It was a wild night with a young moon hanging low in the sky.

Shadows chased themselves over the lawn and the trees waved and shifted in the wind.

It had been a long time since I had looked out on such a scene of peaceful tranquillity as this.

New York with the hurry and rush of its streets, with the horrors of Terry's morgue, seemed to lie in another continent.
But suddenly I was recalled to the present by hearing, almost beneath me, the low shuddering squeak of an opening window.

I leaned out silently alert, and to my surprise I saw Cat-Eye Mose--though it was pretty dark I could not be mistaken in his long loping run--slink out from the shadow of the house and make across the open space of lawn toward the deserted negro cabins.