There was a terrific wrench and the house joggled heavily. “The foundations are going,” said Quade. “The water’s loosened them. In a few minutes this house will wash away.”
Again there was a mad rush for the door and again the servants and family charged out into the torrent of water.
The big Olcott mansion was a glowing skeleton of fire. Quade sloshed ahead of the others, the water above his knees. He circled the house to the right, found himself going up. “The ground’s higher back here,” he called out.
“Of course it is!” cried Ferdinand Olcott. “There’s a ridge behind the house. Ten feet or more. We’ll be safe there. It’ll never reach that high.”
Quade wasn’t so sure of that, but he led the way to the ridge. And there they huddled, thirteen wet, cold, and miserable people.
One of them was a murderer.
“I burned the house down,” the schizophrenic said to himself. “I’m going to die… but it’s fun watching these weaklings. They’ll die a thousand deaths each. They’re afraid to die.”
He was afraid, too, but his egotism refused to admit the fear.
It was a nightmare, there on the promontory behind the ruined house. The fire sputtered and hissed for several hours. It gave some light and a small amount of heat to those crouching on the wet ground. It was a blessing to them; without it, some of them would have gone into hysterics. Some of the women folk were already near it.
The butler and a couple of the maids knelt on the wet ground and prayed. None of the others joined, but neither did they scoff. And perhaps they would join in the praying when the water rose higher.
Quade sat on the muddy side of the promontory. Twice in three hours he moved higher as the water came up and licked at his feet. Around midnight he gave his coat to Martha Olcott.
“Thanks!” she shivered. Lynn Crosby scowled for not having thought of the chivalrous gesture himself. He came down and sat beside Quade then.
“How high do you think the water’ll get?” he asked.
“It can’t go much higher,” Quade replied. “Wouldn’t have come this high if the dam hadn’t gone out. The water doesn’t worry me.”
“What does?”
“Exposure. Everybody soaked to the skin, sitting on this wet ground. All of us will have colds by morning and some — worse. We can’t stay here like this. Not long.”
“But we can’t leave. I know this island. The river’ll be a quarter-mile wide and too strong to swim. I’d try it now if I thought it’d be any use.”
“You couldn’t swim fifty feet in it,” said Quade. “There’s got to be some other way.”
“Maybe we can build a raft?” suggested Crosby eagerly.
“We’ll see when morning comes… There goes the servants’ house!”
It went with a violent wrenching and screeching. The rush of water tore it bodily from its moorings, swept it to the burning mansion and then carried it down into the valley below, turning it over and over like a toy.
It was the longest night anyone had ever gone through. No one slept. When the black sky turned to gray Quade waded down in the water, closer to the smoldering ruins of the mansion.
He found a branch of a tree and poked around for a while. Deputy Higginbotham joined him. His teeth chattered. “Gawd, if I only had a stiff drink of gin,” he muttered. “The water’s got into my bones.”
“A drink or two apiece wouldn’t hurt any of us,” said Quade. He continued poking in the debris.
Sheriff Starkey joined them, cursing under his breath. “Who’s your idea of the killer?” he asked.
“There are things more important right now than arresting a murderer.”
“You mean you know who the killer is?” exclaimed the sheriff.
“Of course,” replied Quade. “I knew last night after he set fire to the house.”
“Who is it?” asked the sheriff hoarsely. “The South American?”
“I’m more interested right now in saving the lives of thirteen people than arresting one murderer,” said Quade. “Martha Olcott already has a cold. She can’t stand another night here. A couple of the maids are coughing pretty hard too.”
The sheriff muttered under his breath. “We’re stuck here until the water goes down.”
“It won’t go down for a week. The rain’s letting up now, but even so, we can’t stay here a week. We’ve got to get away — today!”
“How?”
Quade shrugged. “Go away and let me think!”
The sheriff cursed under his breath, but retreated. Higginbotham went with him.
The rain lessened considerably in the next fifteen minutes and dawn broke grudgingly over the island. Quade’s vision was lengthened then and what he saw disheartened him. A sea of water stretched out as far as he could see. The tops of trees stuck out of the water, like lonely sentinels. The water moved south and west in a steady sweep. It was another quarter-hour before Quade could see the river and then his spirits dropped even lower. The river was a raging torrent, a visible swift current in the sea of water sweeping over the island.
The entire island except the promontory on which the refugees crouched was under water. There was land on the other side of the river, quite a bit, and most of it high out of the water. But it was a half-mile away, too far for anyone to swim in the rushing water.
But there lay safety. If someone over there saw them on the island here and if they had a powerful boat…
Quade turned to the others. “Anyone live over there?” he asked, pointing.
Ferdinand Olcott shook his head sadly. “No one lives within five miles of this island.”
“And I imagine those out there are having their own troubles.”
“If someone could get over there and get help…” Quade thought aloud.
Arturo Nogales, the swarthy South American, began peeling off his soggy coat. “I am a strong swimmer,” he said.
“If you were the strongest swimmer in the world you couldn’t swim across that current out there. There’s a low valley to the south and you’d be swept out before you could reach the high land.”
Martha Olcott came up. “Are we — finished?” she asked.
Quade looked bleakly at her. “All my life I’ve been a resourceful person, but somehow I can’t think of anything to do now.”
She bit her lip. “If we could only build a fire here…”
“Everything’s water-logged,” said Quade. “Perhaps if the rain stops we can gather some wood and get it dried. Or — I’ll be damned! Look at that garage there. It’s still on its foundations.”
“Yes, it’s built on concrete. But there’s nothing there except some tools and things.”
“Tools?” Quade’s eyes flashed. He turned around and called to Lynn Crosby. “Crosby, mind coming with me to the garage?”
Crosby came over. “What good’ll that do? The cars are under water.”
“I know,” said Quade. “I wasn’t counting on them. But there are tools over there, I understand. Perhaps we can do something with them.”
“You said last night a raft couldn’t make it.”
“Chances are almost negligible, but we might figure out something else.”
Higginbotham and the chauffeur, a stocky man named McCarthy, joined Quade and Crosby. They waded in water to their armpits to the garage.
“Look for saws, hammers and nails,” Quade instructed.
They found a keg of thirty-penny spikes, a couple of saws and several hammers, as well as a hand-ax. Quade himself discovered something that filled him with glee. It was about fifty feet of two-inch rope hawser. He carried it to the promontory.
“What’s the rope for?” asked Clarence Olcott, when the four men deposited their spoils on the wet ground.
Quade did not reply. He looked at the telephone poles which stuck out above the water. He bit his lips and scowled for several moments. The others had by this time conceded Quade the leadership and they waited anxiously for him to arrive at some decision.