CHAPTER XIV
THE ESCAPE
He had dropped the telephone receiver without waiting to replace it onthe hook and was now dashing madly out of the empty apartment and downthe street.
The hall-boy at Warrington's had done exactly as I had ordered him.There was the elevator waiting as Garrick gave the five short rings atthe nightbell and the outside door was unlocked. No one had yetdiscovered the fire which we knew was now raging on the top floor ofthe apartment.
We were whirled up there swiftly, just as we heard echoing through thehall and the elevator shaft from someone who had an apartment on thesame floor the shrill cry of, "Fire, fire!"
Tenants all the way up were now beginning to throw open their doors andrun breathlessly about in various states of undress. The elevator bellwas jangling insistently.
In the face of the crisis the elevator boy looked at Garrickappealingly.
"Run your car up and down until all are out who want to go," orderedGarrick. "Only tell them all that an alarm has already been turned inand that there is no danger except to the suite that is on fire. Youmay leave us here."
We had reached the top floor and stepped out. I realised fully now whathad happened. Either the robbers had found out only too quickly thatthey had been duped or else they had reasoned that the letter theysought had been hidden in a place in the apartment for which they hadno time to hunt.
It had probably been the latter idea which they had had and, instead ofhunting further, they had taken a quicker and more unscrupulous methodthan Garrick had imagined and had set the room on fire. Fortunatelythat had been promptly and faithfully reported to us over the optophonein time to localize the damage.
"At least we were able to turn in an alarm only a few seconds afterthey started the fire," panted Garrick, as he strained to burst in thedoor.
Together we managed to push it in, and rushed into the stifle ofWarrington's suite. The whole thing was in flames and it was impossiblefor us to remain there longer than to take in the situation.
Accordingly we retreated slowly before the fierce blaze. One of theother tenants came running with a fire extinguisher in either hand fromwall rack down the hall on this floor. As well try to drown a blastfurnace. They made no impression whatever.
Personally I had expected nothing like this. I had been prepared up tothe time the optophone reported the fire to dash over and fight it outat close quarters with two as desperate and resourceful men asunderworld conditions in New York at that time had created. Instead wesaw no one at all.
The robbers had evidently worked in seconds instead of minutes,realizing that they must take no risks in a showdown with Garrick.Rooms that might perhaps have given some clew of their presence,perhaps finger-prints which might have settled their identity at once,were now being destroyed. We had defeated them. We had the preciousletter. But they had again slipped away.
Firemen were now arriving. A hose had been run up, and a solid streamof water was now hissing on the fire. Smoke and steam were everywhereas the men hacked and cut their way at the very heart of the hungry redmonster.
"We are only in the way here, Tom," remarked Garrick, retreatingfinally. "Our friends must have entered and escaped by the roof. Thereis no other way."
He had dashed up ahead of the firemen. I followed. Sure enough, thedoor out on the roof had been broken into. A rope tied around a chimneyshowed how they had pulled themselves up and later let themselves downto the roof of the next apartment some fifteen feet lower. We could seean open door leading to the roof there, which must also have beenbroken open. That had evidently been the secret method of which theChief had spoken to the Boss, whoever they might be, who bore theseepithets.
Pursuit was useless, now. All was excitement. From the street we couldhear the clang of engines and trucks arriving and taking theirpositions, almost as if the fire department had laid out the campaignbeforehand for this very fire.
Anyone who had waited a moment or so in the other apartment down thestreet might have gone downstairs without attracting any attention.Then he might have disappeared in or mingled with the very crowd on thestreet which he had caused to gather. Late as it was, the crowd seemedto spring from nowhere, and to grow momentarily as it had done duringthe raid on the gambling joint. It was one of the many interestingnight phenomena of New York.
What had been intended to be one of the worst fires and to injure avaluable property of the Warrington estate had, thanks to the promptaction of Garrick, been quickly turned into only a minor affair, at theworst. The fire had eaten its way into two other rooms of Warrington'sown suite, but there it had been stopped. The building itself wasnearly fireproof, and each suite was a unit so that, to all intents andpurposes, it might burn out without injury to others.
Still, it was interesting to watch the skill and intuition of thesmoke-eaters as they took in the situation and almost instantly seemedto be able to cope with it.
Sudden and well-planned though the incendiary assault had been, it wasnot many minutes before it was completely under control. Men in rubbercoats and boots were soon tramping through the water-soaked rooms ofWarrington. Windows were cracked open and the air in the rooms wasclearing.
We followed in cautiously after one of the firemen. Everywhere was thepenetrating smell of burnt wood and cloth. In the corner was the safe,still hot and steaming. It had stood the strain. But it showed marks ofhaving been tampered with.
"Somebody used a 'can-opener' on it," commented Garrick, looking at itcritically and then ruefully at the charred wreck of his optophone thathad tumbled in the ashes of the pile of books under which it had beenhidden, "Yes, that was the scheme they must have evolved after theirmidnight conference,--a robbery masked by a fire to cover the trail,and perhaps destroy it altogether."
"If we had only known that," I agreed, "we might have saved what littlethere was in that safe for Warrington. But I guess he didn't keep muchthere."
"No," answered Garrick, "I don't think he did. All I saw was somepersonal letters and a few things he apparently liked to have aroundhere. I suppose all the really valuable stuff he has was in asafety-deposit vault somewhere. There was a packet of--it's gone! Whatdo you think of that?" he exclaimed looking up from the safe to me insurprise.
