And then it occurred to Bill that it would be well for him to see Parker himself, tonight, so he went down the tunnel to the garage and switched on the lights.
It was dark by the time he got back to the library. He went the rounds of the ground floor again, turning on electrics as he went. If Bill was to be caught by anybody around the spooky house, it would not be unawares, if he could help it.
He got himself some supper and ate it in the kitchen. But somehow, after going to the trouble of preparing food, he had little appetite. The possibility that the house might have another hidden entrance of which he knew nothing made him feel nervous and jumpy, especially since he had not found anything remotely resembling a firearm of any sort.
After he had washed his plate and cup at the kitchen sink, he went back to the library, and pulling down a book at random from the shelves, went out of the room to the hall.
He had decided to wait until eleven, and then make tracks through the woods to Twin Heads Harbor. Ezra Parker was due to fly over the house at midnight and the lighted garage would be sure to send him to the harbor directly afterward.
Bill planned to spend the intervening time in the comfortable alcove which formed a little lounge below the staircase in the hall. Here he could at once be aware of the slightest movement from any part of the house. And with the curtains drawn, he was shut off like a monk in his cell.
But instead of settling down to his book, he grew restless. Twice he got up and examined the shutters on that floor to make sure they were barred. Each time he went back to his curtained retreat, ashamed of himself. This house was giving him the creeps. For some reason, he could not tell why, his nerves were on edge.
As ten o’clock chimed faintly from the mantel timepiece, he thought he heard footsteps. He started up, reviling himself for his folly. The house was old, and it was only the stairs above him that creaked softly. With calm deliberation he brushed past the curtain into the hall, determined to pull himself together.
Standing at the foot of the staircase, a hand on the great oak balustrade, he could hear the quiet patter of a mouse behind the panelling. The tick of the little clock in the alcove, and the hiss and sigh of the wind without, were all that broke the silence of the night. No human being save himself seemed to be stirring for miles around.
Slowly, in stocking feet, he walked down the kitchen passage, paused, and slowly returned. Then he mounted the stairs. All was quiet above. An impulse took him up the narrow stairway to the third story, where he looked out a window at the end of the corridor. The night was dark and only a grayish glimmer marked the sea. The island was invisible. Up there, with the still house below him, he felt like an onlooker in some mysterious play where life and death were casual matters and any means were fair if they led to triumph.