gloom-stricken house.

The moon was just then rising above the roofs and gables of the town,
and by its rapidly increasing light Starmidge saw that the garden was of
considerable size, raining back quite sixty yards from the rear of the
house, and having a corresponding breadth. Like all the gardens which
stretched from the backs of the Market-Place houses to the river-bank,
it was rich in trees--high elms and beeches rose from its lawns, and
made deep shadows across them. But Starmidge was not so much interested
in those trees, fine as they were, as in a building; obviously modern,
which was set in their midst, completely isolated. That it was a
comparatively new building he could see; the moonbeams falling full on
it showed that the stone of which it was built was fresh and unstained
by time or smoke. But what was it? Of what nature, for what purpose? It
was neither stable, nor coach-house, nor summer-house, nor a grouping of
domestic offices. No drive or path led to it: it was built in the middle
of a grass-plot: round it ran a stone-lined trench. Its architecture was
plain but handsome; it possessed two distinctive features which the
detective was quick to notice. One, was that--at any rate on the two
sides which he could see--its windows were set at a height of quite
twelve feet from the ground: the other, that from its flat parapeted
roof rose a conical structure something like the rounded stacks of glass
foundries and potteries. This was obviously a chimney, and from its
mouth at that moment was emerging a slight column of smoke which threw
back curiously coloured reflections, blue, and yellow, and red, to the
moonlight which fell on its thickening spirals.

Starmidge felt just as much desire to get inside this queer structure as
into the house behind it, and if he could have seen any prospect of
taking a peep through its windows he would have risked detection and
dropped from his perch into the garden. But he judged that if the
windows were twelve feet from the ground on the two sides of the
building which he could see, they would be the same height on the sides
which he couldn't see; moreover, he observed that they were obscured by
either dull red glass or red curtains. Clearly no outsider was intended
to get a peep into this temple of mystery. What was it? What went on
within it? He was about to climb down from the tree when he got some
sort of an answer to these questions. From within the building, muffled
b