The front room of the dwelling over the store was in darkness, but Patsy could see that the roller shades were drawn down, with no sign of any person near them in the act of peering out. He could also see on the rear wall of an adjoining building the faint reflection of light from the side window of a rear room of the house.
“That’s where the girl has gone,” he rightly reasoned. “But who is with her and how am I to get up there? Those windows are a good ten feet from the ground. I’ll have a look at the back of the crib. There may be a porch.”
Moving more cautiously, Patsy found a narrow passageway between the house and the building mentioned, through which he stealthily picked his way into a small back yard, so small it was hardly worthy the name.
For the rear wall of a large garage fronting on the next street was within six feet of the back of the house. The yard was as dark as a pocket, moreover, but Patsy could feel the outlines of a bulkhead door, evidently opening into a cellar under the store.
There was no sign of a porch, or means of getting up to the second-floor windows. Patsy could see, nevertheless, that the curtain of one of them was up about an inch above the lower sash.
While looking up he also saw that the garage was quite a new one and that it was built of cement blocks, a building of only one story, and having a flat roof.
“If I can get up there, by gracious, I might get a look into that room, at least,” he said to himself. “A look might help. I’ll make a bid for it, even if I have to seek aid from whomever runs the shebang.”
Feeling around a rear corner of the garage, bent upon finding a way to the front, Patsy discovered that the alternate corner blocks of cement were set inward about half an inch, a quite common and slightly ornamental construction, as courses of bricks at uniform distances are sometimes laid.
Naturally, of course, each receding block left a slight projection, the upper edge of that on which it was set, and Patsy was not long in finding that he could fix his toes on these projections, and, by grasping those above that he could mount to the garage roof almost as easily as if provided with a ladder.
“Gee! this was softer than I could have hoped,” he said to himself when seated on the edge of the low roof. “The house is near, but not quite near enough. By Jove, if I had only a piece of—holy smoke! I’m a smelt if I haven’t got it. Things sure are coming my way.”