After carrying Grayle into the garage, Bannerman returned for the second victim, whom he recognised as a young man named Beresford. Of the third there was no sign in the front half of the room, and he had to go for more water. The wooden walls had now caught fire, the book-cases and chairs were smouldering and the oilcloth had blistered and cracked and was smoking ominously. A very few minutes' work were to shew him that one man armed with one bedroom jug could not even keep the flames from spreading. He ran backwards and forwards drenching the floor with water, but never clearing a path sufficient to allow of his advancing more than a third of the way into the room. When the fire-engines arrived, the flames had eaten through the walls and were licking the wooden gables of the roof; they had licked to so great effect that the first jet of water brought down a cascade of tiles and charred rafters.
While the hoses played, Bannerman looked to the men whom he had succeeded in carrying out. Grayle was alive and breathing faintly, though his clothes fell away in handfuls of black ash at the first touch, and his face and head were shockingly burnt and disfigured. Beresford gave no sign of life. His hair was singed and blackened where he had fallen on his face against the bars of the grate; his clothes were as much charred as Grayle's, but his body was almost unmarked, save for a bruise over the heart, no doubt from contact with the point of the fender. Death was probably due to asphyxiation; this was the unofficial opinion of the doctor, pending the inquest. Partial and temporary asphyxiation, indeed, was the only explanation why the three men had not either put out the flames or escaped from the burning room.
There remained the second visitor, and, as soon as the fire had been put out, Bannerman returned to the loft. By the light of a stable lantern, it was possible to make a cautious search. Three-quarters of the roof had disappeared, burnt away or fallen in heaps of broken tiles and blackened timber on the floor or in the garden; the walls on two sides, the floor at one end had disappeared equally. On what remained lay a pile of charred table legs and chair backs, broken glass and blistered deed-boxes, scorched books and odd, unidentified metal fastenings and joints, the whole dripping and lapped with sinister black water. Bannerman explored every inch of the wreckage and returned to the garage empty-handed. At the end, where the ceiling had fallen in, a smaller pile of wreckage reared itself fantastically on a platform of petrol cans. A revolving book-case and a filing cabinet, charred but intact, were half buried under broken tiles and blackened volumes of Parliamentary Debates; a stout table leg and a small safe lay further away; and there was the reeking half of a burnt fur-coat.
My interest in the "Daily Gazette" narrative quickened at this point. Mr. Bannerman had admitted Beresford and another (whose name was not given). They had tried the front door-unsuccessfully, because all the servants were out for the night. A constable had suggested their going round to the door in the lane; they had entered; there was no hint that one had left before the other. No doubt in a few hours negative proof would be forthcoming, but, until that appeared, or until a further examination could be made, it was possible that the second visitor had been a second victim.
"I'm afraid we've seen the last of young Beresford," I said to Bertrand.
"What's happened to him?" he asked.
"You haven't read this yet?" I said. "Well, wait till George comes back at lunch-time, and I'll tell you the whole story. I rather fancy that a good many people have seen the last of me. I say, Bertrand, have you ever been present at a cremation?"
He looked at me sorrowfully.
"I should have thought you'd had enough trouble for one night," he said.
"I have, I can assure you. But my career of crime is in its infancy—I'll explain all this at lunch;—I want to know what sort of fire it takes to consume a human body so that there's no trace of flesh, blood, hair, bone, clothing——"