JOHNNY STRIKES FIRST
At a quarter of six next evening, at the request of the Fire Chief,
Johnny was lurking in the shadows back of the building on Randolph Street
that housed such a strange collection of commodities: chemicals,
diamonds, juvenile books, novelties and Knobs, the suspected firebug.
Earlier that day a phone call had tipped off the Chief. According to the
call, Knobs Whittaker would bear a little extra watching that night.
While putting little faith in this tip, the Chief had no desire to
neglect the least clue which might assist in bringing to an end the
series of disastrous fires which were reflecting great discredit upon his
department. Acting upon the tip he had stationed men at every point which
Knobs had been seen to frequent.
Johnny’s station was this building. He had come around behind to have a
look at possible exits there. Having satisfied his mind in this matter,
he was about to make his way back along the wall to the street when he
was halted by the sudden sound of a truck entering the alley.
Slinking deeper into the shadows, he waited. To his surprise he saw the
truck back up at the door of the very building he was watching.
“Going to take something away,” was his mental comment.
This thought was at once abandoned when he noted that the light truck was
already loaded to capacity.
Climbing down from the seat, the driver and his assistant walked to the
door. Finding it locked, the driver beat a tattoo on it with his fist.
“What’s wanted?” demanded a voice as a head was thrust out of a window to
the left of the door.
“Open up!” growled the driver. “Got a consignment of chemicals for you.”
“What you coming round this time of day for?”
“Came all the way from Calumet. Had a blow-out.”
“There’s no one here but me,” said the young man, reluctantly unbarring
the door. “Boss is gone. Chief clerk’s gone. His assistant is gone. I’m
only a sort of apprentice. Haven’t any authority.”
“Well, we can’t dump the goods in the street, can we? It’s going to
rain.”
“No, I suppose you can’t,” said the young man, scratching his head
doubtfully. “Suppose you’ll have to dump them in here until morning.
You’ll have to come round then and check up on them.”
“That’s jake with me.”
The apprentice began clearing a space at the back of the shop. The
carters tumbled off bags and boxes, to pile them in the cleared space.
After this had been done the steel night doors were closed and the truck
drove away.
“They drive as if the devil were after them,” thought Johnny.
Without quite knowing why, he lingered for a time back there in the
deepening shadows and as he lingered he caught an unusual sound from one
of the rooms above.
“That’s odd, sounds like something heavy being rolled over the floor; a
piano, or—or maybe a safe. Wonder why anyone would be doing that this
time of the day?”
As it had grown quite dark by this time, he moved around to the front.
From the moment the matter had been called to his attention, this
building with its strange assortment of occupants had held a profound
interest for Johnny. He suspected Knobs of holding an interest in the
Novelty Company, in truth suspected that floor of being his hangout. He
was more than interested in the diamond merchant’s place, too. Indeed, he
felt that somehow there must be a connection between Knobs and the
diamonds.
“Perhaps he means to steal them?” he told himself now as he lingered in
the shadow of the building. “But then, there are the burglar alarms. How
is he to get around them? Well, we’ll see.”
An eddy of air sweeping up the street showered him with dust and paper
scraps.
“Ugh,” he grunted, as he made for the door of the building to escape this
little whirlwind, “we’re in for a blow; perhaps rain.”
“Fiddle!” he exclaimed a moment later, “I promised to go to Forest City
with Mazie to-night. Carnival! Last of the season. Told her I’d do it if
nothing turned up. But something has turned up, at least the Chief thinks
it’s going to turn up.”
And just then things did turn up; at least one thing did, and not so
small either. Treading on air, as if afraid of disturbing the spirit of
his dead grandmother, there came tripping down the stair no less a person
than Knobs Whittaker!
“Put ’em to sleep with a brick and argue with ’em afterwards,” Johnny
seemed to be hearing poor old Ben Zook saying.
Knobs was carrying a square black satchel in his hand. His right hip
bulged. He did not see Johnny, who stood well back in the shadows. Just
as his feet touched the ground floor, as if drawn by a rocket, Knobs shot
straight up from the floor to at last topple over in a heap. Johnny’s
good right hand had spoken. He had obeyed the instructions of old Ben
Zook.
Knobs’ sleep lasted for scarcely more than ten seconds; long enough,
however, for Johnny to explore his hip pocket and draw forth an
ugly-looking blue automatic. When Knobs opened his eyes he looked into
the muzzle of his own gun.
