The crackling sound was growing louder now. Major Brane could hear the frantic beat of panic stricken feet on the floor above. Then there was an explosion, followed by a series of explosions, coming from the cellar. Those would be cartridges exploding.
Major Brane upset a chest of drawers to examine the wall behind it. He picked up a hammer and pounded the cement of the floor. He cocked a wary eye at the ceiling, studied it.
The girl watched him in silence.
The fire was seething flame now, crackling, roaring. The door of the room in which they found themselves began to warp under the heat.
Major Brane was as calm as though he had been solving a chess problem, over a cigarette and cordial. He moved a box. The box didn’t tip as it should. It pivoted instead. An oblong opening showed in the wall as the swinging box moved back a slab of what appeared to be solid concrete.
A fire siren was wailing in the distance. There were no more sounds of running feet above the torture chamber.
An automobile exhaust ripped the night. There were heavier explosions from the seat of the fire; then a terrific explosion that burst in the warped door. An inferno of red, roaring flame showed its hideous maw. Heat transformed the room into an oven. The red flames were bordered with a twisting vortex of black smoke.
Major Brane gave the inferno a casual glance, stood to one side to let the girl join him. She walked steadily to his side, and together, they walked along the passage, climbed a flight of stairs.
They came to what appeared to be a solid wall. Major Brane pushed against it. It was plaster and lath, and doubtless swung on a pivot. Major Brane had no time to locate the catch which controlled the opening; he lashed out with his foot, kicked a hole in the plaster. When he looked through the opening, he was peering into a room, furnished as a bedroom. It was deserted.
His second kick dislodged the spring mechanism which controlled the door. The section of plastered wall swung around. Major Brane led the girl into the room, Brinkhoff’s automatic ready at his side. They walked through the room to a passage.
The open door led to the night, revealed a glimpse of the street outside, which was already crowded with curious spectators, showed firemen running with a hose. But Major Brane turned in the other direction.
“This way,” he said. “It will avoid explanations.”
They ran down the corridor, toward a rear exit. Major Brane recognized the stairs which led to the garage. He piloted the girl toward them.
In the garage she paused, looked about her. There was a wooden jack handle lying on a bench. The girl stopped to pick it up.
Major Brane grinned at her. “You won’t need it. They’ve all ducked for cover,” he said.
The girl said nothing, which was as he had expected.
A fireman came running down the alley, motioning calling instructions to other men, who were dragging a hose. He glanced sharply at Major Brane and the girl.
“Get outa here!” he yelled. “You’re inside the fire lines. You’ll get killed, sticking your noses into danger zones.”
Major Brane bowed apologetically. “Is this the danger zone?” he asked, wide-eyed in his innocence.
The fireman snorted.
“It sure is. Get out!”
Major Brane followed instructions. They came to the fire lines at the corner, turned into a dark building entrance. Major Brane peered out, whispered to the girl.
“We don’t want to be seen coming out of this district. The thing to do is to wait until they run in that second hose, then slip along the shadows, and...”
He sensed a surreptitious rustle behind him. He turned, startled, just in time to see the jack handle coming down. He tried to throw up his hand, and was too late. The jack handle crashed on his head. He fought to keep his senses. There were blinding lights before his eyes, a black nausea gripping him. Something seemed to burst in his brain. He realized it was the jack handle making a second blow, and then he knew nothing further, save a vast engulfing wall of blackness that smothered him with a rushing embrace.
When next he knew anything, it was a series of joltings and swayings, interspersed with demoniacal screams. The screams grew and receded at regular intervals, split the tortured head of Major Brane as though they had been edged with the teeth of a saw.
Then he identified them. They were the wails of a siren, and he was riding in an ambulance.
A bell clanged. The screams died away. The ambulance stopped, backed. The door opened. Hands slid out the stretcher. Major Brane groaned, tried to sit up, was gripped with faintness and nausea. He became unconscious again.
The next thing he knew, there was a bright light in his eyes, and something soothing on his head. He felt soft hands patting about in the finishing touches of a dressing.
He opened his eyes. A nurse regarded him without pity, without scorn, merely as a receiving hospital nurse regards any minor case.
“You got past the fire line and into the danger zone,” she said. “Something fell on your head.”
Major Brane had presence of mind enough to heave a sigh of relief that the Chinese girl had taken his automatic with her. To have had that in his possession when he was found would have necessitated explanation.
“A Chinese girl told them about seeing you try to run past the line, when something fell from a building,” said the nurse. “Her name’s on record, if you want a witness for anything.”
Major Brane grinned. “Not at all necessary,” he said. “I was simply careless, that’s all.”
“I’ll say you were,” said the nurse, helping him to sit up right. “Feel better?”
Major Brane slid his feet over the edge of the surgical table.
“I think I can make it all right,” he said.
She helped him to a chair, gave him a stimulant. Fifteen minutes later he was able to call a cab and leave the hospital. He went at once to his hotel.
He brushed past the clerk, who stared at his bandaged head curiously; he took the elevator, went to his own room. He fitted a key, opened the door. The smell of Chinese tobacco assailed his nostrils.
“Do not turn on the light,” said a voice, and Major Brane recognized it as that of the old Chinese sage who had started him upon his mission.
Major Brane hesitated, sighed, walked into the room and closed the door.
“I came to give my apologies,” said the old man, a huddled figure of dark mystery in the darkened room, illuminated only by such light as came through the transom over the door.
“Don’t mention it,” said Major Brane. “I was careless.”
“But,” said the sage, “I want you to understand...”
Major Brane laughed. “I understood,” he said, “as soon as I saw the jack handle coming down on my head. The girl had the check hidden, and she wanted to get it right away. She couldn’t be certain that my rescue wasn’t merely a ruse on the part of her enemies. I didn’t have anything to identify me as having come from her friends. Therefore, it was possible that her enemies, seeing that torture would do no good, had staged a fake rescue, hoping to trap her into taking her supposed rescuer to the place where the check was hidden. I should have anticipated just such a thought on her part.”
The old man got to his feet. Major Brane could hear him sigh.
“It is satisfying to deal with one who has understanding,” he said.
Major Brane saw him move to the door, open it, saw the hunched figure silhouetted against the oblong of light from the corridor.
“She had dropped the check in the waste basket by the side of her desk when she knew her theft was discovered,” said the old man, and closed the door.
Major Brane sat in the darkness for some seconds before he turned on the light. When he did so he saw two articles on the table near which the old man had sat. One was a white jade figure of the Goddess of Mercy, a figure that was carved with infinite cunning and patience, a figure that thrilled the collector’s heart of Major Brane. Instantly he knew that it was something that was almost priceless. The second object was a purse, crammed with bills of large denomination.