She nodded, and glanced round quickly. Then she picked up the tooth-glass from the wash-stand.
"Right you are, old boy. If you can burgle a window, leave it open and we'll leave this one open too. If I see anyone coming close, I'll shut the door, and then throw this glass down on the hearth and smash it. You should be able to hear it like a shot. Only, Ken, for God's sake be caref — "
I climbed out. We have all seen the thing done on the films: where the spectacle of a person shuffling with shaky legs along a ledge is supposed to be funny. It is not funny. It is not as easy as it looks. At first you have no difficulty with your feet or legs, but from the waist up to the shoulders you seem to be shaking and swaying out over the edge. For some reason you feel naked. You notice sounds more: the surge of wind rustling in trees sixty feet below, or the gritty scrape of your own shoes. When you see the world below, it seems to swing outward and the whole business becomes only half real. But that is when your knees and legs begin to shake.
I was pressing my left shoulder to the wall, and groping ahead in the grime with my right hand. There was a sensation of rocking tipsily before I got my fingers round the frame of the nearest window. So far as I could see, there were four windows in Keppel's suite. I held on to the frame of the nearest one, feeling hot all over, and edged forward.
The window was wide open.
Wide open. Even the blind was up, and the blind moved or flapped gently when a vast rustling of wind rose in the trees below. The window was an empty black rectangle, into which very little light could penetrate. And I did not like it.
It seemed to invite too much. It seemed to lure you in, as though even the blind were whispering. My natural instinct was to put my hand through, take hold of the sill on the inside, and pull myself through. Yet there are other whispers as well, and in the brain a tiny bell gives warning. Even when you are stuck like a poultice to the wall sixty feet up, something whispers like the wind in the trees. Look out, it says. Don't touch that window. Don't touch
With my right hand I got the clasp-knife out of my pocket, and pressed the catch that snapped open the blade. I poked it inside, felt about in empty air, and ran it along the sash. Nothing. Along the sill there seemed to run, as far as I could discern in the dim light, a tiny groove. I drew the blade of the knife along it.
Look out, I tell you. Don't touch that window. Don't touch —.
And then, with a crash like a guillotine, the window fell.