It was a short walk to the road. Ellery remembered it well. It had curved steadily in a long arc all the way from the turn-off at the main highway. There had been no crossroad in all the jolting journey.
He went out into the middle of the road, snow-covered now but plainly distinguishable between the powdered tangles of woods as a gleaming, empty strip. There was the long curve exactly as he remembered it. Mechanically he used the broom again, sweeping a small area clear. And there were the pits and ruts of the old Buick’s journeys.
“What are you looking for,” said Nick Keith quietly, “gold?”
Ellery straightened up by degrees, turning about slowly until he was face to face with the giant. “So you thought it was necessary to follow me?
Or— no, I beg your pardon. Undoubtedly it was Dr. Reinach’s idea.”
The sun-charred features did not change expression. “You’re crazy as a bat. Follow you? I’ve got all I can do to follow myself.”
“Of course,” said Ellery. “But did I understand you to ask me if I was looking for gold, my dear young Prometheus?”
“You’re a queer one,” said Keith as they made their way back toward the house.
“Gold,” repeated Ellery. “Hmm. There was gold in that house, and now the house is gone. In the shock of the discovery that houses fly away like birds, I’d quite forgotten that little item. Thank you, Mr. Keith,” said Ellery grimly, “for reminding me.”
“Mr. Queen,” said Alice. She was crouched in a chair by the fire, white to the lips. “What’s happened to us? What are we to do? Have we... Was yesterday a dream? Didn’t we walk into that house, go through it, touch things?... I’m frightened.”