“I’ll go for you,” noting her agonized expression. “What is it you want out of your desk?”
“My miniature and a ring”—she blurted out, and would have followed Patterson, but a strong hand pushed her back from the staircase.
“Please leave, lady,” exclaimed one of the firemen, and Ethel turning reluctantly, protestingly away, saw Patterson bounding up the staircase. A second more and he was lost to sight in the dense smoke.
On the third floor Julian Barclay hurried swiftly from room to room peering into closets, under beds, then upward, through the servants’ quarters, to the attic, but his search was unavailing. Yoshida Ito had vanished into thin air. Reluctantly he gave up his search, and paused on the landing of the third floor stairs to glance out of the window. In the lurid glare of firelight he made out the group of shivering women standing well back in the crowd which grows, Aladdin-like, at the cry of “Fire.” From the dense volume of smoke rolling through the hall beneath, and the added glare in the street, he judged the firemen had not gained control as quickly as he had imagined they would when first starting on his search for the Japanese.
Barclay continued his way down the staircase with added haste; he had no desire to be caught in a fire trap. The dense smoke ahead drifted aside for a moment, and he caught sight of a man advancing half-crouching near the still lighted electric hall lamp. Barclay crooked his finger on the trigger of his revolver and measured the distance.
Outside in the street the imperative clang, clang of the gong on a speeding automobile scattered the ever increasing crowd. The fire chief had arrived. His appearance in the house was hailed by the crack of a shot, followed by another and another. The firemen in the second story gave back. Bullets were whistling uncomfortably near.
“Good God!” Walter Ogden, upstairs with the firemen, turned a ghastly face to the shadowy form nearest him. “The boxes of cartridges which I kept in my desk have ignited.”
Mrs. Ogden, shivering partly from cold and partly from shock and excitement, stood with her guests, begging each fireman who approached within hailing distance, to get her guests’ wraps from the cloak room, and finally the bishop and the ambassador brought out a heap of costly cloaks and coats and passed them indiscriminately among the women who were only too thankful to cover their bare shoulders and hide their handsome jewelry from the curious glances of the crowd.
Firemen had gained admission to the house next door to the Ogdens’ and from windows overlooking the fire, poured a stream of water into the burning rooms, for the fire had spread to Mrs. Ogden’s bedroom. Bullets zipping by their ears, caused the firemen to drop their hose in consternation, and the men on the ladders likewise ducked out of range.
“Are we to burn up entirely?” groaned Mrs. Ogden. “My beautiful things. Oh, oh, what’s that!” and she clutched Ethel despairingly. “Are they shooting each other in the house?”