They led me past an early American library table to a deep Moroccan style couch, and both pulled up chairs of French and Dutch design before me.
Feeling thus surrounded by a small little circle of indignation, I began turning my hat around in my hands, staring uncomfortably at my surroundings.
"Nice place you"ve got here," I said.
"We know that," Stoddard declared, dismissing ba.n.a.lities. "But we"d best get immediately to the point."
"About the rats?" I asked.
"About the rats," said Stoddard. His wife nodded emphatically.
There was a silence. Maybe a minute pa.s.sed. I cleared my throat.
"I thought you--" I began.
"Shhhh!" Stoddard hissed. "I want you to sit here and hear the noises, just as we have. Then you can draw your own conclusions. Silence, please."
So I didn"t say a word, and neither did mine hosts. We sat there like delegates to a convention of mutes who were too tired to use their hands. This time the silence seemed even more ominous.
Several minutes must have pa.s.sed before I began to hear the sounds. That was because I"d been listening for rat sc.r.a.pings, and not prepared for the noises I actually began to hear.
Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard had their heads c.o.c.ked to one side, and were staring hard at me, waiting for a sign that I was catching the sounds.
At first the noises seemed faint, blurred perhaps, like an almost inaudible spattering of radio static. Then, as I adjusted my ear to them, I began to get faint squeaks, and small, sharp noises that were like far distant poppings of small firecrackers.
I looked up at the Stoddards.
"Okay," I admitted. "I hear the noises. They seem to be coming from behind the walls, if anywhere."
Stoddard looked smugly triumphant.
"I told you so," he smirked.
"But they aren"t rat sc.r.a.pings," I said. "I know the sounds rats make, and those aren"t rat sounds."
Stoddard sat bolt upright. "What?" he demanded indignantly. "Do you mean to sit there and tell me--"
"I do," I cut in. "Ever heard rat noises?"
Stoddard looked at his wife. Both of them frowned. He looked back at me.
"No-o," he admitted slowly. "That is, not until we got these rats. Never had rats before."
"So you jumped to conclusions and thought they were rat noises," I said, "even though you wouldn"t recognize a rat noise if you heard one."
Stoddard suddenly stood up. "But dagnabit, man!" he exploded. "If those aren"t rat noises, what are they?"
I shrugged. "I don"t know," I admitted. "They sound as if they might be coming through the pipes. Perhaps we ought to take a look around the house, beginning with the bas.e.m.e.nt, eh?"
Stoddard considered this a minute. Then he nodded.
"That seems reasonable enough," he admitted.
I followed the amateur designer-owner of this madhouse down into the bas.e.m.e.nt. There we began our prowl for the source of the noise. He snapped on the light switch, and I had a look around. The boiler and everything else in the bas.e.m.e.nt was exactly as I remembered it--in the wrong place.
There was an array of sealed tin cans, each holding about five gallons, banked around the boiler. I tapped on the sides of these and asked Stoddard what they were.
"Naphtha," he explained, "for my wife"s cleaning."
"h.e.l.l of a place to put them," I commented.
A familiar light came into Stoddard"s stubborn eyes.
"That"s where I want to put them," he said.
I shrugged. "Okay," I told him. "But don"t let the insurance people find out about it."
We poked around the bas.e.m.e.nt some more, and finally, on finding nothing that seemed to indicate a source of the sound, we went back up to the first floor.
Our investigation of pipes and other possible sound carriers on the first floor was also fruitless, although the sounds grew slightly stronger than they"d been in the bas.e.m.e.nt.
I looked at Stoddard, shrugging. "We"d better try the second floor," I said.
I followed him upstairs to the second floor. Aside from the crazy belfry just above the attic, it was the top floor of the wildly constructed domicile.
The sounds were distinctly more audible up there, especially in the center bedroom. We covered the second floor twice and ended back up in that center bedroom again before I realized that we were directly beneath the attic.
I mentioned this to Stoddard.
"We might as well look through the attic, then," Stoddard said.
I led the way this time as we clambered up into the attic.
"Ever looked for your so-called rats up here?" I called over my shoulder.
Stoddard joined me, snapping on a flashlight, spraying the beam around the attic rafters. "No," he said. "Of course not."
I was opening my mouth to answer, when I suddenly became aware that the noises were now definitely louder. Noises faint, but not blurred any longer. Noises which weren"t really noises, but were actually voices!
I grabbed Stoddard by the arm.
"Listen!" I ordered.
We stood there silently for perhaps half a minute. Yes, there wasn"t any question about it now. I knew that the faint sounds were those of human voices.
"Good heavens!" Stoddard exclaimed.