you to get out, and come up to the house."

It was the man in the brown coat who spoke. He came a step nearer as
he spoke, blocking the doorway; the chauffeur held open the farther
door, his great bulk outlined against the green of the trees. It
seemed to Lessing that for the moment his best policy was to obey,
since, if it came to a fight, he preferred the open to his present
cramped position. He alighted then without demur, and, stood on the
path stretching himself, and looking around with an air of assurement
which he was far from feeling. He saw a garden which even in its
spring freshness looked desolate and neglected, and, some forty yards
from the gate, a low house of grey stone, thickly covered with
creepers, the branches of which had been allowed to drape the windows
so heavily that in many cases the glass was almost entirely concealed.
Lessing looked at it and felt a creeping of the blood. There was
only one word which could fitly describe the appearance of that house,
and it was a word of which he did not care to think. It was a dead
house.

Lessing had been under the impression that while he had been studying
his surroundings he had been standing still, but it now appeared that
unconsciously to himself, and impelled by the movements of the men on
either side, he had been slowly approaching nearer and nearer the open
door of the windowless house. Instantly he halted and put a sharp
inquiry:

"What is this house? Who is it that is `expecting' me, as you say?"

"You will recognise him when you meet," said the man in brown, and
pursing his lips gave a soft, prolonged whistle, repeated three times
over, with a perceptible pause between each. He looked towards the
house meantime, and in imagination Lessing filled the blank space of
the doorway with a dreaded figure, the figure of a man with black hair
turning to grey, a shaggy beard, and large prominent teeth. He had
need of all his courage at that moment, but he made no resistance as
the men by his side steadily guided him forward; for just as a short
time before he had preferred to fight in the open, now he was
possessed with a desire to find himself in a room where he might take
his stand against the wall,