Pretty soon he sort of waggled his head as if he was shaking a fly off his nose, and says, “Well, we can’t do any m-more about that to-day. Besides, we’ve got this Pekoe on our hands. Rock, turn around gradual, like there wasn’t any reason for it, and tell me how many windows from the back yours is.”
“It’s the fourth, on the second floor,” says Rock.
“All right. Now which s-s-side of you did that noise come from, or was it r-right straight on top?”
“Sounded like it was almost over my head. It may have been to one side. I was pretty excited, you know. Come to think about it, it might have been a little toward the front of the house.”
Mark got up slow and went into the grape-arbor. When he got inside we saw him turn around, back in the shadows where nobody could see him from the house, and look careful up toward the windows on the third floor.
He wasn’t gone but a minute. Then he came waddling out and says: “He’s in a room with the blinds shut. Fifth window from the back. Blinds closes t-t-tight. That’s what makes me think he’s there. Maybe they’re n-nailed.”
I sneaked a look, and sure enough, the window he was talking about did have its blinds closed. That made it hard for anybody inside to see out, and impossible for anybody outside to see in, or to make any signals or anything.
“Fine chance,” says I, “of getting at anybody up there. There ain’t a ladder in town that’ll reach him.”
“There’s things b-besides ladders,” says Mark. “Say, Binney, if you was s-shut in a room, and something came and rapped on your window like this, rap-rap-rap, then rap-rap-rap, what would you think?”
“I’d think somebody was doin’ it to make me take notice,” says I.