“Ah! Mrs. Knumf,” said Adolph. “Sit down. Have some wine. Now, you know the Cruchot girls, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes. At least, by sight,” said Mrs. Knumf, sipping her wine genteelly, and simpering.
“Well, Tansy and I are after them. They’re still in their flat. In half-an-hour or so the fire will be upon them. We must let them nearly get caught, and then we’ll rescue them. It should be simple enough. We will take the carriage. They will come back here with you. This is your private house: it is the headquarters of the Sisters of Mercy of the Orient: it is a branch of the Sacred Heart League: it is anything you like to call it. You understand? Well, then, come along.”
Mrs. Knumf eagerly swallowed the remainder of her champagne and rose. She composed her face and began to fiddle with a pair of black gloves. She coughed behind a delicate hand.
They passed into the street and entered a carriage. Even here, near the quay, they could hear the explosive noises that the hundred-acre furnace made. A vast belt of smoke blotted out half the stars. Millions of sparks were jerked into, and quenched by, the smoke, like water frantically forced through a hose-pipe.
They had but seven or eight hundred yards to go; the streets were crowded and they could proceed only at a snail’s pace. So intense was the light and so black the shadows that the streets and buildings looked grotesquely unreal. Almost everybody was shouting wildly. Many carried open bottles: their eyes were wide and glittering. An old man sat in the gutter laughing horribly and shouting indecencies to people as they passed. Some of the smaller shops had been broken open, and looting proceeded apace.
The fire strode about the city like a giant. It littered young pythons of fire that glided subterraneously hither and thither and set a red doom on old wooden warehouses and shops. It stretched quivering tongues of flame across the streets and knit up one quarter of the town with another. It triumphed scarletly in the night and, pushing violently against lofty walls of brick and stone, sent them rattling to the ground.
“It is a good night for everyone except the insurance companies,” said Mrs. Knumf, complacently.
But when they stepped from the carriage on to the road, a gust of hot air carried to them the brain-sickening smell of burnt flesh.
“A good many people will be missing to-morrow,” remarked Tansy.