But when he did reach her roof, he was almost caught by daylight; he found the usual access to the roof but he found also that its door and lock were sturdy enough to defy barehanded burglary.
He went to the rear with the possibility in mind of going down, trying the back door anyhow; it was almost dawn and becoming urgent to get under cover. As he looked down the back he noticed ventilation holes for the low attic, one at each side. They were barely as wide as his shoulders, as deep as his chest — but they led inside.
They were screened but a few minutes and many scratches later he had one kicked in. Then he tried the unlikely task of easing himself over the edge feet first and snaking into the hole. He got in as far as his hips, his clout caught on raw edges of screening and he stuck like a cork, lower half inside the house, chest and head and arms sticking out like a gargoyle. He could not move and the sky was getting lighter.
With a drag from his heels and sheer force of will the cloth parted and he moved inside, almost knocking himself out by banging his head. He lay still and caught his breath, then pushed the screening untidily back into place. It would no longer stop vermin but it might tool the eye from four stories down. It was not until then that he realized that he had almost fallen those four stories.
The attic was no more than a crawl space; he started to explore on hands and knees for the fixture he believed must be here: a scuttle hole for repairs or inspection. Once he started looking and failed to find it, he was not sure that there was such a thing — he knew that some houses had them but he did not know much about houses; he had not lived in them much.
He did not find it until sunrise striking the vent holes gave illumination. It was all the way forward, on the street side.
And it was bolted from underneath.
But it was not as rugged as the door to the roof. He looked around, found a heavy spike dropped by a workman and used it to dig at the wooden closure. In time he worked a knot loose, stopped and peered through the knothole.
There was a room below; he saw a bed with one figure in it.
Thorby decided that he could not expect better luck; only one person to cope with, to persuade to find Mother Shaum without raising an alarm. He took his eye away, put a finger through and felt around; he touched the latch, then gladly broke a fingernail easing the bolt back. Silently he lifted the trap door.
The figure in the bed did not stir.
He lowered himself, hung by his fingertips, dropped the remaining short distance and collapsed as noiselessly as possible.
The person in bed was sitting up with a gun aimed at him. “It took you long enough,” she said. “I’ve been listening to you for the past hour.”
“Mother Shaum! Don’t shoot!”
She leaned forward, looked closely. “Baslim’s kid!” She shook her head. “Boy, you’re a mess . . . and you’re hotter than a fire in a mattress, too. What possessed you to come here?”
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
She frowned. “I suppose that’s a compliment . . . though I had ruther have had a plague of boils, if I’d uv had my druthers.” She got out of bed in her nightdress, big bare feet slapping on the floor, and peered out the window at the street below. “Snoopies here, snoopies there, snoopies checking every joint in the street three times in one night and scaring my customers . . . boy, you’ve caused more hooraw than I’ve seen since the factory riots. Why didn’t you have the kindness to drop dead?”
“You won’t hide me, Mother?”
“Who said I wouldn’t? I’ve never gone out of my way to turn anybody in yet. But I don’t have to like it” She glowered at him. “When did you eat last?”