Part 37 (2/2)

The fire officer brightened. ”Craig Kennedy?” he inquired. ”Gee! there must be some connection between the blaze and the murder of Stella Lamar and her director. I've been reading about it every day in the papers.”

”Mr. Jameson of the Star,” Kennedy said, presenting me.

We found we could not enter the bas.e.m.e.nt immediately adjoining the vaults--that is, directly from the courtyard--because it seemed advisable to keep a stream of water playing down the steps, and a resulting cloud of steam blocked us. Manton explained that we could get through from the next cellar if it was not too hot, and so we hurried toward another entrance.

Mackay, who had remained behind to protect the bag from the heat, joined us there.

”I've put the bag in charge of that chauffeur, McGroarty, and armed him with my automatic,” he explained. He paused to wipe his eyes. The fumes from the film had distressed all of us. ”s.h.i.+rley and Marilyn Loring are both missing still,” he added. ”I've been asking everyone about them.

No one has seen them.”

The fire chief looked up. ”Everyone is out? You are sure everybody is safe?”

”I had Wagnalls at my elbow with a hose,” Manton replied. ”I saw the boy around, also. No one else had any business down there and the vaults were closed and the cellar shut off.”

The door leading from the adjoining bas.e.m.e.nt was hot yet, but not so that we were unable to handle it. However, the catch had stuck and it took considerable effort to force it in. As we did so a cloud of acrid vapor and steam drove us back.

Then Kennedy seemed to detect something in the slowly clearing atmosphere. He rushed ahead without hesitation. The fire chief followed. In another instant I was able to see also.

The form of a woman, dimly outlined in the vapor, struggled to lift the p.r.o.ne figure of a man. After one effort she collapsed upon him. I dashed forward, as did Mackay and Manton. Two of them carried the girl out to the air; the other three of us brought her unconscious companion. It was Marilyn and s.h.i.+rley.

The little actress was revived easily, but s.h.i.+rley required the combined efforts of Kennedy and the chief, and it was evident that he had escaped death from suffocation only by the narrowest of margins.

How either had survived seemed a mystery. Their clothes were wet, their faces and hands blackened, eyebrows and lashes scorched by the heat.

But for the water poured into the bas.e.m.e.nt neither would have been alive. They had been prisoners during the entire conflagration, the burning vault holding them at one end of the bas.e.m.e.nt, the door in the part.i.tion resisting their efforts to open it.

”Thank heaven he's alive!” were Marilyn's first words.

”How did you get in the cellar?” Kennedy spoke sternly.

”I thought he might be there.” Now that the reaction was setting in, the girl was faint and she controlled herself with difficulty. ”I was looking for him and as soon as I heard the first explosion I ran down the steps into the film-vault entrance--I was right near there--and I found him, stunned. I started to lift him, but there were other explosions almost before I got to his side. The flames shot out through the cracks in the vault door and I--I couldn't drag him to the steps; I had to pull him back where you found us.” She began to tremble. ”It--it was terrible!”

”Was there anyone else about, anyone but Mr. s.h.i.+rley?”

”No. I--I remember I wondered about the vault man.”

”What was Mr. s.h.i.+rley down there for, Miss Loring?”

”He”--she hesitated--”he said he had seen some one hanging around and--and he didn't want to report anything until he was sure. He--he thought he could accomplish more by himself, although I told him he was--was wrong.”

”Whom did he see hanging around?”

”He wouldn't tell me.”

s.h.i.+rley was too weak to question and the girl too unstrung to stand further interrogation. In response to Manton's call several people came up and willingly helped the two toward the comfort of their dressing rooms.

At the fire chief's suggestion the stream of water into the bas.e.m.e.nt was cut off. Manton led the way, choking, eyes watering, to the front of the vaults. Feverishly he felt the steel doors and the walls. There was no mistaking the conclusion. The negative vault was hot, the others cold.

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