Well! death which comes one way cannot come another, and a bullet is
more merciful than flame. The thought steadies Hammersmith; besides he
has nothing to do with what is taking place behind his back. His duty is
here, to guide and support this rapidly-descending figure now almost
within his reach. And he fulfils this duty, though that deadly "ping" is
followed by another, and his starting eyes behold the hole made by the
missile in the clap-board just before him.
She is down. They stand toppling together on the slippery ridge with no
support but the rapidly heating wall down which she had come. He looks
one way, then another. Ten feet either way to the gutter! On one side
leap the flames; beneath the other crouches their secret enemy. They
cannot meet the first and live; needs must they face the latter. Bullets
do not always strike the mark, as witness the two they had escaped.
Besides, there are friends as well as enemies in the yard on this side.
He can hear their encouraging cries. He will toss down the blanket;
perhaps there will be hands to hold it and so break her fall, if not
his.
With a courage which drew strength from her weakness, he carried out
this plan and saw her land in safety amid half a dozen upstretched arms.
Then he prepared to follow her, but felt his courage fail and his
strength ooze without knowing the cause. Had a bullet struck him? He did
not feel it. He was conscious of the heat, but of no other suffering;
yet his limbs lacked life, and it no longer seemed possible for him to
twist himself about so as to fall easily from the gutter.
"Come on! Come on!" rose in yells from below, but there was no movement
in him.
"We can't wait. The wall will fall," rose affrightedly from below. But
he simply clung and the doom of flame and collapsing timbers was rushing
mercilessly upon him when, in the glare which lit up the whole dreadful
scenery, there rose before his fainting eyes the sight of Miss
Demarest's face turned his way from the crowd below, with all the terror
of a woman's bleeding heart behind it. The joy which this recognition
brought cleared his brain and gave him strength to struggle with his
lethargy. Raising himself on one elbow, he slid his feet over the
gutter, and with a frantic catch at its frail support, hung for one
instant suspended, then dropped softly into the blanket which a dozen
eager hands held out for him.
As he did so, a single gasping cry went up from the hushed throng. He
knew the voice. His rescue had relieved one heart. His own beat
tumultuously and the blood throbbed in his veins as he realised this.
The next thing he remembered was standing far from the collapsing
building, with a dozen men and boys grouped about him. A woman at his
feet was clasping his knees in thankfulness, another sinking in a faint
at the edge of the shadow, but he saw neither, for the blood was
streaming over his eyes from a wound not yet accounted for, and as he
felt the burning flow, he realised a fresh duty.
"Where is Quimby?" he demanded loudly. "He made this hole in my
forehead. He's a murderer and a thief, and I order you all in the name
of the law to assist me in arresting him."
With the confused cry of many voices, the circle widened. Brushing the
blood from his brow, he caught at the nearest man, and with one glance
toward the tottering building, pointed to the wall where he and the girl
Huldah had clung.
"Look!" he shouted, "do you see that black spot? Wait till the smoke
blows aside. There! now! the spot just below the dangling sheet. It's a
bullet-hole. It was made while I crouched there. Quimby held the gun. He
had his reasons for hindering our escape. The girl can tell you----"
"Yes, yes," rose up from the ground at his feet. "Quimby is a wicked
man. He knew that I knew it and he locked my door when he saw the
flames coming. I'm willing to tell now. I was afraid before."
They stared at her with all the wonder of uncomprehending minds as she
rose with a resolute air to confront them; but as the full meaning of
her words penetrated their benumbed brains, slowly, man by man, they
crept away to peer about in the barns, and among the clustering shadows
for the man who had been thus denounced. Hammersmith followed them, and
for a few minutes nothing but chase was in any man's mind. That part of
the building in which lay hidden the room of shadows shook, tottered,
and fell, loading the heavens with sparks and lighting up the pursuit
now become as wild and reckless as the scene itself. To Miss Demarest's
eyes, just struggling back to sight and hearing from the nethermost
depths of unconsciousness, it looked like the swirling flight of spirits
lost in the vortex of hell. For one wild moment she thought that she
herself had passed the gates of life and was one of those unhappy souls
whirling over a gulf of flame. The next moment she realised her mistake.
A kindly voice was in her ear, a kindly hand was pressing a half-burned
blanket about her.
"Don't stare so," the voice said. "It is only people routing out Quimby.
They say he set fire to the tavern himself, to hide his crime and do
away with the one man who knew about it. I know that he locked me in
because I--Oh, see! they've got him! they've got him! and with a gun in
his hand!"
The friendly hand fell; both women started upright panting with terror
and excitement. Then one of them drew back, crying in a tone of sudden
anguish, "Why, no! It's Jake, Jake!"
