“It’s good and dark here in spite of the moon.” Jerry glanced up at the great arching limbs of the trees on the Carden side of the pike. A row of giant elms grew just inside the thick evergreen hedge which enclosed the Carden premises and gave the estate its name. Though still bare of leaves, the thick interlacing branches of the elms served as a screen against the moon’s pale radiance.
“What a gloomy old dump the Carden estate is!” was Jerry’s disapproving exclamation. “It looks like a ghost ranch.”
“It’s the Dark Tower in the Kingdom of Castles.” This time Marjorie did the naming. “‘Two Travelers to the Dark Tower came,’” she laughingly misquoted.
“Let’s hope we don’t see the horrors Childe Roland was supposed to have seen. Goodness knows what bogie horrified him. I should call ‘Childe Roland’ Browning’s most aggravating poem. But this eerie spot is no place for a literary discussion. B-r-r-r! Let’s beat it. I saw a white ghostly light flash out from behind that old house!”
Jerry did not accept her own proposal. Instead she stopped short, eyes trained on the pale flood of light. It emanated from a point behind the house and whitened a space to the left of the gloomy gray stone dwelling.
“Here comes your ghost, and in an automobile.” Marjorie began to laugh. Two white eyes of light had appeared around the left hand corner of the house and were rapidly coming down the drive toward the watchers. “‘Two goslings to the Dark Tower came—and saw a gasoline ghost,’” she mocked.
The watchers came abreast of the entrance gateway of the estate just as the car reached it. By its light they saw that the gates stood open. They hurried past them and drew close to the uneven ridge of earth in order to allow the automobile plenty of room to turn onto the pike. Instead of driving on, the solitary occupant stopped the machine at the edge of the pike just clear of the gateway.
The machine itself was a long, rakish-looking racing car. Its driver was a tall man, very broad of shoulder. He wore a long dark motor coat. A leather motor cap was pulled down over his forehead. Intent on his own affairs, he did not glance toward the two young women. He sprang from the racer and strode back to close the gates. He slammed them shut with an air which indicated proprietorship. Two or three long steps and he had returned to his car. He leaped into it, started it and was gone almost instantly around the curve of the pike which was the last outpost of the Carden estate. Just on the other side of it the estate of Hamilton Arms began.
“Some ghost. That’s the first time I ever saw anyone emerge from that gloom patch, day or night. Now who do you suppose he was? If he’s a visitor at Carden Hedge he must be visiting either himself or spooks. Maybe he’s a Carden. Not that I care a hoot who he is, but one must have something to say about everyone.” Jerry left the rough ground on which the two had been standing for the smoothness of the pike. “Come along, Bean. It will be midnight before we hit the castle,” she predicted. “Ronny was right about this pair of Travelers.”
“I wonder if he was one of the Cardens?” Marjorie’s question contained a certain amount of curiosity. Since she had taken up the work of arranging the data for Brooke Hamilton’s biography she had found enough allusions to the Carden family to give her a clear idea of what a thorn Alec Carden had been to Brooke Hamilton’s flesh.