Biff was cursing slowly, gravidly.
Jimmie started the car, aided by his speechless brother. He went back around the buildings, looking at them.
Then he stopped and jumped out.
There was something so electrical in this movement that Biff, also, leaped to the ground and ran to his brother’s side. A big building shielded them from the worst of the inferno. Jimmie was staring at it, staring with all his might. “I thought—?” he said.
“There’s a man in there!”
The building was on fire all along the ground floor. Flames licked through it horizontally. Flames sent the windows tinkling and reached out into the night, embracing the structure with yellow horror. Upstairs, revealed by the wan glow of a lantern, a human figure ran past window after window.
“It’s Mr. Corinth!” Jimmie said slowly. “He must have been working tonight.”
“He’s caught!”
“I dunno. He’s going in his office. Where the records are.”
The light, with the man in front, vanished and reappeared at another window. Biff grabbed Jimmie by the sleeve. “The old man’s trapped! I can’t help much! But if you take the ladder up that tank you could hop over to the roof and get down a skylight! Toss him out the window. I’ll break his fall. Then come back through the roof—or jump, yourself.”