“Gee whiz! that says keep out, all right,” thought Patsy, while he made a closer inspection of the side wall. “It’s up to me to get in there, all the same. This may be where the party lives whom Garside said he was visiting on the night of the murder. Professor Abner Busby was the name he gave Nick, but it don’t appear in the city directory. I’ll have a look at the back wall.”
Patsy already had tried the wooden door and found that Garside had locked it after entering. Near the rear corner of the wall, however, he found that the branches of the tree overhung the jagged capstone, and he promptly decided that that would serve his purpose.
Quickly climbing to one of the lowest branches, Patsy worked himself out on it hand over hand, until he reached[Pg 22] a point beyond the wall, when he dropped noiselessly upon the greensward within the inclosed grounds.
Crouching in the darkness near the wall, he then had another view of the house, this time from the rear. It looked as grim and gloomy as a country jail, or the habitation of a recluse bent upon dwelling in absolute seclusion.
Only one curtained window was lighted, that of a room on the ground floor, a window in the rear wall. The rest of the house was shrouded in darkness while most of the surrounding grounds, running to rank grass and high weeds, appeared to be deserted.
CHAPTER V.
PATSY SEES A GHOST.
Patsy Garvan had moved nearly as quickly as his quarry. It had taken him only a few moments to scale the high brick wall and assure himself that the inclosed grounds were deserted, it then being evident that Garside had entered the grim old house.
Still proceeding cautiously, nevertheless, Patsy crept from under the wall and approached the lighted window. He then saw that it was protected with vertical iron bars, like that of a jail, as were the other windows on the ground floor.
The spring roller of the curtain was set at the bottom of the window, moreover, the shade drawing upward by means of a cord running through a pulley in the top of the casing. It was drawn up to about two inches from the top, and the upper section of the window was open about the same distance, obviously for ventilation.
Patsy tried vainly to peer between the curtain and the casing. The iron bars precluded his getting his head near enough to the sashes to obtain any view of the interior of the room. Indistinctly, however, he could hear the sound of voices from within, but could not distinguish what was said.