Jane Carter Investigates Episode One-Hundred and Thirty-Seven
Escape through the newsroom was cut
off. Panic seized me, but only for an instant. I retreated to Dad’s office and
telephoned the fire department. Then I doused my cardigan in the water I dumped
out of the vase of flowers on Dad’s desk and placed it over my nose and mouth.
I went out of Dad’s office, hastily shutting the door tight behind me and retrieved
the chemical extinguisher which hung on the wall of the newsroom. I attempted
to fight the flames, but black, rolling smoke billowed into my face, choking
and blinding me. The heat drove me back into my father’s office.
From far down the street came the wail
of a siren. I rushed to a window. A pumper and a hook-and-ladder truck swung
around the corner, lurching to a stop.
I raised the sash, stepped out onto the
ledge, and waved to the men below.
“Stay where you are!” shouted a
fireman. “We’ll come to you!”
A ladder shot up, but I did not wait to
be carried to safety. Before a fireman could mount, I scrambled down it.
“The fire started in the newsroom,” I
said when I reached the street. “But it’s already spread into the composing
department.”
“Anyone else in the building?”
“I don’t think so. There were three
scrubwomen, but they’ve probably gone home by now.”
Lines of hose were stretched to the
hydrants, and streams of water began to play on the flames. A crowd, following
in the wake of the fire engines, was ordered back by the police.
As I stood in the street watching the
flames, I felt an arm go around me.
“Jack!”
“How did it start?” he demanded. “Jane,
your hair is singed!”
“I was inside there, until a few
minutes ago,” I said. “Until the boys in red sent up a ladder, and I scrabbled
down it. I can’t explain it all now, but the fire was started by Paul Firth.”
“On purpose?”
“I don’t know that for certain. He was
smoking a cigarette.”
“Have you told the police?”
“Not yet. I’m waiting for Dad.”
A car inched through the crowd,
stopping a few yards away. Dad leaped out and ran toward the burning building.
He was stopped at the entrance by a fireman.
“Let me in there! My daughter’s
inside!”
“No, here I am, Dad!”
I ran toward him and grasped his hand.
Dad pulled me to him in a rough
embrace, but the next moment he was trying once more to enter the building,
intent on saving important papers.
“Take it easy, Mr. Fielding,” advised
the fireman, barring the door with his hose. “The smoke’s bad in there, you
wouldn’t make it halfway up the stairs before you’d pass out from breathing in
fumes.”
“Will the building go?”
“We’ll save most of it,” the fireman
assured him.
I plucked at my father’s sleeve.
“Dad, oughtn’t the police be sent after
Paul Firth? He’s responsible for this, and a lot of other things, too!”
“You mean Firth set the fire?”
Above the roar of flames, I explained
how the man had compelled me to take refuge in my father’s inner office and
barricade the door. Jack also heard the story, and when I had finished, he said
to Dad: “Chief, let me take a couple of policemen and nail that fellow! Maybe
we can arrest him at the farm before he makes a getaway.”
“Go ahead,” said my father.
“I’m going along,” I said, and darted
away before my father could protest.
Twenty minutes later, with a police
cruiser dispatched some ten minutes behind us, Jack and I drove to the Willows
in Dad’s car.
We parked down the road and walked
cautiously toward the farmhouse, which loomed dark against the sky. No lights
burned in the windows. The grounds appeared deserted.
“Looks as if Firth isn’t here,”
observed Jack. “No use waiting for the police.”
Boldly going to the front door, Jack
pounded on it, ordering in a loud voice: “Open up!”
“He’s not here,” I said. “Unless
perhaps he’s hiding.”
“The place looks deserted to me.”
I still had the key to the padlock on
the door of Paul Firth’s storm cellar in my pocket. I walked over to the
entrance to the cave.
“It’s locked,” Jack said, indicating
the padlock.
“I have the key.”
Jack held the flashlight as I tried to
fit the key into the lock.
“It’s no go, Jane,” Jack said. “You
must have gotten the wrong key somehow.”
“But I was so sure, Jack.” I stooped to
examine the padlock. “Well, no wonder! It’s been changed.”
“Then we’re out of luck until the
police get here.”
“Isn’t there any way we can open it
ourselves?”
“Maybe I can break it.”
