His face was expressionless; his tone was so expressionless as to sound almost ironical. There seemed to be a stony sort of amusement lurking at the back of his deep-set eyes. But that might have been an illusion created by the flickering firelight.
The girl Valerie supplied the information.
"He's in the end room on the left — that window there."
Simon looked.
The room was at the end of the house which was burning most fiercely — the end close to which the fire had probably started. Under it, the ground floor looked like an open furnace through which the draught from the open windows and the open front door was driving flame in long roaring streamers. The end upper window was about fifteen feet from the ground, and there was no way of reaching it from outside without a ladder.
The fat little man was wringing his hands.
"He can't still be there," he wailed. "He must have heard the alarm—"
"Suppose he got the wind up and fainted or something?" suggested the large young man in the striped pajamas helpfully.
Simon almost hit him.
"Do you know where there's a ladder, you amazing oaf?" he demanded.