The trees along the roadside began gradually to close in. The trunks were closer together. At last they reached a spot where it was impossible to proceed any further in the car. Tom brought it to a stop.
“All right,” said Rook, “that’s as far as the car can come. We’ll have to hoof it the rest of the way. Put out that searchlight and come on.” Tom extinguished the light, and Rook’s companion produced an electric torch. Guided by this, the party set out once more, Tom in advance, with Rook close behind and Radcliff hanging on to one of his wrists. As they proceeded it suddenly flashed across Tom that the men were taking him to one of their hiding-places—quite likely to the very “old Haskins place” referred to in the letter.
“Well, at any rate I may find a chance to get on the track of the model once more,” he thought, as they still pushed forward.
All at once through the trees the white outlines of a huge house loomed up in ghostly fashion. Tom guessed that it must be the Haskins place referred to in the letter he still had in his pocket. He wished now that he hadn’t it on his person. If the men should search him and should find it, they might have a clew to the whereabouts of young Ralph.
The house, as well as Tom could see in the starlight, was one of the old colonial type, with four great, gaunt pillars supporting the upper story. However, he had not much time to pay attention to details before the men hustled him around to a small side door, which one of them shoved open. It led into a small entrance hall, and through what had evidently been the kitchen. Dust and cobwebs were thick everywhere, and Tom saw that it must have been years since the place had any legitimate occupants. It seemed an ideal place for the outlaws who now, it appeared, haunted it.
They passed through the lower regions and up a flight of stairs into a huge and gloomy main entrance hall with doorways leading from it and a grand staircase at one end. The rays of the electric torch shone on gilding and white painted woodwork. But the woodwork was gray with dust and dirt, and the gilding was tarnished and neglected in appearance. It was a melancholy place, rendered doubly so by the conditions under which Tom viewed it.