Smoke rolled in through the crack of the fire door behind him. Light streamed against the dirty windows of the baling room. It took him some moments to realize that the moss factory was ringed outside with the headlights of myriad cars.
Voices shouted indistinguishable words outside the plant, filling the air with sound. Stan forced himself to stand erect. Reeling crazily he zig-zagged toward the office door. Then flesh and clothing suddenly tugged at his feet. He slumped to his knees, supported himself with one blistered hand, and saw he had stumbled over the unconscious form of Jupe Carnes.
Great noxious billows of smoke were clouding the baling room now. The desire to lie down beside Carnes and peacefully sleep was almost too much to bear. He fought the pleasant idea ruthlessly. Carnes was breathing raucously, short sharp gasps which ended in a terrifying rattle.
Laboriously Stan hooked fingers into Carnes’ collar and began to inch him toward the door. When he reached up and turned the knob with a painful effort, he found it was locked on the other side.
Cold air struck the smoke and banked it into a swirling cloud of gray. Through the clear Stan saw a window had been raised and that someone was climbing through. His head grew steadier with the sharpness of the breeze. He rolled away from Carnes as hurrying footsteps dashed across the floor.
Lois Gilbert dropped to her knees and screamed: “Jupe! Jupe! He’s dead! He’s dead! God in heaven what shall I do?”
Close behind her Stan moved to a sitting position. Her voice trailed mournfully away as she turned and caught the glint of his blood red eyes. “One thing you can do is drop that sash weight, Lois.” His split, charred lip widened in a terrifying grin. “Jupe’s a hell of a sight from being dead and you’re not going to kill him. If you make a move I’ll ruin your pretty face with a bullet between your eyes!”
An hour later in the doctor’s office, Chief Blunt said, “I don’t care if you are wrapped up like a country ham, you have to talk. I’m holding Lois Gilbert on your say-so. I want to know what I’m doing it for.”
One of Stan’s ordinarily blue eyes twinkled at him like a winking miniature tail-light through a slit in the encompassing bandages. “She killed Trimmer and Phil Cox, and damn near got Carnes and me.”
“Don’t write a book,” said Blunt wearily. “Why?”
“Trimmer was a mistake, as I told you. She wanted Phil out of the way so she could marry Jupe Carnes. Jupe was suspicious of her, suspicious that she’d shot Trimmer. He followed her. That’s what he was acting so suspiciously about at the crate mill fire. That’s why his feet were wet. He’d been down to the edge of the river. I got off on the wrong track thinking she was lying to cover up Carnes. Actually she was lying to cover up herself.”
“Lying about what?”
“The time they left the River Inn last night. I got the real dope from the bartender there tonight. Both of them left there about one — plenty of time for either of them to start the fire and pull Trimmer’s accidental killing. I sprung it on her at the Inn tonight that I knew she was married to Phil. I got his record today by wiring a description of his prints to the F.B.I. in Washington.”
“Where did you get them?”
“From a hoze nozzle in the fire house. Say my lips hurt and I dislike persistent policemen.”
“Not as much as I hate secretive detectives,” said Blunt. “What did the F.B.I. say?”
Stan tried to scratch a bandaged nose with a bandaged hand and gave it up. “They gave me Phil’s real name — Phil Gilbert, and I connected it up with her. I also got an identification of my good friend Charles Wentworth by wiring his description to the Miami police. He’s familiarly known as Lighthouse Billy Blane.”
“He’s Hoosegow Billy Blane right now,” said Blunt. “Our efficient motorcycle cop picked him up as he was scooting out of town. He spilled himself as soon as he was nabbed.”
“He’s the type,” said Stan in muffled tones. “What did he say?”
“Well, seems Jupe must have trailed you and the gal to the moss plant and tried to stop her. She cracked him over the head in the baling room, intending to kill him according to Wentworth. Due to your note sent me from the hotel, I arrived with the fire department before we were expected. She got panicky and beat it outside, but waited around. When she saw the department was getting things under control and that Carnes wasn’t going to be roasted, she slipped in through a window to finish the job. The fire was all in back in the moss room, and the crowd was all at the other end. I guess she thought if she yelled loud enough everyone would think she’d found Jupe dead. She was positive you were.”
“She must have played with too many matches as a kid,” Stan declared through the bandages. “She thinks too fast for her own good. She gave me a honey of a story coming across the river tonight and I damn near fell for it all. It was almost true, too, except that she said Phil had escaped from San Quentin when I knew he hadn’t. He’d served all of his time.”
“Anyhow, she told me too much to leave me alive. Even though it was a beautiful mixture of truth and fiction. She said that Wentworth was going to fire either the moss plant, or Randolph’s mill tonight. I knew it wasn’t Randolph’s. I saw Wentworth driving on the road out there today. Any expert firebug keeps away from a plant he intends to fire.”
“What the hell did Wentworth and the girl go into the firebug business for, anyway?”
“Well, Wentworth said that it was the girl’s idea. Lois tried to get the owners to double their insurance and then set fire to their places. She didn’t put it that boldly to ’em, but they understood and would have none of it. Then she started setting fire to a few of the factories to frighten ’em into it. If they’d take out more insurance, see, she’d get the commission.”
“Money mad, huh?” Stan said.
“Guess so. One of the reasons she wanted to marry Carnes. Then she had to try to kill him to keep him from talking when he got hep to her. Anyway, under cover of her fires she tried to kill Phil Cox — tried until she finally got him. Sort of killing two birds with one fire. Kill off Cox so she could marry Carnes and scare the factory owners into taking out more insurance and eventually falling for her arson plan.”
Stan nodded and asked ruefully, “There’s one thing I can’t understand. Somehow she and Wentworth planned a trap for me at that moss factory, but damned if I can figure out when.”
Blunt laughed. “I know the answer to that, too. She saw Wentworth while you were in the hotel getting your gun. She told him to beat it up to the factory and hide along the chute on the roof. She said she’d get you there — and she did. You were always a sucker for dames.”
“If that guy’s beaten up as badly as I think he is,” Stan mumbled, “I’ll be scared to look at him in the morning. I wish I’d caught her in the swamp tonight and saved myself getting fried. The way I’m taped up I doubt if I can eat.”
“You could if you were dead! Besides, I brought you something,” said Blunt with a leer. “A bottle of milk! The doctor says you must have nothing but liquids for a month and drink them through a tube. If you so much as mention Miles Standish Rice, the Hungry, I’ll conk you one, so help me!”
A Thousand Iron Men
by H. W. Guernsey
The $1000 bill burned holes in the little bum’s pockets while its owners burned holes in each other.