Miss Pinkerton — Mary Roberts Rinehart

THE HOUSE OF EVIL...

That was the name the townsfolk gave the old Mitchell Mansion. Proud and strong as the family whose name it bore, it dominated the countryside. Yet there was something strangely warped in its magnificence, something that sent a shiver of dread through all those who felt its shadow.

It was to this house that the young lady known as Miss Pinkerton came. It was not her real name, nor was the position she held her real one. One thing, however, was undeniably real. Behind the shuttered windows and great barred oaken doors, prowling the dark corridors and circling stairways, was a force of faceless, fatal menace.