"Packet of what?" I asked. "What is gone?"
"Why," replied Garrick, "I couldn't help noticing it when I opened thesafe before, but Warrington had evidently saved every line and scrap ofwriting that Violet Winslow had ever given him and it was all in one ofthe compartments of the safe. The compartment is empty!"
Neither of us could say a word. What reason might there be why anyoneshould want Warrington's love letters? Was it to learn something thatmight be used to embarrass him? Might it be for the purpose of holdinghim up for money? Did the robber want them for himself or was heemployed by another? These and a score of other questions flashed,unanswered, through my mind.
"I wonder who this fellow is that they call the Chief?" I ventured atlast.
"I can't say--yet," admitted Garrick. "But he's the cleverest I haveever met. His pace is rapid, but I think we are getting up with it, atlast. There's no use sticking around here any longer, though. The placefor us, I think, is downtown, getting an earful at the other end ofthat detectaphone."
The engines and other apparatus were rolling away from the fire when weregained the street and things were settling themselves down to normalagain.
We rode downtown on the subway, and I was surprised when Garrick,instead of going all the way down to the crosstown line that would takeus to the Old Tavern, got off at Forty-second Street.
"What's the idea of this?" I asked.
"Do you think I'm going to travel around the city with that letter inmy pocket?" he asked. "Not much, since they seem to set such a value ongetting it back. Of course, they don't know that I have it. But theymight suspect it. At any rate I'm not going to run any chances oflosing it."
He had stopped at a well-known hotel where he knew the night clerk.There he
made the letter into a little package, sealed it, anddeposited it in the safe.
"Why do you leave it here?" I asked.
"If I go near the office, they might think I left it there, and Icertainly won't leave it in my own apartment. They may or may notsuspect that I have it. At any rate, I'd hate to risk meeting them downin their own region. But here we are not followed. I can leave itsafely and to-morrow I'll get it and deposit it in a really safe place.Now, just to cover up my tracks, I'm going to call up Dillon, but I'mgoing up Broadway a bit before I do so, so that even he will not knowI've been in this hotel. I think he ought to know what has happenedto-day."
"What did he say?" I asked as Garrick rejoined me from the telephonebooth, his face wearing a scowl of perplexity.
"Why, he knew about it already," replied Garrick. "I got him at hishome. Herman, it seems, got back from some wild-goose chase over in NewJersey and saw the report in the records filed at police headquartersand telephoned him."
"Herman is one of the brightest detectives I ever met," I commented indisgust. "He always manages to get in just after everybody else. Has heany more news?"
"About the car?" asked Garrick absently. "Nothing except that he randown the Pennsylvania report and found there was nothing in it. Now hesays that he thinks the car may have returned to New York, perhaps byway of Staten Island, for he doubts whether it could have slipped in byNew Jersey."
"Clever," I ejaculated. "I suppose that occurred to him as soon as heread about the fire. I have to hand it to him for being a deducer."
Garrick smiled.
"There's one thing, though, he does know," he added, "and that is thegossip of the underworld right here in New York."
"I should hope so," I replied. "That was his business to know. Why, hashe found out anything really new?"
"Why--er--yes. Dillon tells me that it now appears that Forbes had beenintimate with that Rena Taylor."
"Yes?" I repeated, not surprised.
"At least that's what Herman has told him."
"Well," I exclaimed in disgust, "Forbes is a fine one to run aroundwith stool-pigeons and women of the Tenderloin, in addition to hisother accomplishments, and then expect to associate with a girl likeViolet Winslow."
"It is scandalous," he agreed. "Why, according to Dillon and Herman,she must have been getting a good deal of evidence through her intimacywith Forbes. They probably gambled together, drank together, and---"
"Do you suppose Forbes ever found out that she was really using him?"
Garrick shook his head. "I can't say," he replied. "There isn't muchvalue in this deductive, long distance detective work. You reason athing out to your satisfaction and then one little fact knocks all yourclever reasoning sky-high. The trouble here is that on this aspect ofthe case the truth seems to have been known by only two persons--andone of them is dead, while the other has disappeared."
"Strange what has become of Forbes," I ruminated.
"It is indeed," agreed Garrick. "But then he was such a night-hawk thatanything might easily have happened and no one be the wiser. Since yousaw him enter the gambling joint the night of the raid, I've beenunable to get a line on him. He must have gone through the tunnel tothe ladies' poolroom, but after he left that, presumably, I can't finda trace of him. Where he went no one seems to know. This bit of gossipthat Herman has unearthed is the first thing I've heard of him,definitely, for two days."
"If Rena Taylor were alive," I speculated, "I don't think you'd have tolook further for Forbes than to find her."
"But she isn't alive," concluded Garrick, "and there is nothing to showthat there was anyone else at the poolroom for women who interestedhim--and--well, this isn't getting back to business."
He turned toward the street.
"Let's go down on a surface car," he said. "I think we ought to learnsomething down there at the Old Tavern, now. If these people have donenothing more, they'll think they have at least given an example oftheir resourcefulness and succeeded in throwing another scare intoWarrington. But there's one thing I'd like to be able to tell Mr.Chief, however. He can't throw any scare into me, if that's his game."