Читать книгу Dangerous Cargo - Footner Hulbert - Страница 5

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I stayed that night with Mme. Storey at her place on East Sixty-third Street. This had been arranged so that we could work late in clearing up all the odds and ends of business that demanded attention before she sailed. We had spent the afternoon in doing necessary shopping for the voyage. All our things were packed and ready.

I have had occasion before to describe my employer’s original little establishment. She and her friend Mrs. Lysaght bought an old brownstone house and transformed it into two maisonnettes in the French style. Mme. Storey occupies the two lower floors. The kitchen faces the street, with a barred window that is left open at night for ventilation, and the dining-room opens on a tiny garden in the rear. Upstairs her bedroom is over the kitchen and her delightful living-room looks down on the garden.

As there is only one bedroom, I had to share it with her. Her maid Grace made up a bed on the sofa. Grace and the cook sleep up on the top floor of the house with Mrs. Lysaght’s maids. But the Lysaght establishment was closed at this time.

We had just gone to bed and were lying there talking about this and that. It was very late. The windows were open and the street was wrapped in stillness. Only a distant hum reminded us that we were a part of a great city. The thought of danger to ourselves was farthest from our minds. In fact, for the moment we were occupied with the details of our own business and had forgotten Horace Laghet.

I can remember hearing some clock strike two and Mme. Storey saying, “We must go to sleep.”

Suddenly we heard a hard object fall to the floor of the kitchen underneath us. We both jumped up and instinctively ran to a window. We were in time to see a man running away down the street towards Third Avenue. He ran awkwardly, with hunched shoulders and a sideways movement.

I would have shouted to stop him, but Mme. Storey clapped a hand over my mouth. “Too late to catch him now,” she said.

As she spoke there was an explosion, not very loud, in the room beneath us. And a moment afterwards that most awful sound of all at night, the rushing and snapping of fire. I stood in the middle of the bedroom, half stupefied. Mme. Storey gave me a shake.

“Put on a dressing-gown and slippers and follow me!”

It brought me to myself. “Shall I telephone?” I asked.

“No!” she said, in a tone that surprised me. Standing in the corner of the stair landing was a copper fire-extinguisher. Mme. Storey snatched it up and ran down. On the lower landing was another extinguisher that she mutely pointed out to me. We could hear the flames roaring like devils behind the kitchen door. The difficulty was to get the door open. Fortunately, it opened towards us and Mme. Storey was able to shield herself behind it. Flame leaped out of the kitchen like a red ravening beast, shriveling us with its hot breath.

The whole room was blazing at once and little runnels of fire crept over the sill into the hall. It burned with that special speed and fury that only gasoline can induce. Mme. Storey, backing away out of reach of the flames into the dining-room, turned her extinguisher upon them. The thin hissing stream was swallowed up and lost. The fire only roared louder. Suffocating black smoke billowed into our faces. Mme. Storey was driven back foot by foot.

“We must get out of here!” I cried.

She paid no attention. After a moment she muttered: “Open the window at my back. The wind is on that side.”

I obeyed, and a current of air was created that held the flames and smoke in check. On the other side of that wall of flame I could hear cries from the street. Mme. Storey began to regain the lost ground, driving the flames back with an unerring eye whenever they tried to flank her. I stood with the second extinguisher ready to hand to her when the first was exhausted.

We crossed the hall again. The two maids came running down the stairs. They stood on the bottom step, fascinated with horror but perfectly silent. They had confidence in their mistress’s ability to handle anything. The fire was forced back, snarling, into the kitchen. We heard the fire trucks coming from afar.

Once the chemical mixture got the upper hand, the fire soon gave up. All around the walls Mme. Storey drove it back towards the window. Suddenly it was out and the kitchen was just a black charred hole. Through the window I had a glimpse of the crowd hanging over the railings. The lights had not been burned out and I got them turned on. After all, not much had suffered but paint, varnish, and plaster. But what an escape!

