“What is it, a farm house like this?”

John Paine screwed up his mouth.

“I reckon ye’re strangers about yere,” he said.

“We are.”

“Bekase if ye warn’t ye’d never ax that question. Why, the next house ain’t a house at all. It’s a mad-house!”

“A mad-house?”

“Yes, some people call it a ’sylum.”

“Oh, yes; a private asylum!”

“I reckon so. It’s private enuff. Old Doctor Scraggs who keeps it has about four of ther wust dogs in this kentry. Nobody dares to go about there arter dark.”

The detectives were doing some deep thinking.