The pilot's on my pay roll. He drives my car while I'm here.
"Louie looks after the place when I'm gone. I go back and forth a lot, Bruxton. Anytime you want to travel that way, say the word."
"Thanks," said Stuart. "I'll be here for a while, but I might want to run down to New York, since it's so simple a matter."
"Why don't you come up here to the lodge?" asked Mayo. "After I get back, you know.
It's better than that terrible Inn."
Stuart again expressed thanks for the invitation. This was excellent. It would be easy to watch Mayo here, and Hawthorne's cottage was nearer to Mayo's lodge than to the Inn. The clock on the mantel struck twelve with an odd, chiming note. Hawthorne suggested a departure.
Louie, the Filipino, arrived with hats and coats. The guests said good night to Sherwood Mayo.
As they drove slowly between the stone gates, Stuart glanced through the rear window, wondering if the lights of the house would be visible. He noted that they were hidden over a slight rise of ground. Stuart's interest in that fact quickly faded. For he saw something else that impressed him as much more important.
Beside the wall, a few feet from one post, stood a tall, silent figure. It looked like the form of a man; but Stuart could not be sure that it was other than a creation of his imagination. It was a mammoth shadow, that bore the semblance of a human being.
Before Stuart could speak to Hawthorne, the car had reached a bend in the road. In his last glimpse, Stuart could scarcely see the fantastic form that he had noticed. It had blended with the darkness of the wall. It had vanished, like a specter of the night!