The Mystery of the Magic Circle - M. V. Carey [5]
“It’s okay, Mr. Grear,” said Jupiter. “We’re safe.” He took the sack of chicken from the old man and helped him sit down on a low wall in front of a little shopping centre.
“Mr. Grear! Mr. Grear!” The boys looked round to see Mr. Thomas hurrying towards them. He was dodging this way and that to get through the crowd of onlookers. “Mr. Grear, what happened? I saw the smoke. I was having dinner at a place near here and I saw the smoke. Mr. Grear, how did it start?”
Before Mr. Grear could comprehend that Thomas was questioning him, Beefy Tremayne came dashing around the corner on to Pacifica Avenue. His uncle trailed him, with Mrs. Paulson bringing up the rear.
“Mr. Grear!” cried Beefy. “You okay? Hey, are you boys all right?”
“We’re okay,” Pete assured him.
Beefy crouched beside Mr. Grear.
“I would have called you,” said Grear, “but I was too concerned about the boys.”
“We saw the smoke from our apartment and came running,” said Beefy.
A shout went up across the street. Firemen scrambled to get clear of the adobe.
Then the roof of the building fell in with a roar.
Flames leaped up against the sky. The thick walls of the old building still stood, but the firemen ignored them now. Hoses played steadily on the roofs and walls of buildings up and down the street.
Jupe looked at Mrs. Paulson. She was crying.
“Please don’t,” said Beefy. “Please, Mrs. Paulson, it’s only a building.”
“Your father’s publishing house!” sobbed Mrs. Paulson. “He was so proud of it!”
“I know,” said Beefy, “but it is just a building. As long as no one was hurt …”
The young publisher stopped talking and looked at the boys in a questioning way.
“We were the last ones out,” said Bob. “Nobody was hurt.”
Beefy managed to smile. “That’s what’s important,” he said to Mrs. Paulson.
“And Amigos Press isn’t wiped out — not by a long shot. Our inventory of books is safe in the warehouse and our plates are in storage. Why, we’ve even got the Bainbridge manuscript!”
“We have?” said Mrs. Paulson.
“Yes. I put it in my briefcase and took it home. So things aren’t that bad, and …”
Beefy broke off. A man with a hand-held camera had stepped on to the street and was walking towards the fire.
“Uh-oh,” said Beefy. “The television stations are covering this. I’d better find a phone.”
“Why?” asked William Tremayne.
“I want to call Marvin Gray,” Beefy explained, “to tell him the Bainbridge manuscript is safe. If he watches the news and finds out that Amigos Press burned down, he’ll think the manuscript went with it unless I tell him differently.”
Beefy headed for the filling station on the corner, where there was a pay telephone.
At that moment, Jupiter became aware that there was a man approaching from across the street — a man whose face was ghastly white. He was bleeding badly from a wound on his scalp.
“Oh, gosh!” exclaimed Pete.
The blood coursed down the man’s cheek and soaked the front of his shirt.
“What on earth?” said William Tremayne.
Jupiter started forward as the man collapsed in the street. A fireman ran to bend over the fallen man, and two policemen hurried to help him. Gingerly they turned him over on his back, and one of them looked quickly at the wound on his head.
“Say, I know him!” A stout woman pushed her way out of the crowd and went to the policemen. “He works in that film place there.” She pointed towards Film Craft Laboratory, a solidly built brick building which was next to the ruins of Amigos Press.
“I’ve seen him come and go lots of times,” said the woman.
One of the policemen stood up. “I’ll call an ambulance,” he told his partner.
“Then we’d better check out that film lab. Doesn’t look as if this guy’s going to be able to tell us anything. He might not wake up for quite a while!”
Chapter 3
The Double Disaster
THERE WAS a brief account of the fire on the late news that night. Jupiter watched it with his aunt Mathilda and uncle Titus, with whom he lived.