Читать книгу The Lady is Dead - Patrick Laing - Страница 8

The fire broke out around one o’clock in the morning, and burned with a fury so intense that the place had become a raging inferno almost before it was discovered. Even as far away as our living room, where Deirdre and I had gone upon being awakened by the raucuous clanging of the fire-fighting apparatus and the shouts of the men as they strove to subdue it, we could hear the fierce crackling of the flames and feel the heat of them, like the panting breath of some wild beast.

Whatever hope the firemen might have had of saving the laboratory itself or anything it contained must have been given up practically from the beginning. The best they could do was ply the outside of the building and its immediate surroundings with water in order to keep the fire from spreading.

It was while Deirdre and I sat uneasily in the living room, not sure whether or not we would be obliged to evacuate our own home, that one of the firemen came across the intervening lawn to our side porch and knocked upon the French doors.

“Do you happen to know whether the people are away over there, buddy?” he asked when I had answered. “We’ve pounded on both the front and back doors, but we can’t get any answer.”

“They haven’t gone away so far as I know,” I replied. “Dr. Eric Fordyce and his son live there.” Then, as an unpleasant possibility crossed my mind, I asked, “Is it possible that they could have been overcome by smoke, and aren’t able to answer?”

“It hardly seems likely,” the fireman answered doubtfully. “The house is too far away from the garage where the fire is for that much smoke to have drifted in. Still, you never can tell. Maybe I’d better force an entrance and make sure.”

He started to turn away; then he hesitated. “Would you mind going in there with me, buddy?” he asked. “It’s always best to have somebody along that knows the family on a job like this.”

I called to Deirdre to let her know where I was going; then I accompanied the fireman.

“Did the doc keep much gasoline stored in there, that you know of?” he inquired as I followed him back across the lawn.

I explained that the garage had been converted into a laboratory for chemical experiments.

“Then that explains it!” he exclaimed. “Nothing but gasoline or chemicals could burn like that. Lucky for him he wasn’t working in there when this thing started. He might’ve been burnt to a cinder before he could have got out.”

A crowd, drawn by the weird fascination of the unleashed demon of destruction, had gathered in front of the house, but it was prevented from going any nearer to the source of the fire by a cordon of police. Even at that distance—the garage-laboratory was a good hundred feet to the rear—the air was scorched with the hot breath of the flames and acrid with the smell of smoke.

The fireman forced a way for us through the tightly packed crowd, which parted unwillingly to let us through, and we mounted the porch steps together.

“Seems I’ll not have to force an entrance after all,” he remarked a second or two later. “The front door’s unlocked.”

He pushed it open and stepped into the short hallway beyond. I followed.

“The bedrooms’ll be on the second floor, I suppose,” he muttered. “Where are the stairs?”

“They go up from the living room, on the left,” I told him. Although I had never been in Dr. Fordyce’s house before, I knew that all the houses in the block had been built from the same architectural plan.

He crossed the living room and started up the stairs with me close behind him, guiding myself by the sound of his footsteps.

“Anybody up here?” he shouted as we reached the second floor hall.

There was no answer.

He turned toward the front of the house, and I heard him open a door, then click on a light switch.

“Nobody in this room,” he reported. “The bed hasn’t even been slept in. Let’s try the next one.”

I stepped aside to permit him to enter it ahead of me.

“Whose room is this?” he demanded a moment later.

“Mark’s—the son’s—I believe,” I answered. “Why?”

“Looks as though he left it in something of a hurry, the way he’s left those bureau drawers pulled open,” he replied. “He must have been packing a suitcase to take with him, too, from the looks of them. Anyway, he’s not here now. Well, that leaves only the back room.”

But the back room, which turned out to be a small study instead of a third bedroom, was also empty.

“Looks as if you were wrong, buddy, about this Dr. Fordyce and his son not having gone away,” the fireman remarked as we descended the stairs. “Got any ideas where they might be reached?”

“No definite ideas,” I told him. “But if you like, I’ll go home and call several possible places where they might have gone.”

“I wish you would,” he said. “Somebody ought to let a man know when his property’s on fire.”

Back in my own home, I told Deirdre what we had found, particularly of the discovery in Mark’s room.

“Oh, Paddy!” she exclaimed in distress. “Do you realize what’s happened? Mark and his father must have had a dreadful quarrel after they got back from the theater, and now Mark’s run away! Have you any idea where he might have gone?”

“My first guess would be to his friend, Barto,” I replied. “I’ll call the men’s dormitory where Barto lives, and find out whether he’s there.”

But although the dormitory operator rang his phone a dozen times, there was no answer.

“I was just thinking,” Deirdre said, troubled. “That woman he was with when we passed him on campus: You don’t suppose . . ?”

“Hardly,” I answered. “I doubt if Mark’s the sort to indulge in that kind of escapade, even in his present mood. He’s probably spending the night with one of his friends on campus. But since I can’t very well canvass all of the men’s dormitories for him at this time of night, I’ll let him go and try to locate his father.”

Knowing that when a man is in grief or trouble, his best anodyne is work, I dialed the university’s exchange number and asked the switchboard operator to ring the chemistry building for me. But after a minute, she reported that there was no answer.

“Maybe he’s at Professor Fosdick’s house, seeing that they’re working together,” Deirdre suggested hopefully.

I thought the possibility none too likely, but I gave it a try. This time I at least got an answer to my ring.

“Fordyce?” Professor Fosdick, the head of our chemistry department, repeated sleepily and a little crossly when I had asked my question. “No, he’s not here, Laing. Isn’t he at home? Why the devil must you talk to him in the middle of the night?”

“His laboratory’s on fire,” I explained. “A member of the fire department asked me to locate him if I could.”

That brought him wide awake in a hurry. “Oh, good Lord!” he exclaimed. “Fordyce had some valuable stuff in there. Were they able to save any of it?”

“I’m afraid not,” I answered. “They had all they could do to keep the fire from spreading.” I rang off before he could think of any more questions.

“Fosdick doesn’t know where he is,” I reported to Deirdre. “And, I’m afraid, neither do I. I was never on sufficiently intimate terms with the man to know what friends he’s made since he came here, if he made any. Probably the best Way to locate him will be to have a call for him put out over the local radio station. I’ll mention it to that fireman when he comes back.”

But the fireman didn’t come back for several hours. The cool freshness of dawn was in the air when at last there came a second knock at the French doors. I went to answer it.

“It’s me again, buddy,” the fireman announced. He sounded infinitely tired, as I had no doubt that he was. “Have any luck locating the son?”

“No,” I admitted; then, realizing how his question had been phrased, “Does that mean you’ve got in touch with Dr. Fordyce?”

He didn’t answer directly. “Could you identify this Dr. Fordyce if you saw him?” he asked instead.

“I’m afraid not,” I replied, and explained about my blindness.

I could feel him staring at me in blank incredulity. “And all the time you were over there with me, I never so much as suspected you couldn’t see!” he exclaimed. “Well, I’ll be damned!”

He returned to the matter that had brought him. “Is there anybody else here who could identify Fordyce?” he inquired.

“My wife could,” I replied, even then not guessing what awful purpose lay behind his question. “I’ll call her.”

“No, don’t,” he stopped me. “This is hardly a job for a lady. What’s happened is, we’ve found a body in there where the fire was, and we think it might be his.”