“Around to the rear, yes,” Tony said. “There was a servants’ wing at the back on this side, almost cut into the hill. Come on, let’s go.”
They walked toward the villa along the steep slope of the hill, and Dick saw that they were approaching it from the rear on the east side. They would not be seen by anyone at the front of the building.
They walked slowly now. Dick saw the shape of the building more clearly as they came near it. It was a huge place, built a short way up the hill so that it overlooked the rest of the town spread out below it. He made out what looked like a tall tower rising from the center of it. And then he saw what Tony must have meant as the servants’ wing. It was built right up against the steep hill.
“You could almost come down the hill onto the roof of that wing,” he whispered to Tony.
“That’s exactly what you can do,” Tony said. “I’ve run and jumped onto it when I was over here visiting. I spent most of my time up in Carlini where most of my relatives lived, but I spent a month with Uncle Tomaso here in Maletta.”
“That’s surely lucky for us,” Dick said. “It would be tough without your knowledge of the town.”
“If Uncle Tomaso is still around,” Tony said, “he’d be in this servants’ wing. But of course, if the Germans have taken it over there may be soldiers quartered in there.”
“I see a light from the room at the end,” Dick said. “Maybe we can look in the window.”
Carefully they walked toward the lighted window at the end of the wing, trying not to dislodge the rocks beneath their feet. When they were ten feet away, they went down on all fours and crawled forward. They reached the rough stone wall and edged toward the window.
With one quick motion upward, Dick took one glance through the window, then ducked down again.