CHAPTER IV.
LATE HOURS AT MEADOWVIEW.
Freehold is a sleepy little village on Long Island. It has no railway stations, and its chief claim to distinction rests on the fact that it is intimately associated with the life of a revolutionary hero.
We are speaking now of the village itself, not of its important neighborhood, for the latter boasts of more than one pretentious country house.
One of these is known far and wide as Meadowview. It’s a great pile of white sandstone, which was built in 1900 by Charles P. Massey, a millionaire banker.
The elder Massey died soon after Meadowview was completed, and it passed into the possession of his son, Francis Massey, who was himself nearing middle age.
At the time of which we write, the great house was occupied by Francis Massey, his wife, two grown daughters, and a large staff of servants.
Meadowview was distant about a mile and a half from Freehold, and was surrounded by spacious grounds.
These grounds were inclosed by a high stone wall, which divided them on two sides from the neighboring estates, on a third from a turnpike much favored by motorists, and on a fourth side from a narrow country lane.
The clock in the tower in one of Freehold’s churches was chiming a quarter to two when Max Berne, seated on his motor cycle, sped swiftly up the Main Street of the little village.
At that late—or early—hour, it need hardly be said that the inhabitants were all in bed. Some wakeful women may possibly have heard the clatter of his engine, but nobody saw him as he passed through the village, continued along the road for a mile and a half, and eventually into a narrow lane already mentioned.
“This is the lane Atherton spoke of, without a doubt,” he murmured, as he dismounted from his machine. “Now, to find the door.”
He started to walk up the deserted road, pushing his motor cycle in front of him. On one side was a low fence, overhung here and there by low trees and bushes; on the other side was a high stone wall, which marked the boundary of the Massey place.
The night was pitch dark, but his bicycle lamp gave him all the light he required. Presently, after walking a few hundred yards, he found what he was looking for—a wooden door let into the stone wall.
Having ascertained that the door was locked, he wheeled his machine across the road, set it up against the low bank just outside the fence, and cut a large branch from a neighboring tree. Armed with this branch, which was covered with leaves, he returned to the motor cycle and screened it in such a way that the foliage seemed to belong to a bush growing out from the side of the bank.
“That was a happy thought of one,” he told himself. “It wouldn’t have been easy to lift the machine over the fence, and there isn’t any natural shelter for it this side—at least, there’s none near enough to the gate to suit me.”
Before hiding the motor cycle in this way, he had extinguished the light. Now he retraced his steps to the wooden door, turned the lock with the skeleton key, and stepped into the well-kept grounds.
He closed and locked the door behind him, after which he drew out his electric torch. A momentary flash revealed the fact that a footpath started at the door and ran through the grounds, doubtless in the direction of the house.
“Just as Atherton said,” he muttered. “Now, shall I wait here until they arrive, or shall I spend the interval in having a look at the outside of the house?”
He consulted his watch.
“Two o’clock,” he soliloquized. “They won’t be here for an hour yet. I’ll stroll up to the house, and then come back and wait for them.”
So numerous and closely planted were the trees that even if it had been lighted, the intruder could not have seen the house from where he stood. In fact, it was not until he had groped his way along the path for three or four hundred yards that he suddenly emerged from among the trees, and found himself in full view of the front of the house.
It was an imposing frontage, four stories high, and was approached from the main gates by a long, straight drive. A balustraded terrace ran along the whole front of the building, and outside the principal door were a handsome stone porch and a broad flight of steps.
At such an hour the waiter had naturally expected to find the house in darkness, and all its occupants in bed. Judge then of his surprise, to say nothing of his dismay, when he saw that a light was burning in the entrance hall, that the front door was wide open, and that two men—they appeared to be a butler and a footman—were standing on the porch.
“Jerusalem!” he exclaimed, whistling softly to himself. “This looks as if Atherton’s calculations had miscarried. He and his pals will certainly have to postpone their little enterprise, or else they’ll find themselves——”
His musings ended in a startled gasp, for at that moment his quick ears caught a sound which filled him with added dismay.
It was the distant chug-chug of a motor car, faint and far off at first, but growing louder and louder every moment.