"Well it's a dammed fool one," Stoddard said. He turned around and
started out of the attic. I followed behind him.
"You have to admit you haven't rats," I said.
Stoddard muttered something I couldn't catch. When we got down to the
first floor again, Mrs. Stoddard was waiting expectantly for our
arrival.
"Did you discover where the rats are?" she demanded.
Stoddard shot me a glance. "They aren't rats," he said with some
reluctance. "The noises, we'd swear, are faint voices and sounds of
human beings moving around. Were you talking to yourself while we were
upstairs, Laura?"
Mrs. Stoddard gave her husband a surprised look. "Who was there to talk
with, George?" she asked.
I had had about enough of this. I was damned tired of trotting around
the weirdly laid out floors of the Stoddard home trying to track down
rats which weren't rats but voices.
"If there are inexplicable echoes in this building," I said, "it is due
to the construction. And don't forget, you wanted it this way. Now that
I have proved to your satisfaction that you don't have rats, I might as
well go. Good day."
I got my hat, and neither Stoddard nor his wife had much to say as they
saw me to the door. Their accusing attitudes had vanished, however, and
they both seemed even a trifle sheepish.
It was two o'clock when I left them. I'd killed better than an hour and
a half prowling around the place, and another half hour driving out. I
was damned disgusted by the time I got back to my office.
You can imagine my state of mind, consequently, some twenty-five minutes
after I'd been back in my office, when I answered the telephone to hear
Stoddard's voice coming over it.
"Mr. Kermit," he babbled excitedly, "this is George B. Stoddard again,
Mr. Kermit!"
"What've you got now?" I demanded. "And don't tell me termites!"
"Mr. Kermit," Stoddard gasped, "you have to come back right away, Mr.
Kermit!"
"I will like hell," I told him flatly, hanging up.
The telephone rang again in another half minute. It was Stoddard again.
"Mr. Kermit, pleeeease listen to me! I beg of you, come out here at
once. It's terribly important!"