Nor was this necessary.
Strange lights moving about the old house at night, flitting from window to window, from the great parlor panes upon the first floor to the little diamond-shaped panes up under the roof, had been seen by the passers-by on the Fort Washington road at night, over and over again, and was quite enough for the neighbors who dwelt outside its crumbling walls.
But what was Three Oaks and where was it?
These are both proper questions, and should be answered at once.
Three Oaks was a house, and an old one at that. It still stands to-day on the road mentioned above, which is, as every one knows, in the north-west corner of Manhattan Island, and extends from the little village whose name it bears to the 155th street station of the elevated road.
It was a large house and an old house; it stood in the center of a thick growth of oaks, surrounded by a stretch of uncultivated ground, and divided from the road by a high stone wall.
A more gloomy, desolate-looking old rookery it would have been difficult to have found. And yet Three Oaks had been a handsome place in its day.
But that day had long since passed.
For ten years, at least, old Jeremiah Mansfield, its former owner had lived there alone. It was five years since he had been found murdered in his bed.
This was the work of burglars.