The art of escape is sometimes cultivated to such a degree of perfection
that it becomes automatic. The street door was open. With a motion that
could scarcely be called rolling, leaping or gliding, the prostrate man
went through that door. Before Johnny could block his escape, or even
press the trigger of the automatic, Knobs was gone. One thing was against
the fleeing one, however; he had left his gun and his black case behind.
“Evidence here,” Johnny whispered to himself. “Valuable evidence, beyond
a doubt.”
Then, following a rule he had laid down for himself: “Always do the thing
that’s least expected,” instead of following the man, he picked up the
black bag and sprang lightly up the stairs and out of sight. He did not
stop at the first landing, nor the second; but continued to the third,
where, after hurrying down the hall, he threw back the iron shutters of
the hall window, tossed the bag out, and jumped to the flat roof below.
After that he lost no time in making his way down a fire escape to the
ground.
After a hasty glance up and down the alley, he gripped the handle of
Knobs’ automatic with his right hand, and carrying the black bag in his
left, walked with a leisurely and nonchalant air down the alley and out
on the side street. To all appearances the street was deserted.
Apparently no one had seen him emerge from the alley. He was thankful for
that.
Hardly had he walked a dozen paces on that street when there struck his
ears a cry that had grown familiar:
“FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!”
“Fire!” he said to himself. “I wonder where now?” He was to know soon
enough.
There is something strange about a city street. Though it be deserted
from end to end, let one cry of “Fire!” ring out upon its deserted
stillness, and within the space of thirty seconds it is thronging with
people. It was so now. In a moment the place was swarming with people.
Johnny Thompson did not join the throng. He was far too wise for that.
The black bag he carried contained something of vital interest to that
smooth villain, Knobs. Knobs would want it back. Nor would he be alone.
There might be twenty of his gang in that crowd. For them to surround
Johnny and beat him up in such a mob would be a simple enough matter. He
would leave no chance for that. Turning, Johnny sped down an alley,
crossed a street, shot down a second alley and, reaching the river, he
raced along the wall that lined its banks, climbed the bridge, then to
the back of a building, paused once more to listen, then climbed the
stairs to his room.
“Shook them!” he puffed as he bolted the door and carefully placed the
black bag under the bed.
His next move was to throw back the steel blinds to his own windows and
to look in the direction of that building on Randolph Street that he had
just left.
The sight that met his eyes brought an exclamation to his lips.
“Pant!” he called, “Pant! Wake up! If you want to see a fire that is one,
come here!”
Tumbling from the cot where he had been sleeping, Pant stumbled toward
the window. Then he, too, stared in wonder.
“Talk about quick burners!” exclaimed Johnny. “Did you ever see anything
quicker or hotter than that?”
“No,” said Pant solemnly, “I never have.”
The building, filled with chemicals, diamonds, books and novelties, was a
white hot furnace. Johnny had seen blast furnaces, open hearths, and the
white flames of the Bessemer, but never had he seen a fiercer, hotter
flame than this one. Even at this great distance it seemed to fairly
scorch his face.
“Enough chemicals in that place to stock an army for the next war,” he
said aloud.
At once he thought of the truck load of chemicals that had arrived at a
quarter of six, and of the heavy rolling sound he had heard shortly after
the truck drove away.
Never in all the history of Chicago had there been a hotter fire. Johnny
could see the firemen, forced from one position to another, fall back,
back, and back again. They made no attempt to quench this white fury. The
best they could do was to throw a water screen against the buildings next
to this to prevent disaster from spreading to the entire business
district.
“Oh man!” exclaimed Pant. “Only look! Red flames, white flames, purple,
yellow and blue. Must have burned its way through the crust of the earth
and turned the thing into a volcano.”
“Chemicals,” said Johnny. He had been looking for an explosion; such an
explosion as would wreck every building in the block and perhaps cross
the river and shake bricks down upon his own head. But as the moments
passed, he began to hope that it would not come. When a quarter of an
hour had worn itself slowly away and the fierce flames began to die down,
he knew that it would not come, and breathed a prayer of thankfulness for
that.
“Pant, I promised Mazie and that little girl we saved from the school
fire that we’d go out to Forest City to-night. This is the last night of
the Carnival. It’s not too late yet. There’s nothing I can do about that
fire over there until it has cooled down. Want to go?”
“I don’t mind,” said Pant. “In fact, I’d rather like to go.”
“All right. Throw on your glad rags and come on.”
A little later, as Johnny locked the door on the outside, he hesitated
for a moment. He had thought of the black bag he had thrown under the
bed.
“Safe there as anywhere in the world,” he told himself. “I’ll break the
lock and look inside to-morrow.”
Then he followed Pant down the stairs.