mile,
perhaps, when the driver, obeying a quiet order from the lawyer, who
had taken a seat beside him, turned off the main road, and they found
themselves in a narrow lane, where there would not be room to pass
should they meet any sort of a vehicle.

"Pretty narrow quarters, Jamieson," said Holmes. "Are you sure you know
where you're going?"

"Yes, I know," said Jamieson, with a laugh. "Don't you? I thought you
knew this part of the country so well, Holmes."

"I? No, I scarcely know it at all, as a matter of fact. That's how I got
lost this morning when I took these young ladies for a drive and got
myself into their bad graces."

"My mistake! I thought you did know it."

Jamieson bent over then and spoke again to the driver, and in a moment
they made another turn, but this time into a private road. Bessie
thought she heard a startled exclamation from Holmes, but she was not
sure. Then she looked around.

"What a horrid place!" exclaimed Miss Mercer. "Look how it's been
allowed to run down. Oh, I know where we are! This is the old Tisdall
place. No one has lived here for years. That's why it looks so
neglected."

"Right!" said Jamieson. "Doesn't that house look creepy, through the
trees, with the moonlight on it? I thought this would be a fine place to
come and tell ghost stories."

This time there was no mistake about Holmes's angry exclamation.

"Look here, what do you think you're doing? What right have you to bring
this crowd in here, Jamieson?"

Charlie looked at him in surprise--a surprise that Bessie knew
instinctively was assumed.

"Oh, strictly speaking, I suppose we're trespassing," he said. "But this
has always been common property--for years, at least. The owners don't
pay any attention to the place. They won't mind our coming here, even if
they find out."

"Well, I object--"

But Holmes stifled the remark before anyone save Bessie and Jamieson
heard it. And Bessie began to understand, and to thrill with a new,
scarcely formed idea. She began to have a glimmering of Jamieson's plan,
and she saw how cleverly Holmes had been induced to walk into the trap
that had been set for him. No matter how much he knew about this
mysterious place, and how unwilling he might be to let them explore it,
whatever his reason, he could not protest now without revealing plainly
that he had been lying before. And, moreover, he could not be at all
sure that it was not pure accident that had led Jamieson to sele