r; to me the whole thing smacks of stark lunacy."

"Then you won't come?"

"I've never stuck at anything, Smith," I replied, "however undignified,
when it has seemed that my presence could be of the slightest use."

As I rose to my feet, Smith stepped in front of me, and the steely gray
eyes shone out strangely from the altered face. He clapped his hands
upon my shoulders.

"If I assure you that your presence is necessary to my safety," he
said--"that if you fail me I must seek another companion--will you
come?"

Intuitively, I knew that he was keeping something back, and I was
conscious of some resentment, but nevertheless my reply was a foregone
conclusion, and--with the borrowed appearance of an extremely untidy
old man--I crept guiltily out of my house that evening and into the cab
which Smith had waiting.

The Gables was a roomy and rambling place lying back a considerable
distance from the road. A semicircular drive gave access to the door,
and so densely wooded was the ground, that for the most part the drive
was practically a tunnel--a verdant tunnel. A high brick wall concealed
the building from the point of view of any one on the roadway, but
either horn of the crescent drive terminated at a heavy, wrought-iron
gateway.

Smith discharged the cab at the corner of the narrow and winding road
upon which the Gables fronted. It was walled in on both sides; on
the left the wall being broken by tradesmen's entrances to the
houses fronting upon another street, and on the right following,
uninterruptedly, the grounds of the Gables. As we came to the gate:

"Nothing now," said Smith, pointing into the darkness of the road before
us, "except a couple of studios, until one comes to the Heath."

He inserted the key in the lock of the gate and swung it creakingly
open. I looked into the black arch of the avenue, thought of the haunted
residence that lay hidden somewhere beyond, of those who had died in
it--especially of the one who had died there under the trees--and found
myself out of love with the business of the night.

"Come on!" said Nayland Smith briskly, holding the gate open; "there
should be a fire in the library and refreshments, if the charwoman has
followed instructions."

I heard the great gate clang to behind us. Even had there been any moon
(and there was none) I doubted if more than a patch or two of light
could have penetrated there. The darkness was extraordinary. Nothing
broke it, and I thi