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Page 102
The studio fire equipment seemed to be very complete. There was
water at high pressure from a tank elevated some twenty to thirty
feet above the uppermost roof of the quadrangle. In addition
Manton had invested in the chemical engine and also in sand
carts, because water aids rather than retards the combustion of
film itself. I noticed that the promoter was in direct charge of
the fire-fighters, and that he moved about with a zeal and a
recklessness which ended for once and all in my mind the
suspicion that Phelps might be correct and that Manton sought to
wreck this company for the sake of Fortune Features.
In an amazingly quick space of time the thing was over. When the
city apparatus arrived, after a run of nearly three miles, there
was nothing for them to do. The chief sought out Manton, to
accompany him upon an inspection of the damage and to make sure
that the fire was out. The promoter first beckoned to Kennedy.
"This is unquestionably of incendiary origin," he explained to
the chief. "I want Mr. Kennedy to see everything before it is
disturbed, so that no clue may be lost or destroyed."
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 basement 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. "Shirley
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 basement 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 prone 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 Shirley.
The little actress was revived easily, but Shirley 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
basement neither would have been alive. They had been prisoners
during the entire conflagration, the burning vault holding them
at one end of the basement, the door in the partition 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.
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