And then a shiver ran down his spine for a distant voice called:
“Here!”
“Fire!” yelled Mr. Stott, and stumbled down the steps. The voice came from a door.
“Wait, I’ll kick out the key.” …
There was a sound of metallic scraping and something hit the brickwork at his feet.
Mr. Stott frowned at it. A key.
“Open the door,” said the voice urgently.
Mr. Stott stooped and picked it up, made three shots at the keyhole and at last got it.
A man doubled up as if in pain, shuffled out.
“Unfasten the strap,” he commanded.
“There’s a fire,” said Mr. Stott impressively.
“So I observe, quick!”
Stott unbuckled the strap and the man stood up.
“Get those papers—on the table,” said the strange man. “I can’t touch them, I’m handcuffed behind.”
The rescuer obeyed.
The passage was thick with smoke and suddenly all lights went out.
“Now run!” hissed Tab and Mr. Stott, still gripping his spade, groped forward. At the foot of the steps he paused. The heat was fierce, the flames were curling down over the top step.
“Whack the floor—the carpet with your spade and run—don’t worry about me!”
Mr. Stott made a wild rush up the stairs, striking more wildly at the floor. The smoke blinded him; he was scorched, he felt his few locks shrivel in the heat.
And then Tab Holland behind pushed him with his shoulder and it seemed to Mr. Stott that he was being thrown into the fiery furnace. He uttered one yell and leapt. In a fraction of a second he was in the passage—gasping and alive.
“Outside … !”
Tab thrust his shoulder again at the dazed man and Mr. Stott walked out into the rain just as the first fire engine came clanging into the street.
“There is a fire,” said Mr. Stott with satisfaction. “Come and have a drink.”
Tab wanted something more than a drink. He saw a running policeman and hailed him.
“Officer, can you unlock these handcuffs? I’m Holland of the Megaphone. Good business!”
A turn of the key and he was free.
He stretched his aching arms.
“Com’n have a drink,” urged Mr. Stott, and Tab thought that the suggestion was not altogether foolish.
They came to Mr. Stott’s dining-room to find Eline singing in a high falsetto voice, a voice which had aroused even Mrs. Stott, for that good lady, in deshabille, was regarding the musical Eline with wonder and shame when they arrived.
The good lady staggered at the appearance of her husband. Tab seemed a less notable phenomenon—even the vocal Eline faded from the picture.
“What is the meaning of this?” she asked tearfully.
“There’s been a fire,” murmured her husband.
He glared at Eline fiendishly and pointed to the door.
“Shut up, girl! Go to bed! You’re fired—you’re the secon’ fire tonight!”
He was so overcome by his witticism that he relapsed into what promised to be continuous laughter. The clang of another engine arrested his merriment, and he stalked out of the house.
“I don’t think Mr. Stott is quite well,” said Mrs. Stott in a tremulous voice. “I—be quiet, Eline! Singing sacred songs at this hour of the morning!”
And then came Mr. Stott in a hurry, and behind him, Carver.
“Thank God, my boy—I never expected—!”
Carver found a difficulty in speaking.
“I rescued ’m,” said Mr. Stott loudly.
His face was black, what of his dressing-gown was not singed, was sodden. He flourished the spade.
“I rescued ’m,” said Mr. Stott with dignity. “We Stotts come of a hard bit’n race. My father was a firem’n—he rescued thousan’s from burnin’.”
Here he was getting near to the truth, for, as had been before remarked, Mr. Stott’s father was a Baptist minister.
XXXVI
“We must warn Miss Ardfern at once. I have been on the telephone with her this evening. I was enquiring about you, and the chances are that I so thoroughly alarmed her, that she is awake. I only hope to God she is,” said Carver.
But whilst it was easy earlier in the evening to get into touch with Hertford 906, it was now impossible. The Hertford operator, after the second attempt, signalled through that there was an interruption.
Carver came back to Mr. Stott’s dining-room with a grave face. They could speak without interruption because Mrs. Stott and the errant Eline had disappeared. Mr. Stott, his hands clasped across his stomach, was fast asleep in a chair, a touch of a smile on his lips. Probably he was dreaming of his heroic and hard bit’n ancestors.
“Tab,” said Carver, “you know Stone Cottage? Have you any recollection of the telephone arrangements? Is it a dead-end connection or is it connected from the road?”
“I think it is from the road,” said Tab, “the wire runs by the house and the connection crosses the garden. I remember because Ursula said how unsightly it was.”
Carver nodded.
“Then he’s there,” he said, “and the wire has been cut. I’ll get the nearest police station and see what we can do,” he said. “In the meantime we will find somebody with a car; make a few quick enquiries, Tab.”
Tab’s enquiries were particularly fortunate. In the very next house was a young man whose joy in life it was to exceed all speed limits on a sporting Spanz, and he accepted the commission which would enable him to break the laws with the approval of the police, with alacrity and enthusiasm.
When Tab returned the Inspector was waiting at the garden gate.
“Is that the car?” he said. “Our friend knows the way?”
“I could find it blindfold,” said the amateur chauffeur.
It was a wild ride. Even Tab, who treated all speed regulations with scorn, admitted that the driver erred on the side of recklessness.
They spun through rain that stung and smarted like needles, that fell so fast that the two powerful lamps created fantastic nebulae and haloes in the darkness ahead. They skidded round greasy corners, thundered along narrow roads. Once Tab could have sworn he glimpsed a black car drawn up under a hedge. They passed before he could be sure.
The garden gate was open when Tab leapt out from his precarious seat. As he came through the gate,
