A familiar light came into Stoddard's stubborn eyes.
"That's where I want to put them," he said.
I shrugged. "Okay," I told him. "But don't let the insurance people find out about it."
We poked around the basement some more, and finally, on finding nothing that seemed to indicate a source of the sound, we went back up to the first floor.
Our investigation of pipes and other possible sound carriers on the first floor was also fruitless, although the sounds grew slightly stronger than they'd been in the basement.
I looked at Stoddard, shrugging. "We'd better try the second floor," I said.
I followed him upstairs to the second floor. Aside from the crazy belfry just above the attic, it was the top floor of the wildly constructed domicile.
The sounds were distinctly more audible up there, especially in the center bedroom. We covered the second floor twice and ended back up in that center bedroom again before I realized that we were directly beneath the attic.
I mentioned this to Stoddard.
"We might as well look through the attic, then," Stoddard said.