Corning took a taxicab, and went to his office. The night operator took him up on the elevator. Corning inserted his key in the spring lock of the office door, and pushed it open. A paper, which had been inserted between the door and the sill, caught his eye. He picked it up.
The note was scribbled in a few words, on a single sheet of paper: “Apparently you handed me wrong envelope. Have you another? Call GLadstone 6-4938.”
The note was unsigned. There were not even any initials on it.
Ken Corning looked at his strapwatch. It was 1:45. He sat down at the telephone and dialed the number of Helen Vail’s apartment. He heard the bell ringing, and waited for several rings before he heard her voice on the line.
“Were you asleep?” he asked,
“Don’t be silly,” she told him. “I was lying awake, thinking up nice things to say to you in the morning for ringing my telephone at this hour.”
He managed a grin, but it was a grin with his lips only. His eyes were cold and hard.
“Remember when we represented the men who were arrested in that theater war?” he said. “There were several smoke bombs that were held for a while as evidence. We have them in the office somewhere. Where are they?”
“In the cloak closet. In a big box over in the back. Why do you want them?”
“I happened to think of them for a certain purpose. If I didn’t have them I’d have to think up something else.”
“Are you going to get any sleep?”
“Probably tomorrow,” he said.
“I thought you were going to be in court tomorrow.”
“I think,” he said, “the case will be continued.”
He slid the receiver back on the hook, and called GLadstone 6-4938.
The sound of the ringing signal came over the telephone just once, and then a rasping, impatient voice snapped: “Hello. What do you want?”
“Corning speaking,” he said. “I gave you the wrong envelope.”
“I know you did,” Flint’s voice replied, with a certain cold suspicion in its tone.
“I’ve got the right envelope now,” said Corning.
“Where are you?” Flint inquired cautiously.
“I’m out in the ninety-four hundred block on North Bronson. Can you meet me there in about an hour?”
“I can get there before that.”
“No,” said Corning, “I think an hour will be about right.”
“Look here,” Flint told him, “the proposition that I made you is predicated on fair play all around. You can’t get what you want unless I get what I want, and I don’t want any more false alarms.”
“Don’t come unless you want to,” said Corning, and slammed the receiver back on the hook.
He went to the cloak closet, got out the box which contained the smoke bombs, carried them down to his car, and made time through the deserted streets.
The house at 9486 North Bronson was a stucco residence in a fairly exclusive neighborhood. The building was set back from the sidewalk, with a strip of lawn and some ornamental trees at the corner.
Ken Corning moved with the swift certainty of a skilful lawbreaker who knows exactly what he intends to do. He walked along the shadows until he had reached a side window. A jimmy from his pocket pushed open the window. He lit a smoke bomb, tossed it inside of the house. He walked to the back of the house, jimmied another window, tossed in a second bomb, circled on the other side, and put two more bombs in the house. Then he returned to the sidewalk, where he sat in his automobile, patiently waiting.
After a few minutes dense clouds of black smoke began to pour from the windows of the place. There was, however, no sign of activity. The building remained slumbering and dark.
Ken Corning looked at his watch.
Ten minutes passed. There was a light suddenly visible in a window in the upper floor of the house. Almost at once other lights came on. These lights showed dimly as reddish oblongs of illumination through the billowing clouds of smoke which eddied about the place.
Once more Ken Corning consulted his watch.
Getting hurriedly from his car, Corning raised his voice in a shout of “Fire! Fire!! Fire!!!”, ran across the strip of lawn and started to pound on the front door with hands and fists. After a few moments, he kicked in the glass of a window, making a great noise as he did so, and once more shouted his alarm of fire.
He heard steps on the stairs, a man’s voice shouting.
The lower floor was filled with pungent, thick, oily smoke. Ken Corning climbed through the window, shouting at the top of his lungs, and pushed his way through the smoke. He found a doorway, stairs which led up from a hall, and saw a faint light shining through the smoke at the top of the stairway. A dim figure loomed up out of the smoke ahead of him.
Corning shouted once more: “Fire!”
A man’s voice said irritably: “What is it? Where is it?”
Corning reached forward, touched the bulk of the figure with questing fingers.
“Can you get out?” he shouted. “The whole basement is on fire! The place is going up in smoke!”
“Just a minute,” said the querulous voice.
“There’s no time to be lost! You’ve got to get out right now!” said Corning. “I’ve turned in the fire alarm, but the timbers may collapse at any moment.”
The man on the stairs cursed and started to turn back. Ken Corning clutched at his garments.
“No, no, you can’t go back there! It’s fatal! You’ve got to come!”
The man swung a clumsy fist in an awkward blow which glanced from the side of Corning’s head. Corning let loose his hold and the man ran upstairs. After a second, Corning started in pursuit.
The man reached the top of the stairs, plunged along the dimly lighted corridor, through which dense clouds of smoke were moving slowly. He entered the door of a room and vanished. Corning waited by the door of the room, crouched, tense, expectant.
Forty seconds passed and the man came running out of the room. As he reached the corridor, Corning stopped Mm, then swung Ms fist expertly to the man’s jaw. The man slumped, knocked out.
Corning caught him and flung the senseless form over his shoulder. He groped his way down to the lower floor, found the front door, got it open and stumbled out into the night, with his helpless burden.
Several people were standing in front of the house, clad in various forms of nightdress, staring with wide eyes and open mouths. A clanging gong and the wail of a siren announced that the fire department was within a few blocks of the place.
Corning ran out across the lawn to his automobile and dumped the man into the machine. He was about sixty years of age, tall and thin, with a hatchet face and thin lips. He was clad in pajamas and slippers.
One or two of the spectators crowded up close to the machine.
“Overcome by smoke,” said Corning. “I’m rushing him to a hospital.”
He ran around the car, climbed in behind the steering wheel, stepped on the starter and purred away from the curb.
A car was parked some fifty yards down the street and a man stood by the car, watching the sidewalk and street, then turning to stare at the residence from which the smoke was pouring.
Ken Corning slowed the car as he approached. His lights struck the man who was standing by the running-board. It was B. W. Flint.
Corning called to him: “Okey, Flint. Fall in behind and follow me.”
The man in Corning’s car stirred, groaned and asked an unintelligible question in thick tones. Corning pushed him back against the cushions.
He ran his car around the corner, made speed for three blocks, and then pulled to the curb. The other car, with Flint at the wheel, was right behind him. Corning switched off his lights and the motor and waited until he heard Flint’s steps coming along the sidewalk. Flint drew alongside the car.