The next moment, Phil felt himself pushed away, while Sacheverell reeled with a yelp into Dr. Romadka, who was stooping for his black bag, and at the same time managed to upset the antique floor lamp that dimly lit the hall.
Then Phil was racing up the creaking stairs in the sudden darkness, helping himself along by yanks at the ricketty balustrade, while behind him he heard shouts and racing footsteps. Nearest were those of Sacheverell, who was crying manfully, "There he goes! After him, everyone!"
Phil raced along the backstretch of corridor and up the second flight, Sacheverell flapping at his heels like a green bat. At the top he grabbed Phil and shoved him through a door. For a moment their faces were close.
"Out the window and over the beam," Sacheverell whispered. "Dare anything for him."
Then the door was swiftly shut and he heard Sacheverell yell, "He's gone up in the attic. Follow me." Phil was in darkness, facing a tall window dimly aglow from outside, while about his feet cats who had taken refuge in the room scurried frantically.
He walked over to the double-paned thing of wavy, ancient glass. He had read more than one comedy scene involving the impossibility of opening such primitive windows, but this one came up easily enough and all the way. He ducked through and crouched on the sill outside, steadying himself with one hand.
Around him was nineteenth-century, musty smelling wood and slate. Opposite him, about twenty feet away, was the top-level street, busy with speeding electrics. Joining the two was a metal beam about eight inches wide, faintly outlined in the glow from the car's headlights. The beam was grimy with dirt. It based itself in the brick chimney that rose just beside the window. In fact, one of Phil's feet was on it. Below were two stories of mostly darkness.
What happened next may very well have been made possible by the fear-abolishing, nerve-steadying drug Juno had put in his whiskey, though Phil laid it to the influence of Lucky and to Sacheverell's grotesque yet strangely thrilling injunction. Certainly Phil was no athlete and had, if anything, a touch of acrophobia.
At any rate, he slowly got to his feet, let go the window, poised himself for a moment, and then ran lightly across the beam. He rolled clumsily over the railing at the other end and sprawled on the sidewalk.
At the same instant a needle of glaring blue lanced up through the dark behind him. It cut through the beam at an angle, spat redly for a moment against the black "roof" a few feet above the Akeleys' house, and winked out.