There was no sign of an entrance--no levers, no hinges, to give a hint.
Either the mantel or the roof, I decided, and after a half-hour at the
mantel, productive of absolutely no result, I decided to try the roof.
I am not fond of a height. The few occasions on which I have climbed a
step-ladder have always left me dizzy and weak in the knees. The top
of the Washington monument is as impossible to me as the elevation of
the presidential chair. And yet--I climbed out on to the Sunnyside
roof without a second's hesitation. Like a dog on a scent, like my
bearskin progenitor, with his spear and his wild boar, to me now there
was the lust of the chase, the frenzy of pursuit, the dust of battle.
I got quite a little of the latter on me as I climbed from the
unfinished ball-room out through a window to the roof of the east wing
of the building, which was only two stories in height.
Once out there, access to the top of the main building was rendered
easy--at least it looked easy--by a small vertical iron ladder,
fastened to the wall outside of the ball-room, and perhaps twelve feet
high. The twelve feet looked short from below, but they were difficult
to climb. I gathered my silk gown around me, and succeeded finally in
making the top of the ladder.
Once there, however, I was completely out of breath. I sat down, my
feet on the top rung, and put my hair pins in more securely, while the
wind bellowed my dressing-gown out like a sail. I had torn a great
strip of the silk loose, and now I ruthlessly finished the destruction
of my gown by jerking it free and tying it around my head.
From far below the smallest sounds came up with peculiar distinctness.
I could hear the paper boy whistling down the drive, and I heard
something else. I heard the thud of a stone, and a spit, followed by a
long and startled meiou from Beulah. I forgot my fear of a height, and
advanced boldly almost to the edge of the roof.
It was half-past six by that time, and growing dusk.
"You boy, down there!" I called.
The paper boy turned and looked around. Then, seeing nobody, he raised
his eyes. It was a moment before he located me: when he did, he stood
for one moment as if paralyzed, then he gave a horrible yell, and
dropping his papers, bolted across the lawn to the road without
stopping to look around. Once he fell, and his impetus was so great
that he turned an involuntary somersault. He was up and off again
without any perceptible pause, and he leaped the hedge--which I am sure
under ordinary stress would have been a feat for a man.