The pair walked in silence to the station, were again watched curiously by the public (who appeared to treat the station as a club), and after three-quarters of an hour of slow motion and stoppages, arrived at their destination, Drem.

The doctor’s own man with a dog-cart was in waiting.

‘The marquis had neither machine nor horse,’ the doctor explained.

Through the bleak late twilight they were driven, past two or three squalid mining villages, along a road where the ruts showed black as coal through the freezing snow.  Out of one village, the lights twinkling in the windows, they turned up a steep road, which, after a couple of hundred yards, brought them to the old stone gate posts, surmounted by heraldic animals.

‘The late marquis sold the worked-iron gates to a dealer,’ said the doctor.

At the avenue gates, so steep was the ascent, both men got out and walked.

‘You see the pits come up close to the house,’ said the doctor, as they reached the crest.  He pointed to some tall chimneys on the eastern slope, which sank quite gradually to the neighbouring German Ocean, but ended in an abrupt rocky cliff.

’Is that a fishing village in the cleft of the cliffs?  I think I see a red roof,’ said Merton.

‘Ay, that’s Strutherwick, a fishing village,’ replied the doctor.

‘A very easy place, on your theory, for an escape with the body by boat,’ said Merton.

‘Ay, that is just it,’ acquiesced the doctor.

‘But,’ asked Merton, as they reached the level, and saw the old keep black in front of them, ’what is that rope stretched about the lawn for?  It seems to go all round the house, and there are watchers.’  Dark figures with lanterns were visible at intervals, as Merton peered into the gathering gloom.  The watchers paced to and fro like sentinels.

The door of the house opened, and a man’s figure stood out against the lamp light within.

‘Is that you, Merton?’ came Logan’s voice from the doorway.

Merton answered; and the doctor remarked, ’Mr. Logan will tell you what the rope’s for.’

The friends shook hands; the doctor, having deposited Merton’s baggage, pleaded an engagement, and said ‘Good-bye,’ among the thanks of Logan.  An old man, a kind of silent Caleb Balderstone, carried Merton’s light luggage up a black turnpike stair.

‘I’ve put you in the turret; it is the least dilapidated room,’ said Logan.  ‘Now, come in here.’

He led the way into a hall on the ground-floor.  A great fire in the ancient hearth, with its heavy heraldically carved stone chimney-piece, lit up the desolation of the chamber.

‘Sit down and warm yourself,’ said Logan, pushing forward a ponderous oaken chair, with a high back and short arms.

‘I know a good deal,’ said Merton, his curiosity hurrying him to the point; ’but first, Logan, what is the rope on the stakes driven in round the house for?’