Black Mask (Vol. 21, No. 10 — January 1939)
Arson
by Baynard H. Kendrick
Death lurked behind the talons of flame that beckoned Stan Rice on to this firebug chase.
Miles Standish Rice twisted uncomfortably on the hard bed of the Palatka Hotel fighting a series of persistent bumps which seemed to protrude everlastingly from the cement surface of the mattress. Outside of his window a tall palm brushed caressingly against the screen, throwing shadows across the ceiling as it cloaked the glow of a street light below.
Stan turned disgustedly, found a new position, and sought sleep which refused to come. Miami, and his own oversized bed, were four hundred miles away. The winter season was at its peak, and a beach replete with suntanned girls was eagerly waiting for his return. He regarded the moving shadows on the ceiling with an unpleasant frown. Across the hall, far too close for comfort, some happy sleeper had begun to snore.
He reached for cigarettes and matches conveniently placed on a chair beside his bed. The match flared up. Almost as though in answer to a signal a moaning wail started across the street, sliced through the noise of the snoring sleeper, and reached up and up to a wild frenzied scream. Mournfully it reached a pitch which roused the sleeping town, then died away, sending its dreaded warning far over the broad expanse of the St. John’s River. Fire!
Stan dragged on clothes, straining his ears for the sound which he knew would follow — the tap of the big bell in the tower of the City Hall. He stood motionless when it came beating out a slow sonorous seven-two. Twice more it was repeated and carefully he checked it again, consulting a small pasteboard card which listed all the call boxes in town. Seventy-two was on the river front. Stan gave a low whistle. The location was bad. The river front meant the crate factory or one of the large mills which were the life blood of the town.
He grabbed a topcoat and ran swiftly down the Hotel Palatka’s three flights of stairs. A glance at the lobby clock over the desk showed him it was five minutes after two.
“A helluva life a fireman leads!” Stan muttered as he opened the door of his Buick sports coupe which was parked in back of the hotel. He was touching forty miles per hour in second gear before he had gone a block.
The sleeping town had galvanized into a hectic frenzy. Ahead of him as he roared up River Street he could hear the clang and siren of the fire company’s big LaFrance pumper. From other parts of the town came sounds of auto horns sharp and distinct against the quiet of the night. A mill was on fire and that meant that sleep was gone for the night for the populace of any lumber town.
The Buick was doing over sixty when he bounced across the railroad tracks of the Georgia-Southern and Florida and saw the pinkish glow across the sky just ahead. An instant later, the flames were in full view. They reached sharp, crackling fingers high into the night, turning the frame buildings of the mill into spectral black skeletons of wood, and the piles of drying veneer into grayish coffins dancing between him and the flare.
Stan had to brake hard to keep from shooting past the mill. He saw the pumper bouncing over a crazy sawdust road toward the river, and swung in behind it. Three other cars were there ahead of him. Out of them poured members of Palatka’s excellent volunteer fire force.
By the time the pumper stopped, a dozen more cars had arrived, spewing forth half-dressed men with faces set in grim determination. If the crate factory went, two hundred men would be thrown out of work, and thousands of dollars in completed crates would go up in smoke.
Stan’s lips set grimly. The fire at the crate mill was not entirely a surprise. There had been two similar ones in the town during the past ten days — fortunately checked before any great damage was done. The two Palatka fires were the tail end of a series of paralyzing conflagrations throughout the state which had spoiled a fishing trip for Stan and brought him on the four-hundred-mile journey from Miami to Palatka.
The insurance companies were growing actively worried, and the Mill Owners Protective Association, faced with rising insurance rates, had finally forced Stan into listening to their plea. The fact that the quail hunting was excellent in Putnam County and the promised fee large, might have had a minor influence, too.
A crashing symphony of shouts, snapping embers, and the roar of water under high pressure became the background for a lighted stage-set that held half-clad men running frantically about. The pumper was at work. Throatily, its four and a half-inch suction pipe was pulling water from the river and shooting it on the blaze, sending up vast clouds of white steam from a mound of sawdust and defective boards piled close to the water’s edge.
A quiet-voiced, slow-spoken man in police blue detached himself from the crowd and approached Stan. The reddish light touched his crinkled eyes, making them look cold and hard against the glare. He leaned against the side of the Buick and spoke almost in Stan’s ear:
“What do you make of it now? It’s the third fire in ten days!”
“You’re the Chief of Police, Blunt; what do you make of it?” Stan stared at a patch of hyacinths which the suction of the pumper was drawing in close to the shore.
Chief Blunt pushed his cap farther back on his head. “I think we’re lucky, Stan. This mill’s dripping over with resin. I’d expect it to go up with the speed of a gas-filled balloon, but the boys already have it under control.”
“They got the other two fires under control, didn’t they? How?”
“By quick work. I guess.” said Blunt. “We have the best volunteer Fire Department in the State, and they’re used to dealing with mills.”
“Uh-huh,” Stan agreed absently. “It’s nice to have faith in your own home town. You’re not by any chance running for presidency of the Chamber of Commerce, are you?”
Chief Blunt scratched his head and asked, “What the devil are you driving at now?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” Stan admitted, “because I didn’t see the other fires in town, but I do know this: A lot of property in Florida has been burned to the ground during the past year despite everything a flock of good fire departments could do. Maybe I’m up here on a false trail, Chief. I don’t know about the other two, but this fire looks like an accident to me!”
A cheer went up from the assembled crowd, drowning out Blunt’s words, as the flames began to die. The watchers fell back, relief taking the place of their worried expressions. The hissing steam from the dying embers was fading, sighing away as if tired. Men stood about talking, questioning, thinking of warm beds and blankets against the cold of the north Florida winter night.
Phil Cox, one of the paid members of the Palatka Fire Department, and a second man started for the river’s edge to remove the sucker and uncouple the four ten-foot joints of nonflexible hose which fed the pumper. All pumpers carry two such joints, giving them a twenty-foot leeway. The Palatka pumper carried four since most of its work was around the mills and the big La-France could not always get as near as twenty feet to the river.
The fire was almost dead, leaving the scene illuminated by the headlights of the assembled cars. Stan and Chief Blunt walked over to talk to Buck Anders, another paid member of the P.F.D.
“Nice going. Buck!” Blunt said. “Look who’s with us!”
Buck Anders, freckled-faced and sandy-haired, straightened up and wiped a smudged hand on his coveralls. “Hello, Stan!” he said. “Been doing any hunting lately?”
“That depends,” said Stan dryly.
“Oh!” Buck turned away to look at the embers. “It’s about time somebody took an interest in fire bugs instead of birds. Things have been too hot around here to suit me.”