That was what vexed him now. He had "felt" that morning
that someone was near, but he had laid it to nerves and the reported
ghost, and had not heeded his trained faculties. He was back now doubly
alert to discover the cause and make good his failure in the morning.
He had undertaken to look after this guy and see this job through and
there was big money in it. He was heavily armed and prepared for any
reasonable surprise. He meant to get this matter straight before
morning. So, feeling his way along in the blackness, listening, halting
at every moment with bated breath, he came at last to the back door,
and drawing himself up to the steps, took the knob in his hand and
turned it. To his surprise it yielded to his touch, and the door came
open. And yet it was some seconds of tense listening before he let
himself down to the ground again, and with his hand in the grass let
out a tiny winking flashlight, no more than a firefly would flicker,
and out again.

This was answered by a wink from the bushes, as if the same firefly or
its mate might be glowing, and after an instant another wink from the
ground near the house. Slowly Shorty arrived without noise, his big
bulk muffling in fat the muscles of velvet. It was incredible how light
his step could be--professionally. It was as if he had been
wafted there like down. Silently still and without communication the
two drifted into the open door, sent a searching glowworm ahead into
the crannies of the dusty, musty kitchen, surprising a mouse that had
stolen forth domestically. The door being shut and fastened cautiously,
the key in Link's pocket, they drifted through the swing door, as air
might have circulated, identifying the mouse's scuttle, the rattle of a
rat among the loose coal in the cellar bin, the throaty chirp of a
cricket outside in the grass, and drifting on.