The house was of red brick, large and square, with a green slate roof, whose wide overhang gave the building an appearance of being too squat for its two stories; and it stood on a grassy hill, well away from the county road, upon which it turned its back to look down on the Mokelumne River.
The Ford that I had hired to bring me out from Knownburg carried me into the grounds through a high steel-meshed gate, followed the circling gravel drive, and set me down within a foot of the screen porch that ran all the way around the house’s first floor.
“There’s Exon’s son-in-law now,” the driver told me as he pocketed the bill I had given him, and prepared to drive away.
I turned to see a tall, loose-jointed man of thirty or so coming across the porch toward me—a carelessly dressed man, with a mop of rumpled brown hair over a handsome sunburned face. There was a hint of cruelty in the lips that were smiling lazily just now, and more than a hint of recklessness in his narrow gray eyes.
“ Mr. Gallaway?” I asked as he came down the steps.
“Yes.” His voice was a drawling baritone. “You are—”
“From the Continental Detective Agency’s San Francisco branch,” I finished for him.
He nodded, and held the screen-door open for me.
“Just leave your bag there. I’ll have it taken up to your room.”