Part 3 (2/2)

”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 h.e.l.l,” 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!”

I didn't say a word this time. I just hung right up.

In another half minute the telephone was jangling again. I was purple when I picked it up this time.

”Listen,” I bellowed. ”I don't care what noises you're hearing now--”

Stoddard cut in desperately, shouting at the top of his lungs to do so.

”I'm not only hearing the noises, Kermit,” he yelled, ”I'm _seeing_ the people who cause them!”

This caught me off balance.

”Huh?” I gulped.

”The belfry,” he yelled, ”I went up in the belfry, and you can see the people who's voices we heard!” There was a pause, while he found breath, then he shouted, ”You have to come over. You're the only one I can think of to show this to!”

Stoddard was an eccentric, but only so far as his tastes in architecture were concerned. I realized this, as I sat there gaping foolishly at the still vibrating telephone in my hand.

”Okay,” I said, for no earthly reason that I could think of, ”okay, hang on. I'll be there in twenty minutes.”

Mrs. Stoddard met me at the door this time. She was worried, almost frightened, and very bewildered.

”George is upstairs, Mr. Kermit. He won't let me come up there. He told me to send you up the minute you arrived. He's up in the attic.”

”What on earth,” I began.

”I don't know,” his wife said. ”I was down in the bas.e.m.e.nt drying some clothes, when I heard this terrible yelling from George. Then he was calling you on the telephone. I don't know what it's all about.”

I raced up to the attic in nothing flat, almost knocking my teeth out on the bottom step of the attic stairs.

Then I stumbled into the darkness of the attic, and saw Stoddard's flashlight bobbing around in a corner.

<script>