It had
but lately been completed and to Wharton was unfamiliar. On either side
of the unscarred roadway still lay scattered the uprooted trees and
bowlders that had blocked its progress, and abandoned by the contractors
were empty tar-barrels, cement-sacks, tool-sheds, and forges. Nor was
the surrounding landscape less raw and unlovely. Toward the Sound
stretched vacant lots covered with ash heaps; to the left a few old and
broken houses set among the glass-covered cold frames of truck-farms.
The district attorney felt a sudden twinge of loneliness. And when an
automobile sign told him he was "10 miles from Columbus Circle," he felt
that from the New York he knew he was much farther. Two miles up the
road his car overhauled a bicycle policeman, and Wharton halted him.
"Is there a road-house called Kessler's beyond here?" he asked.
"On the left, farther up," the officer told him, and added: "You can't
miss it, Mr. Wharton; there's no other house near it."
"You know me," said the D.A. "Then you'll understand what I want you to
do. I've agreed to go to that house alone.
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