He yawned. Queer, to feel sleepy, and yet at the same time strung up. He looked again at his watch. Ten minutes to two. Time was getting on.
And then, suddenly, he held his breath and leaned forward, listening. He had heard something.
The minutes went past … There it was again. The creak of a board … But it came from downstairs somewhere. There it was again! A slight, ominous creak. Somebody was moving stealthily about the house.
Jimmy sprang noiselessly to his feet. He crept silently to the head of the staircase.
Everything seemed perfectly quiet. Yet he was quite certain he had really heard that stealthy sound. It was not imagination. Very quietly and cautiously he crept down the staircase, Leopold clasped tightly in his right hand. Not a sound in the big hall. If he had been correct in assuming that the muffled sound came from directly beneath him, then it must have come from the library.
Jimmy stole to the door of it, listened, but heard nothing; then, suddenly flinging open the door, he switched on the lights.
Nothing! The big room was flooded with light. But it was empty.
Jimmy frowned.
“I could have sworn—” he murmured to himself.
The library was a large room with three windows which opened on to the terrace. Jimmy strode across the room. The middle window was unlatched.
He opened it and stepped out on to the terrace, looking from end to end of it.