He advanced slowly. He bent, studying the road and the unkempt shrubbery on his left. The track was altogether too deeply rutted to have retained any imprint by which the passage of his own tires could be identified. But now, in the very shadow of the building, he pulled up sharply, staring. There was a tree stump some four feet out from the wall, its bark newly gashed in a rather peculiar manner. The undergrowth about here, too, had an odd appearance. It was dying in patches. Stepping back to the middle of the road, he looked up across the wall. He found that he was staring directly at a window of the house beyond--a window before which a small balcony projected! He had made no mistake! Here it was--at this very spot--that he had crashed! Dr. Barton had been nearer to the truth than he knew when he had declared, “You seem to have tried to climb a tree.” Exhilaration came. This provoking mystery was about to be solved. Passing along the entire length of the wall without coming to any gate, Barry reached the corner and looked across a sloping lawn beyond which stone steps led down to a sunken garden. Far below lay the bowl of the valley through which ran the high road to New York. A semicircular path swept around before the long, low porch of the house, which, as he immediately noted, appeared to be deserted. All visible windows were shaded. There was no evidence of life whatever about the premises. His hopes fell to zero. Stepping onto the porch, which looked very dusty and unswept, he pressed the bell and waited, lighting a cigarette. There was no response; not even the barking of a dog. A second and a third time he rang with equally negative results. The thing was growing more and more extraordinary. Since this road, now closed, clearly led to nowhere but the house, if he had imagined that figure of a girl at the window, by whom had he been taken to the hospital? Baffled, but not beaten, he walked down the steps again. He had noted a path which clearly led to a garden at the back--a garden concealed behind that high wall against which he had crashed. He turned into it, passed under the very window in which the girl had stood, and came out at the rear of this house of mystery. He paused in sight of the garden. Beside him was a door. It was partly open--and from beyond came an unmistakable sound of clattering pots and pans! Barry raised his hand and rapped sharply. The sounds ceased. A minute passed in silence. Barry rapped again, more loudly.