He made a great effort to shake off his uncanny sensations, but they were only heightened by the gloom about him, and by the death-like silence which brooded over the valley. The lane, as he could faintly see, ended only a few yards beyond the gate at which he stood, and merged itself into a grassy track amongst the densest woodland; and the house, with its surrounding wall, was so enclosed by woods, that they seemed to be on the point of swallowing it up altogether.
"What a place for a crime—for any number of crimes," Fergusson reflected, with a shudder, as he peered about the green door, trying to discover any means of making his presence known to the inmates of the house beyond the wall. But neither bell nor knocker was visible, and the doctor, after banging vainly on the wood of the door, moved away, and walked slowly round the wall, seeking for another entrance. A narrow, grass-grown path, evidently rarely used, ran close under the wall, but Fergusson made the whole circuit of the place without finding any other means of entrance, excepting an old iron gate, rusty with age, choked up with weeds and rank grass. It was obvious that the gate had not been opened for years, and that it was certainly not reckoned by the inhabitants of the house as one of the entrances. Fergusson peered through the bars, but the light was so dim, and the grass and undergrowth so thick and high, that beyond getting an impression of a neglected garden, he saw nothing. He fancied, however, that he could catch a distant murmur of voices, and he called out loudly:
"Is there any means of getting in here? I am the doctor." Total silence answered him, a silence only broken by the sharp clang of a closing door inside the house. When the echoes of the sharply clanging door died away, silence settled down more deeply than ever upon the place; and Fergusson, as he completed his circuit of the walls, and found himself once more at the green door, felt strongly tempted to climb into his car again and drive away.
But the remembrance of the girl who had so lately stood in his consulting-room, looking at him with wistful eyes, speaking in so appealing a voice, determined him to make one more attempt to gain access to the inaccessible house, and, lifting up his hands, he battered on the green door with heavy thuds that reverberated loudly in the silence.
"They must be all deaf or dead, if that fails to bring them out," he exclaimed grimly, pausing for a moment to take breath; then, when no one responded to his efforts, he was beginning again to hammer at the door, when the sound of a footstep fell on his ears, and a woman's voice from within the gate cried—
"Who is there?"
"The doctor—Dr. Fergusson," he answered impatiently; and upon that, he heard the grinding of a key in the lock, bolts were shot back, and the door was opened. A woman stood in the aperture, a woman whom Fergusson took to be a servant, and she stood aside, a little, as though inviting him to enter.
"I was asked to come here," he said. "Is there someone ill? Am I wanted?"
"Yes, sir," the woman answered quietly. "Will you come in? I am sorry there was any delay in answering the door, but—I—couldn't get away."
Her voice was low and shaken, and Fergusson now observed that she was trembling violently.