In the middle of the floor lay a tell-tale jagged piece of tin. We found another behind the stove. Meanwhile the trucks had drawn up outside and the firemen were banging on the ornamental iron gate that gave entrance to the house alongside the kitchen. I started to let them in, but my employer laid a hand on my arm.

“We don’t want any investigation, Bella.”

Opening the cellar door, she kicked the two pieces of tin down stairs.

The firemen swarmed in, nosed all around, as they always do, and asked the usual questions. Mme. Storey’s explanation was ingenious.

“I came downstairs to heat some water on the gas stove, and went up again. I suppose the curtain at the window blew across the flame and caught fire. Unfortunately, my maid had left a can of cleaning fluid on the window sill and that exploded.”

“Very careless to leave an explosive so near the stove, madam,” said the fire captain.

“You are absolutely right, Chief,” she replied, with a straight face. “I shall scold the girl severely, and I can promise you it won’t happen again.”

She led them into the dining-room for a little refreshment, and they presently departed with loud praises for her quickness and presence of mind. The trucks roared away and a great quiet descended on the street. Mme. Storey and I went back to bed, but not to sleep.

At eleven o’clock next morning we were seated in the living-room with Latham Rowe, Mme. Storey’s attorney. A horrible stale smell of wet burnt stuff filled the house. Our baggage had been sent on ahead to the yacht landing, and we were all set to go in hats and gloves.

Latham is a nice man, the chubby, sweet-tempered type that is predestined to be the friend of every woman and the husband of none. Mme. Storey was saying:

“I’ll have to leave it to you to see that the insurance is collected and the repairs properly done.”

“Sure,” he said. “But tell me, Rosika, on the level, what caused this fire. You can’t expect me to believe that bunk about Grace’s carelessness.”

Mme. Storey smiled. “It cost me a new dress to square Grace for that lie,” she said. “The truth is, somebody shoved an open can of gasoline between the bars of the kitchen window last night, and threw a lighted match or something of that sort after it.”

Latham’s rosy face paled. “Good God! What a fiendish thing to do!” he cried. “And you’re not going to say anything about it?”

“If there was an investigation it would prevent me from going on this voyage. And nothing would come of it. I prefer to deal with my enemies myself.”

“Have you an idea who did it?” he asked.

“It was obviously somebody who didn’t want me aboard the yacht.”

“And you’re still determined to go!”

She smiled at his simple earnestness. “I cannot refuse a dare, my dear. It is a weakness of my character. Yesterday I wasn’t at all keen, but today I’m mad to go!”

He was terribly distressed. “But seriously, Rosika, I can’t stand by and see you risk your life for ... for ...”

“Five thousand a week,” she put in, slyly.

“Be serious! This fellow Horace Laghet is a scoundrel! You should hear the stories they tell about him downtown. If somebody wants to shoot him up, let him go to it and welcome, I say. What have you got to do with it?”

“I can see that Laghet is going to give me trouble,” she admitted. “But a job is a job, and this is a rather fascinating one.”

“What can you do?” he pleaded. “On land you know where you are, but on a ship anything may happen. The sea is always there to swallow a body and yield no trace. If there is a man aboard that yacht who is determined to get Laghet, how can you stop him? If you get in his way, you’ll go overboard, too.”

She merely smiled.

“How can you save the man from being murdered when he makes an enemy of every man he meets?” he went on. “There’s a feeling of hatred rolling up against Horace Laghet like a tidal wave. If you take his part it will overwhelm you along with him.”

She patted his cheek affectionately. “You’re a great dear, Latham, but you’re on the wrong line. If you could persuade me that this was going to be a quiet cruise with nothing to do but loll in a deck chair and put on pounds and pounds, I’d drop it this minute. But when you talk of danger! Ha! ...” She flung her arms up. “It’s useless, my dear. Ask Bella.”

He spread out his hands helplessly.