Ethel listened to the fusillade in horrified silence, while straining her eyes to catch a glimpse of James Patterson among the men clustered in the Ogdens’ entrance hall. He had had plenty of time to secure her miniature and ring and return. Fear chilled her at the thought that he might have been overcome by the smoke. Why, why had she let him go? She should have recollected that her desk was of metal and supposedly fireproof. Mrs. Ogden’s grasp on her arm tightened, and Ethel turned to remonstrate, but she found her cousin in no condition to listen to reason or release her clasp.
“Ethel, do tell me what is going on?” she implored distractedly. “There, listen!”
“It sounds like cartridges exploding,” gasped Ethel.
“Cartridges?” Mrs. Ogden forgot everything in sudden fury. “Walter left two boxes of them in his desk—oh, the rascal—the fool!”
“Hush!” Professor Norcross shook her roughly. “I came out to tell you, Mrs. Ogden, that the fire is almost under control, and as soon as the cartridges are all discharged the firemen will get into the room. There, they are resuming work now.”
The professor proved a true prophet. With the arrival of another engine and the additional force of water, the firemen stamped out the last spark of fire. Mrs. Ogden and her guests again gathered in her drawing room, and the crowded street was once more empty, the spectators drifting away in the wake of the departing firemen, a few of whom remained behind.
The rooms and corridors of the house were still filled with smoke, when Leonard McLane, his eyes smarting, stopped to fling open first one window and then another as he made his way through the house. Turning from the back stairs into the front corridor on the second floor he stopped abruptly at sight of Julian Barclay bending over a figure stretched on the floor.
Barclay lifted a relieved face as McLane touched him on the shoulder.
“I’ve just found James Patterson,” he said. “I fear he is overcome by the smoke,” rising to make place for the surgeon. “Is the fire out?”
McLane did not answer at once; his skillful fingers making swift examination, and his expression grew grimmer and more grim.