"I have a hunch the sounds might be even more audible up there," I said.
"Why?"
I scratched my head. "Just a hunch."
"Well it's a dammed fool one," Stoddard said. He turned around and started out of the attic. I followed behind him.
"You have to admit you haven't rats," I said.
Stoddard muttered something I couldn't catch. When we got down to the first floor again, Mrs. Stoddard was waiting expectantly for our arrival.
"Did you discover where the rats are?" she demanded.
Stoddard shot me a glance. "They aren't rats," he said with some reluctance. "The noises, we'd swear, are faint voices and sounds of human beings moving around. Were you talking to yourself while we were upstairs, Laura?"
Mrs. Stoddard gave her husband a surprised look. "Who was there to talk with, George?" she asked.
I had had about enough of this. I was damned tired of trotting around the weirdly laid out floors of the Stoddard home trying to track down rats which weren't rats but voices.