Joe Cardona was at work. He had recovered from the dazzling flares which had temporarily blinded him.
Inspector Timothy Klein was on the scene. He had followed the detective, and had arrived just after the explosion. Now he was commenting on the situation.
“It’s lucky you got out, Joe,” he said. “Otherwise, we’d never have got the dope on this. Seven of them you say—”
“Six,” corrected Cardona. “We got one, you know.”
“One’s not enough!”
“Our men are in the streets.”
A fire ladder had been raised against the side of the old apartment house. Smoke was pouring through the doors and windows. Cardona, awaiting the report of his men, paused to watch a fireman who was ascending the ladder. The task was a perilous one.
The wall was in danger of cracking, yet the man appeared unperturbed. He reached the top of the ladder and peered into the ruins beneath, as one would look into the crater of a smoldering volcano.
Then he gazed downward to the street. Other firemen were following him. The man at the top of the ladder laughed softly as he stepped from the ladder and stood upon the dizzy parapet.
Strangely enough, his eyes were not focused upon the ruins of the inner building. He was staring toward the roofs of the houses in the surrounding blocks.