Part 46 (2/2)

'Nothing.'

'Then what do you want to do now?' he asked, softly rubbing his chin.

'To see the inside of it.'

'And you propose----?'

'To enter it from yours,' I answered. 'Surely you have some dormer, some trap-door, some roof-way, by which a bold man may get from this house to the next one.'

He shook his head. 'I know of none,' he said. 'But that is not all.

You are asking a strange thing. I am a peaceful man, and, I hope, a good neighbour; and this which you ask me to do cannot be called neighbourly. However, I need say the less about it, because the thing cannot be done.'

'Will you let me try?' I cried.

He seemed to reflect. In the end he made a strange answer. 'What time did you call at the house?' he said.

'Perhaps an hour ago--perhaps more.'

'Did you see any one in the churchyard as you pa.s.sed?'

'Yes,' I said, thinking; 'there was a man at work there. I asked him the way.'

Herr Krapp nodded, and seemed to reflect again. 'Well,' he said at last,' it is a strong thing you ask, my friend. But I have my own reasons for suspecting that all is not right next door, and therefore you shall have your way as far as looking round goes. But I do not think that you will be able to do anything.'

'I ask no more than that,' I said, trembling with eagerness.

He looked at me again as he took up the light. 'You are a big man,' he said, 'but are you armed? Strength is of little avail against a bullet.'

I showed him that I had a brace of pistols, and he turned towards the stairs. 'Dorcas is in the kitchen,' he said. 'My sons are out, and so are the lads. Nevertheless, I am not very proud of our errand; so step softly, my friend, and do not grumble if you have your labour for your pains.'

He led the way up the stairs with that, and I followed him. The house was very silent, and the higher we ascended the more the silence grew upon us, until, in the empty upper part, every footfall seemed to make a hollow echo, and every board that creaked under our tread to whisper that we were about a work of danger. When we reached the uppermost landing of all, Herr Krapp stopped, and, raising his light, pointed to the unceiled rafters.

'See, there is no way out,' he said. 'And if you could get out, you could not get in.'

I nodded as I looked round. Clearly, this floor was not much used. In a corner a room had been at some period roughly part.i.tioned off; otherwise the place was a huge garret, the boards covered with sc.r.a.ps of mortar, the corners full of shadows and old lumber and dense cobwebs. In the sloping roof were two dormer windows, unglazed but shuttered; and, beside the great yawning well of the staircase by which we had ascended, lay a packing-box and some straw, and two or three old rotting pallets tied together with ropes. I s.h.i.+vered as I looked round. The place, viewed by the light of our one candle, had a forlorn, depressing aspect. The air under the tiles was hot and close; the straw gave out a musty smell.

I was glad when Herr Krapp went to one of the windows and, letting down the bar, opened the shutters. On the instant a draught, which all but extinguished his candle, poured in, and with it a dull, persistent noise unheard before--the murmur of the city, of the streets, the voice of Nuremberg. I thrust my head out into the cool night air, and rejoiced to see the lights flickering in the streets below, and the shadowy figures moving this way and that. Above the opposite houses the low sky was red; but the chimneys stood out black against it, and in the streets it was dark night.

I took all this in, and then I turned to the right and looked at the next house. I saw as much as I expected; more, enough to set my heart beating. The dormer window next to that from which I leaned, and on a level with it, was open; if I might judge from the stream of light which poured through it, and was every now and then cut off as if by a moving figure that pa.s.sed at intervals between the cas.e.m.e.nt and the candle. Who or what this was I could not say. It might be Marie; it might not. But at the mere thought I leaned out farther, and greedily measured the distance between us.

Alas! between the dormer-gable in which I stood and the one in the next house lay twelve feet of steep roof, on which a cat would have been puzzled to stand. Its edge towards the street was guarded by no gutter, ledge, or coping-stone, but ended smoothly in a frail, wooden waterpipe, four inches square. Below that, yawned a sheer, giddy drop, sixty feet to the pavement of the street. I drew in my head with a s.h.i.+ver, and found Herr Krapp at my elbow.

'Well,' he said, 'what do you see?'

'The next window is open,' I answered. 'How can I get to it?'

'Ah!' he replied dryly, 'I did not undertake that you should.' He took my place at the window and leaned out in his turn. He had set the candle in a corner where it was sheltered from the draught. I strode to it, and moved it a little in sheer impatience--I was burning to be at the window again. As I came back, crunching the sc.r.a.ps of mortar underfoot, my eyes fell on a bit of old dusty rope lying coiled on the floor, and in a second I saw a way. When Herr Krapp turned from the window he missed me.

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