It was a piece of board that had caught his eye, a strip about six feet long and as many inches wide, and which evidently had been overlooked by the builders when cleaning up the roof of the garage.
Patsy seized it with much the same avidity as a terrier seizes a rat. Creeping along the roof with it he quickly reached a point directly opposite the lighted window of the dwelling—that already specially noticed.
A narrow beam of light was shed out below the roller shade, lending a faint glow to the misty night air. Through the narrow space between the curtain and sash, however, Patsy could see only that there were several persons in the back room, which evidently was a kitchen, and he was too far from the closed window to hear their voices.
“Gee whittaker! I’ve got to get still nearer,” he said to himself, ruefully gazing into the black abyss below. “I might as well be on top of the Flatiron Building. I must take a chance with this plank, by gracious, if I lose a leg.”
Crouching on his hands and knees, proceeding all the while with the utmost quietude and caution, Patsy found that the strip of board was long enough to reach from the outside stone sill of the window to the edge of the garage roof, with about a three-inch rest on each end.
“It will support me, all right,” he muttered, gazing at it after having gingerly placed it in position. “Gee! but it’s a ticklish crawl. Can I wriggle out on it without displacing one end, or the other? If not, it will be a quick trip to the ground for mine.”
Patsy viewed it doubtfully for several moments. It was a stunt from which the boldest would have shrunk. Then he looked at the lighted window again and listened vainly—and his face then took on an expression that spoke louder than words.
“It’s got to be done,” he murmured decidedly. “There’s nothing else to it. I must find out who is in that room, and what is going on there. I might as well be a bump on a log, as sitting here.”
Starting up, Patsy removed his overcoat and hat, placing them near by on the roof.
He then crouched close to the edge, grasping each side of the plank as far out as he could reach.