THE INCENDIARY
A Story of Mystery.
BY W. A. LEAHY.
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:
RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY,
MDCCCXCVII.
A PRIZE STORY
In The Chicago Record series of "Stories of Mystery."
THE INCENDIARY
BY W. A. Leahy.
(This story—out of 816 competing—was awarded the fourth prize in the
Chicago Record's "$30,000 to Authors" competition.)
Copyright, 1896, by W. A. Leahy.
THE INCENDIARY.
CHAPTER I.
FANFARE: THE PLAY BEGINS.
It was about half-past three in the afternoon when Bertha, thehousemaid, came running down the steps, with a shrill cry of "Fire!" andfell plump into the arms of the bake-shop girl, who had seen the smokecurling from Prof. Arnold's window and was hastening across to warn theoccupants of his house. The deep bark of a dog was heard within andpresently Sire, the professor's old St. Bernard, rushed by the two youngwomen and darted hither and thither, accosting the bystandersdistractedly, as if burdened with a message he could not communicate.
"Ring the alarm!" cried Bertha and the bake-shop girl in a breath, assoon as they had recovered from the shock of their collision. Their crywas taken up by a knot of three boys, who, as usual, were the first onthe spot; passed along till it reached some loungers on the corner,whose inertia was more gradually overcome; and presently half theneighborhood, as if by a spontaneous impulse, came thronging intoCazenove street, each following his leader, like a flock of startledewes. Bertha, caught in the middle of this ring of sight-seers, stoodparalyzed a moment; then singling out the one man of action, she brokethrough the crowd and stopped him midway in his advance.
"For the love of heaven, will you ring the alarm?"
The postman turned and scudded to the box. There was an interval ofsuspense that seemed an age.
"Is there any one in the house?" was the first question of PatrolmanChandler, when he galloped up to the scene. He had been attracted atonce by the barking of Sire.
"Mr. Robert," cried Bertha, wringing her hands. "Mr. Robert was in thestudy." The crowd looked up and measured the swift gains of thedestructive element.
"Young Floyd?" said Chandler. Then he rushed into the house and up thefirst flight of winding stairs, the dog, as he did so, following himwith a great fusillade of delighted barks.
"There's some one inside," said the crowd, and the rumor passed frommouth to mouth.
"Fire! Fire!" called Chandler from the corridor window above. "Yell, youfellows, as you never yelled before!"
In response a cry of "Fire!" went up from man, woman and child, bass andtreble intermingling, loud enough to have waked the seven sleepers fromtheir trance. But no one stirred inside. Just at this moment the tardybells rang out the number of the box, and almost immediately, as anengine came rounding a distant corner and the great gray horses boundedup the grade, the uproar began to subside. On, on, past the doomedhouse, now enveloped in flames, to the nearest hydrant, the driverlashed his pair. The hydrant cover had been thrown off and the firstblock of coal flung into the engine's furnace before Patrolman Chandlerreissued from the door which he had entered.
"There is no one there," he gasped, as if choking with the smoke. Butthe dog continued to leap about, accosting the bystanders appealingly,until his ba