“There should be tools in the barn,
Jack.”
“I’ll see what I can find.”
Jack disappeared in the direction of
the barn. I extinguished the flashlight
and waited. Jack had been gone only a moment when I heard running footsteps.
Barely had I crouched down behind the storm cave before a man emerged from
among the pine trees adjoining the road. It was Paul Firth, and he was
breathing hard.
He ran straight to the cave. He paused
in front of the door, looked furtively about and then fumbled with the padlock.
In desperate haste, he jerked it loose, swung back the hinged door and
descended the stone steps.
I crept to the entrance.
Firth had not taken time to close the
door behind him. A light shone from an underground room at one side of the main
passageway, and I could hear the man’s heavy boots scuffing on a cement floor.
I considered waiting for Jack and
decided against it. Firth’s frantic haste suggested that he might not linger
long in the cave. What could he be doing beneath ground?
With Jack so near, I felt that it would
not be too dangerous to investigate. I crept noiselessly down the steps.
A low, rounded doorway opened from the
descending passage. When I peered into the dimly lighted room, I did not
immediately see Paul Firth.
Instead, I saw what appeared to be a
workshop. Tools were neatly arranged over a bench, while a cupboard of shelves
contained miscellaneous mechanical parts.
At the far end of the cave stood an
urn-like contrivance which I took to be an electric furnace. An armored cable
ran from it to a heavy wall switch having two blades and a sizable wooden
handle. Plainly it was designed to carry a very heavy current.
Paul Firth came from behind the furnace
and threw the switch. Almost immediately the metal oven began to hiss. The
furnace heated until it emitted a red glow.
I heard a slight sound at the stairway
entrance. Thinking that Jack had returned, I started up the steps. Not one
figure but three loomed in the doorway.
I flattened myself against the dirt
wall, but I could not avoid being seen. A flashlight beam blinded me, and the
next instant a revolver muzzle bit into my side.
“Keep quiet! You won’t be hurt!”
I stared into the grim face of Anchor
Jim. Behind him came Richard Hamsted, and a man I had never seen before. As
quietly as the men had moved, they had been heard in the next room.
“Who’s there?” Firth called out.
Richard Hamsted and Anchor Jim stepped
into the rectangle of light, their revolvers trained upon the man.
“Just three of your old pals, Otto,”
drawled Anchor Jim. “Reach!”
“Listen, Jim, you got me all wrong,”
Paul Firth whined. “I can explain why I kept the gold. I’ll give it all to you
if that’s what you want. I’ll do anything—don’t shoot.”
“Shootin’ would be too good for you,”
retorted Anchor Jim, his face dark with rage. “We got other plans.”
“Sure, we know how to deal with a
traitor,” added Richard Hamsted, whisking a revolver from Firth’s hip pocket.
“You thought you could hide from us. You thought by changing your name and
coming to this out-of-the-way town you could fool us. You dirty rat, you even
thought you could get by with pushing me off a bridge!”
“Your greed kept you here,” taunted
Anchor Jim. “You couldn’t bear to leave any of those gold bars behind.”
“You thought you’d melt down the last
of ’em tonight and skip,” added Richard Hamsted. “You’re goin’ on a long trip
all right, but with us!”
Hamsted slipped a pair of steel cuffs
over Firth’s wrists. The sailors hastily searched the cave, gathering up
several bags of what I assumed to be gold.
“How about this bar?” Richard Hamsted
asked his companions. “Can we handle it?”
“Too heavy,” answered Anchor Jim. “With
Mortimer hot on our trail, we’ve got to travel light. Get going and I’ll
follow.”
Hamsted and his companion marched Paul
Firth from the cave. Taking a cord from his pocket, Anchor Jim bound my hands
and feet. It was useless to struggle, and I was confident that Anchor Jim did
not intend to harm me if he could avoid it. I just hoped that Jack would not
come back too soon. I was fearful that the appearance of a stranger might cause
Jim to commit an impulsive act.
“I’m tying ’em loose,” Anchor Jim said.
“And I’ll leave the cave door open. After we’re gone, you can yell for help.”
“Jim, where are you taking Firth? What
has he done?”
The sailor did not answer. Seizing a
bag of gold, he slung it over his shoulder and went quickly up the stairs. I
was left in the darkness.
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