The Valley of Ghosts by Edgar Wallace

Mr Boyd Salter was sitting at a small table drawn up near the open window of his library, a window which commanded an extensive view of the valley and a corner of Beverley Green. He was engaged in an elaborate game of patience, yet he was not so completely absorbed that he could not pause for lengthy periods and take an interest in such trivial things as came into his range of vision. Once it was a small flock of sheep that cropped their way slowly across the meadowlands. Once it was the swift downward swoop of a greyish hawk, and its disappearance with a limp victim. Then he saw a man in a long dark coat, and him he watched for a time. The stranger was behaving curiously, but he was too far away for the master of Beverley Hall to distinguish exactly his business, for he was skirting a plantation from which, apparently, he had emerged.

Mr Salter pressed a bell at his elbow.