to hold him," he said reassuringly. Presently he was back. "It's further
up the street," he announced. "But he says there ain't anybody livin'
there an' the house is locked up."

"I've got the key," answered Wade. "Go ahead."

They went on along the leafy nave. Now and then a road or grass-grown
lane started off from the main highway and wandered back toward the
meadow-lands. Presently the street straightened out, the elms presented
thinner ranks, houses stood farther apart. Then the street divided to
enclose a narrow strip of common adorned with a flagpole greatly in need
of a new coat of white paint. The elms dwindled away and an occasional
maple dotted the common with shade. The driver guided the patient gray
to the left and, near the centre of the common, drew up in front of a
little white house, which, like the picket fence in front of it, the
flagstaff on the common, and so many other things in Eden Village,
seemed to be patiently awaiting the painter.

Inside the fence, thrusting its branches out between the pickets, ran a
head-high hedge of lilac bushes, so that, unless you stood directly in
front of the gate, all you saw of the first story were the tops of the
front door and the close-shuttered windows. Between house and hedge
there was the remains of a tiny formal garden. Rows of box,
winter-killed in spots, circled and angled about grass-grown spaces
which had once been flower-beds. The dozen feet of path from gate to
steps was paved with crumbling red bricks, moss-stained and
weed-embroidered. The front door had side-lights hidden by narrow, green
blinds and a fan-light above. Wade drew forth the key entrusted to him
by the agent and tried to fit it to the lock. But although he struggled
with it for several moments it refused stubbornly to have anything to do