There was another blinding flash, a bellow that reverberated under the low ceiling.
Stan quickly let go of Horace Elmore. He yanked the flashlight from his pocket, clicked its switch. Nothing happened. Afterward, he found the bulb broken; it must have shattered when he fell on the steam shovel, or perhaps when he landed in the yard...
The eyes had disappeared, anyway.
Someone came running along the corridor upstairs. A spill of light swept down the steps. Thin smoke drifted across the beam.
“Baxter!” It was Worthington’s voice. “Are you all right? What happened?”
Stan said, “Get that light down here!”
The blond man came down the steps, two at a time, and Stan met him; took the electric torch. He pointed it around.
Horace Elmore sat up on the floor; he was thoroughly smeared with coal dust, and he looked both ill and angry.
“You fool!” the judge said. “Pulling a gun on me!”
Stan cried, “Me? I didn’t pull any gun!” He had the .38 in his hand now, though. He ran across the boiler room, flinging the electric beam under a thicket of asbestos-wrapped pipes. He looked into the coal bin, and scowled. He looked around the furnace, too. Farther on, he found an ash-lift. This had a chain operated hoist.
Staring up, he saw the hatch open, saw stars in the sky.
Behind him, Horace Elmore wailed, “Baxter! Come here!”
It was an agonized cry. Stan swung around, came back into the boiler room. On Elmore’s face was an expression of helpless panic.
“The papers!” he gasped. “Have you got them. Baxter?”
“No!”
The judge said, “I dropped them! They’re gone!” He was hunting around in front of the furnace, and he said: “They’re here somewhere. Got to be! Let’s have that light, Baxter!”
Stan said. “You didn’t throw them in the furnace?”
“No, no!”
Stan made sure of this. He stared into the furnace, studied the red flame licking over the undisturbed coals. There wasn’t a trace the blackened crisp papers would have left.
He wet his lips. “All right. They’re gone. They’re just gone.”
The judge couldn’t believe it. He searched around the furnace thoroughly. He swore. Finally he turned to Worthington.
“You didn’t pick them up?”
“No,” the blond man said. “What were they?”
“He could have,” Elmore said to Stan. “I insist we search this man!”
Stan grunted. “That’s wasting time. Where’s that watchman?”
“Why, with me,” Worthington said. “At the phone. I left him there when I heard the first shot.”
They went upstairs. Stan stepped outside. The steel gate was open now. He had rather expected that. He went inside again: the watchman was still beside the telephone, in a little room off the main corridor.
Stan sat down, put his hands on his knees, and looked intently into the old man’s face. “You’re scared, aren’t you?”
“I’m hurt. My head hurts,” the old fellow said plaintively. He rubbed his forehead and groaned.
“What’s your name?”
“Sam Bedlow. I’m sixty-three years old.”
“How long have you worked here?”
“Nine months.”
“The man before him got pensioned,” Judge Elmore interrupted. He leaned against the wall, frowning. “What’s the point of all this, Baxter?”
Stan said to Sam Bedlow, “What happened tonight?”
“I was in the boiler room. They sneaked behind me. I didn’t have any chance.”
“Who sneaked behind you?”
“Them,” Bedlow said. “Three of them. They had masks on.”
Stan grunted. “What were you doing in the boiler room?”
“I fired up. I was pulling my box when they grabbed me. I couldn’t fight off three of them, grabbing me from behind that way.”
“He means the police call box,” Horace Elmore said. “He pulls it every hour on that hour.”
Stan didn’t look up at the judge. “If that happened a couple of hours ago, how does it happen that the police didn’t come here? You must have missed the next hour.”
“I dunno,” Bedlow said. “Maybe they pulled the box then.”
“Don’t you know?”
“My head hurts. They hit me. How could I know? I was knocked out cold.”
Stan said, “You were out cold for two hours?”
“I must have been.”
“Yeah. They hit you from behind, but your forehead hurts.”
Bedlow looked frightened. “My whole head hurts. I’m sick. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
Stan laughed a little, not pleasantly.
“Your whole head hurts. You were knocked out for a couple of hours. It’s mighty queer they hit you that hard, and didn’t even raise a bump on your skull!”
Bedlow was trembling, his eyes blurred and confused. “It hurts inside,” he protested.
“Look at your wrists,” Stan said. “They didn’t tie you up very tight, did they?”
Bedlow blubbered unhappily. He had reason to. A police siren wailed down the street.
Stan got up hastily. “Come on, Judge. I’m going to get to the bottom of this beautiful hocus-pocus. We’ll have a talk with Selma.”
Elmore blinked.
“Selma!” he exclaimed. “But she couldn’t know anything about it.”
“That,” said Stan, “is what you think.”