It was a relic of the vaunting days of the boom of Beacon Glory when easy money so often robbed even the astuter souls of that longer vision of which they stood in so much need. It had doubtless been the pride of some more than usually fortunate creature’s heart, who yearned to possess a lake-side summer residence. There were many signs about it to give such an impression. There were the remains of the deep-roofed stoop for lounging in the sweltering heat of summer. There were the French casement window frames overlooking the lake. Then the woodwork and the joinery were of the finest quality, while the whole planning suggested a type so beloved of the heart of New England.
But now, with the waters of the lake lapping about the foundations of the verandah, with the garden and the roadway approach a partly submerged wilderness, in the chill windlessness of the last of the night, the place only added to the general impression of distance and darkness and utter desolation.
The moon had lost its cold brilliance. It lay fallen from its high estate in the dome of the heavens, lolling wearily, a dull yellow disc just above the horizon. The stars, too, had yielded their twinkling brightness, while the cold fires of the Aurora were burning low, and their ceaseless movement suggested a hasty, disorderly retreat to the mysterious fastnesses of the northern world which had given them birth.
Yet life was stirring, and it centred about this derelict habitation.
Two men had passed the rotting fencing and made their way through the tangle of growth to the back entrance, which clearly opened into the kitchen premises. They paused before the closed door and remained talking in low tones for some moments, then one of them, a man of big physique, raised a clenched hand and his knuckles rapped sharply and peculiarly on the resounding woodwork. There was a further moment of delay, then the door swung open inwards, and the darkness beyond swallowed up the newly arrived visitors.
After awhile there came a further arrival. He was a stoutish creature who gazed searchingly about him in the darkness before passing on beyond the line of the containing fence. But finally he, too, passed from view as had the earlier comers, and the engulfing solitude in which the derelict habitation was wrapped returned to its unbroken sway.
After that, in quick succession, there were two further arrivals. They came, both of them, from the direction of the sleeping city. They came singly, and in each case their approach was in similar method to those who came before. It was as if rule governed them, they approached cautiously, peering and listening in the dim twilight of the night. Then came the signal knock upon the door, and after that the gaping darkness of the interior swallowed them up in the voiceless mechanical fashion which suggested a contrivance controlled from somewhere in the far interior of the deserted habitation.
As the last of the five visitors passed into the house there came the sound of the bolting and barring of the entrance door, and the final operation was completed just as the first streak of dawn transformed the eastern horizon, and brought forth the waking chorus of the wild fowl upon the lake.
The room was bare of all ordinary furnishings. The brick walls were cracked and decayed and discoloured with damp patches. It was a windowless apartment containing the rusted boiler and gear of a steam-heat furnace. In one corner lay a small quantity of anthracite coal and a rusted shovel, and the concrete floor of the place was a-litter with rubbish and damp patches, and odds and ends of old packing-cases clearly left there for the original purpose of kindling.