Gene perched himself up on the verandah railing, and reached around to test the strength of the creeper. He just hoped that if he needed to climb back up his rope in a hurry, he could remember where it was. He straightened the revolver in his belt, and began to stalk carefully through the long grass, stopping every few moments to listen. He heard a low, erratic, rumbling noise, but he guessed it was a distant airplane turning toward Dulles. At a height of about ten or twelve feet, almost level with the verandah roof, he paused once more and listened for sound of the dogs. A freight train hooted mournfully in the distance and up above the clouds a jet scratched its way across the night sky.īreathing with tense, suppressed gasps, he reached up for higher branches and began to scale the creeper like a ladder. Through the trees he could see twinkling lights from the Semple mansion, but there was no sound at all, and no sign of the prowling guard dogs. He sat astride the wall, winding the rope and catching his breath. In three minutes he had scrambled up to the top. Once he reached the bottom he paused again, his ears pricked up, hiding as deeply as he could in the dart shadow of the wall and the trees. Then he gently slithered off the top, swinging down to the ground with his feet scraping on the brick. When the rope was wound in, he positioned the aluminum rod on the other side of the spikes, and let the rope down on the Semple side of the wall. "You really fell head over heels this time, didn't you?" "But it depends where it's directed, don't you think?"
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