the rather ornate stone pillars that marked
the entrance to Charleton Park Manor, and on which the initial promoters
of the subdivision, the real-estate people, had evidently deemed it good
advertising policy to expend a small fortune.

Another hundred yards farther on, Jimmie Dale turned his car around
and returned past the gates to the wagon track again. The road was
deserted--not a car nor a vehicle of any description was in sight.
Jimmie Dale made sure of that--and in another instant Jimmie Dale's own
car, every light extinguished, had vanished--he had backed it up the
wagon track, just far enough in for the trees to screen it thoroughly
from the main road.

Nor did Jimmie Dale himself appear again on the main road--until just as
he emerged close to the gates of Charleton Park Manor from a short cut
through the woods. Also, he was without his ulster now, and the slouch
hat had replaced the motor cap.

Jimmie Dale, in the moonlight, took stock of his surroundings, as he
passed in at a businesslike walk through the gates. It was a large park,
if that name could properly be applied to it at all, and the houses--he
caught sight of one set back from the driveway on the right--were quite
far apart, each in its own rather spacious grounds among the trees.

"The second house on the right," her letter had said. Jimmie Dale had
already passed the first one--the next would be Markel's then--and it
loomed ahead of him now, black and shadowy and unlighted.

Jimmie Dale shot a glance around him--there was stillness, quiet
everywhere--no sign of life--no sound.

Jimmie Dale's face became tense, his lips tight--and he stepped suddenly
from the sidewalk in among the trees. They were not thick here, of
course, the trees, and the turf beneath his feet was well kept--and,
therefore, soundless. He moved quickly now, but cautiously, from tree to
tree, for the moonlight, flooding the lawn and house, threw all objects
into bold relief.

A minute, two, three went by--and a shadow flitted here and there across
the light-green sward, like the moving of the trees swaying in the
breeze--and then Jimmie Dale was standing close up against one side of
the house, hidden by the protecting black shadows of the walls.

But here, for a moment, Jimmie Dale seemed little occupied with the
house itself--he was staring down past its length to where the woods
made a heavy, dark background at the rear. Then he turned his head,
to face directly to th