* * * * *
Daybreak! and with it Doctor Golden, who at the first alarm had ridden
out post-haste without waiting to collect his jury. As he stepped to the
ground before the hollow shell and smoking pile which were all that
remained to mark the scene of yesterday's events, he looked about among
the half-clad, shivering men and women peering from the barns and
stables where they had taken refuge, till his eyes rested on Hammersmith
standing like a sentinel before one of the doors.
"What's this? what's this?" he cried, as the other quickly approached.
"Fire, with a man like you in the house?"
"Fire because I was in the house. They evidently felt obliged to get rid
of me somehow. It's been a night of great experiences for me. When they
found I was not likely to perish in the flames they resorted to
shooting. I believe that my forehead shows where one bullet passed.
Jake's aim might be improved. Not that I am anxious for it."
"Jake? Do you mean the clerk? Did he fire at you?"
"Yes, while I was on the roof engaged in rescuing one of the women."
"The miserable cur! You arrested him, of course, as soon as you could
lay your hands on him?"
"Yes. He's back of me in this outhouse."
"And Quimby? What about Quimby?"
"He's missing."
"And Mrs. Quimby?"
"Missing, too. They are the only persons unaccounted for."
"Lost in the fire?"
"We don't think so. He was the incendiary and she, undoubtedly, his
accomplice. They would certainly look out for themselves. Doctor Golden,
it was not for insurance money they fired the place; it was to cover up
a crime."
The coroner, more or less prepared for this statement by what
Hammersmith had already told him, showed but little additional
excitement as he dubiously remarked:
"So you still hold to that idea."
Hammersmith glanced about him and, catching more than one curious eye
turned their way from the crowd now rapidly collecting in all
directions, drew the coroner aside and in a few graphic words related
the night's occurrences and the conclusions these had forced upon him.
Doctor Golden listened and seemed impressed at last, especially by one
point.
"You saw Quimby," he repeated; "saw his face distinctly looking toward
your room from one of the stable windows?"
"I can swear to it. I even caught his expression. It was malignant in
the extreme, quite unlike that he usually turns upon his guests."
"Which window was it?"
Hammersmith pointed it out.
"You have been there? Searched the room and the stable?"
"Thoroughly, just as soon as it was light enough to see."
"And found----"
"Nothing; not even a clue."
"The man is lying dead in that heap. She, too, perhaps. We'll have to
put the screws on Jake. A conspiracy like this must be unearthed. Show
me the rascal."
"He's in a most careless mood. _He_ doesn't think his master and
mistress perished in the fire."
"Careless, eh? Well, we'll see. I know that sort."
But when a few minutes later he came to confront the clerk he saw that
his task was not likely to prove quite so easy as his former experience
had led him to expect. Save for a slight nervous trembling of limb and
shoulder--surely not unnatural after such a night--Jake bore himself
with very much the same indifferent ease he had shown the day before.
Doctor Golden surveyed him with becoming sternness.
"At what time did this fire start?" he asked.
Jake had a harsh voice, but he mellowed it wonderfully as he replied:
"Somewhere about one. I don't carry a watch, so I don't know the exact
time."
"The exact time isn't necessary. Near one answers well enough. How came
you to be completely dressed at near one in a country tavern like this?"
"I was on watch. There was death in the house."
"Then you were in the house?"
"Yes." His tongue faltered, but not his gaze; that was as direct as
ever. "I was in the house, but not at the moment the fire started. I had
gone to the stable to get a newspaper. My room is in the stable, the
little one high in the cock-loft. I did not find the paper at once and
when I did I stopped to read a few lines. I'm a slow reader, and by the
time I was ready to cross back to the house, smoke was pouring out of
the rear windows, and I stopped short, horrified! I'm mortally afraid of
fire."
"You have shown it. I have not heard that you raised the least alarm."
"I'm afraid you're right. I lost my head like a fool. You see, I've
never lived anywhere else for the last ten years, and to see my home on
fire was more than I could stand. You wouldn't think me so weak to look
at these muscles."
Baring his arm, he stared down at it with a forlorn shake of his head.
The coroner glanced at Hammersmith. What sort of fellow was this! A
giant with the air of a child, a rascal with the smile of a humourist.
Delicate business, this; or were they both deceived and the man just a
good-humoured silly?
Hammersmith answered the appeal by a nod toward an inner door. The
coroner understood and turned back to Jake with the seemingly irrelevant
inquiry:
"Where did you leave Mr. Quimby when you went to the cock-loft?"
"In the house?"
"Asleep?"
"No, he was making up his accounts."
"In the office?"
"Yes."
"And that was where you left him?"
"Yes, it was."
"Then, how came he to be looking out of your window just before the fire
broke out?"
"He?" Jake's jaw fell and his enormous shoulders drooped; but only for a
moment. With something between a hitch and a shrug, he drew himself
upright and with some slight display of temper cried out, "Who says he
was there?"