The Poisoned Pen [36]
again. "Stand back with those lanterns, boys," he ordered. I sniffed, expecting to smell illuminating-gas. Instead, a peculiar, sweetish odour pervaded the air. For a moment it made me think of a hospital operating-room. "Ether," exclaimed Kennedy. "Stand back farther with those lights and hold them up from the floor." For a moment he seemed to hesitate as if at loss what to do next. Should he open the door and let this highly inflammable gas out or should he wait patiently until the natural ventilation of the little office had dispelled it? While he was debating he happened to glance out of the window and catch sight of a drug-store across the street. "Walter," he said to me, "hurry across there and get all the saltpeter and sulphur the man has in the shop. I lost no time in doing so. Kennedy dumped the two chemicals into a pan in the middle of the main office, about three-fifths saltpeter and two-fifths sulphur, I should say. Then he lighted it. The mass burned with a bright flame but without explosion. We could smell the suffocating fumes from it, and we retreated. For a moment or two we watched it curiously at a distance. "That's very good extinguishing-powder," explained Craig as we sniffed at the odour. "It yields a large amount of carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide. Now - before it gets any worse - I guess it's safe to open the door and let the ether out. You see this is as good a way as any to render safe a room full of inflammable vapour. Come, we'll wait outside the main office for a few minutes until the gases mix. It seemed hours before Kennedy deemed it safe to enter the office again with a light. When we did so, we made a rush for the little cubby-hole of an office at the other end. On the floor was a little can of ether, evaporated of course, and beside it a small apparatus apparently used for producing electric sparks. "So, that's how he does it," mused Kennedy, fingering the can contemplatively. "He lets the ether evaporate in a room for a while and then causes an explosion from a safe distance with this little electric spark. There's where your wire comes in, McCormick. Say, my man, you can switch on the lights from downstairs, now." As we waited for the watchman to turn on the lights I exclaimed, "He failed this time because the electricity was shut off." Precisely, Walter," assented Kennedy. "But the flames which the night watchman saw, what of them?" put in McCormick, considerably mystified. "He must have seen something." Just then the lights winked up. "Oh, that was before the fellow tried to touch off the ether vapour," explained Kennedy. "He had to make sure of his work of destruction first - and, judging by the charred papers about, he did it well. See, he tore leaves from the ledgers and lighted them on the floor. There was an object in all that. What was it? Hello! Look at this mass of charred paper in the corner." He bent down and examined it carefully. "Memoranda of some kind, I guess. I'll save this burnt paper and look it over later. Don't disturb it. I'll take it away myself." Search as we might, we could find no other trace of the firebug, and at last we left. Kennedy carried the charred paper carefully in a large hat-box. "There'll be no more fires to-night, McCormick," he said. "But I'll watch with you every night until we get this incendiary. Meanwhile I'll see what I can decipher, if anything, in this burnt paper." Next day McCormick dropped in to see us again. This time he had another note, a disguised scrawl which read:
Chief I'm not through. Watch me get another store yet. I won't fall down this time. Craig scowled as he read the note and handed it to me. "The man's
A. SPARK.
writing this time - like the second note," was all he said. "McCormick, since we know where the lightning is going to strike, don't you think it would be wiser to make our headquarters in one of the engine-houses in that district?" The fire marshal agreed, and that night saw us watching at the fire-house nearest the department-store region. Kennedy and I were assigned
Chief I'm not through. Watch me get another store yet. I won't fall down this time. Craig scowled as he read the note and handed it to me. "The man's
A. SPARK.
writing this time - like the second note," was all he said. "McCormick, since we know where the lightning is going to strike, don't you think it would be wiser to make our headquarters in one of the engine-houses in that district?" The fire marshal agreed, and that night saw us watching at the fire-house nearest the department-store region. Kennedy and I were assigned