He ran up the steps and tried the slanting outside cellar door. It seemed to be padlocked from the outside. But he could see where the hasp of the padlock was. He put the muzzle of the automatic against the door there, and tried the trigger again. He brought up his other hand and tried the gun with both hands. It wouldn’t fire.
He glanced behind him again. Flames filled almost the entire cellar. At first he thought he was hopelessly trapped.
Then through the smoke and flame he saw that there was an outside window only a few yards away, and a chair that would give him access to it.
Still clinging to the gun that wouldn’t shoot, he got the window open and climbed out. A sheet of flame, drawn by the draft of the opened window, followed him out into the night.
He paused only an instant for some cool air and a quick look, to be sure his clothing wasn’t afire, and then ran around the house and up onto the front porch. Already the fire was licking upward. Through the first-floor windows he could see its red glare.
He ran up onto the front porch. The gun that wouldn’t shoot came in handy to knock the glass, already cracked by explosion, out of the front door so he could reach in and turn the key.
As he went into the hallway, Mr. Smith heard the back door of the house slam, and surmised that Greasy Face was making his getaway. But Mr. Smith’s interests lay upstairs; he didn’t believe that the fleeing criminal would have untied his captive.
The staircase was ablaze, but still intact. Mr. Smith took a handkerchief from his pocket, held it tightly over his mouth and nose, and darted up through the flames.
The hallway on the second floor was swirling with smoke, but not yet afire. He stopped only long enough to beat out the little flame that was licking upward from one of his trouser cuffs, and then began to throw open the doors that led from the hallway.
In the center room on the left, just down the hallway from the stairs, a bound and gagged man was lying on a bed.
Hurriedly Mr. Smith took off the gag and began to work on the ropes that were knotted tightly about his feet and ankles.
“You’re Mr. Kessler?” he asked.
The gray-haired man took a deep breath and then nodded weakly. “Are you the police or—?”
Mr. Smith shook his head. “I’m an agent for the Phalanx Life and Fire Insurance Company, Mr. Kessler. I’ve got to get you out of here, because the house is burning down and we’ve got a big policy on your life. Two hundred thousand, isn’t it?”
The ropes at the wrists of the prisoner gave way. “You rub your wrists, Mr. Kessler,” said Mr. Smith, “to get back your circulation, while I untie your ankles. We’ll have to work fast to get out of here. I hope we haven’t a policy on this house, because there isn’t going to be a house here in another fifteen or twenty minutes.”
The final knots parted. Over the crackling of flames, Mr.
Smith heard the cough of an automobile’s engine. He ran to the open window and looked out, while Mr. Kessler stood up.
Through the windshield of the car nosing out of the garage behind the house, he could see the face of the leader of the trio of kidnapers. The driveway ran under the window.
“The last survivor of your three acquaintances is leaving us,” said Mr. Smith over his shoulder. “I think the police would appreciate it if we slowed down his departure.”
He picked up a heavy metal-based lamp from the bureau beside the window and jerked it loose from its cord.
As he leaned out of the window, the car, gathering speed, was almost directly below him. Mr. Smith poised the lamp and slammed it downward.
It struck the hood just in front of the windshield. There was the sound of breaking glass, and the car swerved into the side of the house and jammed tightly against it. One wheel kept on rolling, but the car itself didn’t.
Greasy Face came out of the car door, and there was a long red gash across his forehead from the broken glass. He squinted up at the window as he stepped back, then raised a revolver and fired. Mr. Smith ducked back as a bullet thudded into the house beside the window.
“Mr. Kessler,” he said, “I’m afraid I made a mistake. I should have permitted him to depart. We’ll have to leave by the other side of the house.”
Kessler was stamping his foot to help bring his cramped leg muscles back to normal. Mr. Smith ran past him and opened the door to the hallway. He staggered back and slammed it shut again as a sheet of flame burst in.
The room was thick with smoke now, and on the inside edge, flames were beginning to lick through the floorboards.
“The hallway is quite impassable,” said the insurance agent. “And I fear the stairs are gone by now, anyway. I fear we shall have to—” He coughed from the smoke and looked around. There was no other door.
“Well,” he said cheerfully, “perhaps our friend has—”
Two shots, as he appeared at the window, told him that Greasy Face was still there. One of them went through the upper pane of the window, near the top.
Mr. Smith leaped to one side, then peered cautiously out again. The leader of the kidnapers stood, revolver in hand, twenty feet back from the house, beyond the wrecked car under the window. His face was twisted with anger.
“Come out and get it, damn you,” he yelled. “Or stay in there and sizzle.”
The gray-haired man was coughing violently now.
“What can we—?”
Mr. Smith took the automatic from his pocket and glanced at it regretfully. “If only this thing — Mr. Kessler, do you know how many bullets a revolver holds? He’s shot three times. And lie’s nearsighted. Maybe—”
“Six, most of them, I think. But—” The gray-haired man was gasping now. Mr. Smith took a deep breath and stepped to the window, started to climb through it. If he could get the kidnaper to empty his revolver, probably he could bluff him with the automatic that wouldn’t shoot.
The gun below him barked and a bullet thudded into the window sill. Another; he didn’t know where it landed. The third shot went just over his head as he let go and dropped to the top of the wrecked car.
He whirled, jumped to the grass. It was farther than he thought and he fell, but still clung to the automatic. He was flat on his face in the grass only a few steps from the kidnaper.
Greasy Face didn’t wait to reload. He clubbed the revolver and stepped in. Mr. Smith rolled over hastily, bringing the automatic up, held in both hands. “Raise your—”
His grip on the weapon was tight with desperation and one thumb chanced to touch and move the safety lever. The automatic roared so loudly and suddenly that the unexpected recoil knocked it out of the insurance agent’s hands.
But there was a look of surprise on the face of the stocky man, and there was a hole in his chest. He turned slowly as he fell, and Mr. Smith felt slightly ill to see that there was a hole, much larger, in the middle of the kidnaper’s back.
Mr. Smith rose a bit unsteadily and hurried back to the car to help Mr. Kessler down to the ground. Over the crackling roar of the flames they could now hear the wail of approaching sirens.
The gray-haired man glanced apprehensively at the fallen kidnaper. “Is he—?”
Mr. Smith nodded. “I didn’t mean to shoot — but I told them they were in a hazardous occupation. Someone must have seen the blaze and reported it. Some of those sirens sound like police cars. They’ll be glad to know you’re safe, Mr. Kessler. They’ve been—”
Five minutes later, the gray-haired man was surrounded by a ring of excited policemen. “Yes,” he was saying, “three of them. The insurance chap says the other two are dead in the cellar. Yes, he did it all. No, I don’t know his name yet but that reward—”