“That suits me,” said Ken, “I’ll go along.”
Whistling, chatting, they walked along Main Street when Ken suddenly saw something that made him quickly alert.
Paul was eyeing a window display as he walked. He felt his arm pinched and he uttered a muffled cry. “Hey!”
Ken muttered, “Shsh! Look!”
Across the street was the man who looked so much like Mr. Wilson! The boys gasped. He was standing in the doorway of a three story apartment house. The ground floor was occupied by a haberdashery on one side and a shoe store on the other. The mystery man, with his wild, maniacal appearance, glanced both ways, then he walked off, heading north. Paul cried, “Come on. I’ll take care of him, Ken. You run into the hall of the building and see what he may have been up to.”
Ken rushed into the hall. He searched frantically and at last he found under the stairs a bundle of rags evidently soaked in gasoline or kerosene, in flames. The wall and the back of the stairs were already beginning to smolder. By some luck, there happened to be a pail of dirty water at the other end of the hall. He grabbed it and dashed the water on the fire. The flames were out in a moment. With the rags soaking wet, he wiped it across the smoldering wood.
Holding on to the rags, he ran outside and looked at the number of the building. At the curb he found a sheet of newspaper which he wrapped around the wet rags. And to make sure he did not forget the address, he wrote it down.
In the meanwhile, Paul had approached the man and took him under the arm. “Do you mind if I walk along with you?” he asked.
“Oh, no, no. No, not at all.”