The Sphinx by Graham Masterton Page B

all, and no sign of the
prowling guard dogs. A freight train hooted mournfully in the distance and up
above the clouds a jet scratched its way across the night sky.
    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. Then he gently slithered off
the top, swinging down to the ground with his feet scraping on the brick. 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.
    He checked his
watch. It was a quarter after eleven. He straightened the revolver in his belt,
and began to stalk carefully through the long grass, stopping every few moments
to listen. He just hoped that if he needed to climb back up his rope in a
hurry, he could remember where it was.
    It took him ten
minutes to make his way through the scrubby copse that led towards the house.
    There was
still- no sign of the dogs, and he wondered if they were asleep. Maybe if he was-
quiet enough he wouldn’t wake them. He pushed his way through a tangled screen
of bushes, and found himself on the very edge of the copse, with a wide stretch
of lawn between him and the Semple mansion.
    The house
itself was much larger than he had anticipated. It was brooding and morose,
with ranks of chimneys and twisting rivers of leafless creeper down every wall.
There was a verandah around the southwest corner, which was the part of the
house nearest to him, but all the windows around it seemed to be empty and
dark. Further back, on the south side, there was a stately columned porch, but
like everything else it was tangled with creeper and had a desolate, decayed
air about it. The only window that seemed to be lit was an upstairs bay on the
western side, and the drapes were drawn so tight that it was impossible to see
inside.
    Gene skirted
along the southern side of the house, almost as far as the gravel drive that
came from the main gateway. Every now and then he stopped to listen for dogs,
but the whole estate was buried deep in darkness and silence. At one time, he
thought he heard a faint crackling of leaves and twigs, but when he paused to
catch the sound more distinctly, he realized it was probably just a bird in the
upper branches of the oaks.
    None of the
windows on the south side were lit, so he went back to the edge of the copse
and surveyed the west side again. There was a strong creeper which grew from
the end of the verandah and twisted its way quite close to the lighted window.
Gene reckoned that if he climbed up there, he could probably get his footing on
the narrow gutter that extended tinder the window from the verandah roof and
get a glimpse through a small crack in the drapes. The thought that he might
see Lorie made his heart pound.
    Ducking low, he
ran across the open lawn until he reached the verandah. He waited awhile and
then went up the verandah’s four wooden steps, taking care not to tread on the
empty frames of abandoned deckchairs and the pieces of a garden swing. He
walked softly along the whole length of the verandah, concealed in shadow,
until he reached the end of it, where the trunk of the creeper grew.
    Again, he
listened. He thought he could hear faint voices and the sound of music, but
that was all. The low, gray clouds still blotted out the moon, although a faint
luminescence illuminated the lawns and distinguished the copse as a dark sea
that rustled and washed around it.
    Gene perched
himself up on the verandah railing, and reached around to test the strength of
the creeper. Years ago, someone had nailed it pretty firmly to the wall, and he
guessed it would probably take his weight He hung on to it with one hand, and
then swung himself around and held on to it with both. There was a lurching
noise as some of the dry branches gave way, but the main branch seemed to hold.
    Breathing with
tense, suppressed gasps, he reached up for higher branches and began to scale
the