Pedro, the butler, I learned later), opened the gates, and we entered
upon a winding drive literally tunnelled through the trees. Of the
house we had never a glimpse until we were right under its walls, nor
should I have known that we were come to the main entrance if the car
had not stopped.

"Looks like a monastery," muttered Harley.

Indeed that part of the building--the north front--which was visible
from this point had a strangely monastic appearance, being built of
solid gray blocks and boasting only a few small, heavily barred
windows. The eccentricity of the Victorian gentleman who had expended
thousands of pounds upon erecting this house was only equalled, I
thought, by that of Colonel Menendez, who had chosen it for a home. An
out-jutting wing shut us in on the west, and to the east the prospect
was closed by the tallest and most densely grown box hedge I had ever
seen, trimmed most perfectly and having an arched opening in the
centre. Thus, the entrance to Cray's Folly lay in a sort of bay.

But even as we stepped from the car, the great church-like oaken doors
were thrown open, and there, framed in the monkish porch, stood the
tall, elegant figure of the Colonel.

"Gentlemen," he cried, "welcome to Cray's Folly."

He advanced smiling, and in the bright sunlight seemed even more
Mephistophelean than he had seemed in Harley's office.

"Pedro," he called, and a strange-looking Spanish butler who wore his
side-whiskers like a bull fighter appeared behind his master; a sallow,