“Ye gods, Fred!” he exclaimed. “Have they got you, too? What on earth for?”
Carroll, bleeding from a deep gash on his left temple, and badly bruised about the face, laughed bitterly.
“There’s been a tragedy,” he said. “The Chronicle Building has been blown up by dynamite, and old man Gale killed—or, at least, fatally injured. And that fathead, Hodgins, accuses me of being responsible for the outrage.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A BOMB OUTRAGE.
Chief of Police Hodgins had been to the city hall to tell the mayor the good news that the Camera Chap had been captured, and was on his way back to police headquarters when the explosion in the Chronicle Building occurred.
As he passed the office of Gale’s newspaper, the chief thought that he might as well drop in and tell his old friend the glad tidings, too. He knew that the proprietor of the Chronicle and his son would be delighted to hear that Hawley’s wings had been clipped at last, and that Mayor Henkle had agreed that the “young desperado” must be sent to jail, public sentiment to the contrary notwithstanding.
Hodgins was just about to enter the building when there came a violent report, followed instantly by a crash and loud cries of alarm.
“Great grief!” he gasped. “What has happened? Sounds as if a bomb had gone off. And it came from inside the building, too!”
Rushing up the stairs, which were strewn with pieces of plaster that the explosion had torn from the walls, the chief entered the private office of Delancey Gale—or, to be more exact, all that was left of the private office.
The room was a total wreck. Its door had been torn from its hinges; the panes of the two windows were completely blown out; the ceiling had come down; great holes had been torn in the plastering of the walls; the office furniture was smashed.