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the back of the building, and on to Kipdorp.”
    Frank hurried through a low archway on the opposite side of the yard, where six or seven bicycles were propped up, and then he hurried into the street, his claws clattering softly on the cobbles.
    He hesitated for only a moment, and then he turned right, toward Sant Jacobs Markt, and Kipdorpbrug. Every now and then he paused and looked around, to make sure that we were following him. I seriously believe that he thought we were like two stupid children, and it was his responsibility to take care of us.
    Although the sidewalk was wet, the scent of Screechers must have been very strong, because Frank went straight along the north side of Kipdorp and there was none of his usual circling and sniffing and whuffling around.
    “I think we’ve got these jokers, sir,” said Corporal Little, triumphantly.
    But when we reached Kipdorpbrug, Frank galloped straight up to the sandstone wall of the Maritime Bank and stopped. He looked upward, and barked, and then he turned back to us, whining in frustration.
    We looked upward, too. The bank building was seventeenth century, five stories high, with a flat Flemish-style facade. Apart from the window ledges, there wasn’t a single handhold between the sidewalk and the roof.
    I looked at Corporal Little and Corporal Little looked at me. We were both deeply impressed, and frightened,too. “They went straight up,” I said. “At least one of them, anyhow.”
    We had known Screechers to run up twenty-foot walls, and jump from one sloping roof to another. We had seen one run across a ceiling. But we had never known one to climb up a sheer hundred-foot building.
    Frank kept returning to the wall and jumping up and barking. “Good boy,” Corporal Little told him, pulling his ears. “Good boy, it’s not your fault you can’t climb walls.” It was difficult to know what to do next. We could have located the manager of the Maritime Bank and have him open up for us, so that we could follow the Screecher’s trail across the roof, but that could take us hours, and in any case the Screecher had probably climbed down the front of some other building and come back down to ground level.
    “My guess is, this was a dead one,” I said.
    Corporal Little nodded. “He must of left a real strong trail behind him, the way Frank’s getting himself so excited. And if he could shimmy straight up a wall like that . . .”
    “It’s worth checking, though. Maybe he only climbed up part of the way, and then jumped back down again.”
    I hunkered down and opened up the Kit. I took out the compass and opened up its silver filigree lid. The needle immediately swung around and pointed to the front of the bank building. When I held it up vertically, it pointed directly upward. There was no question about it. Our Screecher had gone all the way up to the roof, with no deviation.
    “Like a rat up a drainpipe,” said Corporal Little, andFrank let out another expectant bark. I swear that dog would have talked if he’d had the larynx for it.
    As I was fitting the compass back into the Kit, however, the needle started to creep back the other way, in the direction of Kipdorpbrug. It wasn’t an urgent swing, but the needle was trembling a little, the way it always did when Screechers weren’t too far away.
    “Look at this,” I told Corporal Little, shining my flashlight on it. “I don’t think all three of them went up the wall. Maybe only one of them. I’m definitely picking up another trail in this direction.”
    Corporal Little took hold of Frank’s collar and tugged him away from the bank. “Hear that, boy? More Screechers! Go get ’em, boy!”

In the Elephant House
    Frank was much less certain about this secondary trail, and he kept stopping and snorting and going back on himself. Now and then he got distracted and started to investigate a lamppost, and Corporal Little had to drag him away.
    I kept the compass in my hand, and even though the needle was