The Firebug Read online

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  _Mystery Stories for Boys_

  The Firebug

  _By_ ROY J. SNELL

  The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago

  _Printed in the United States of America_

  _Copyright, 1925_ by The Reilly & Lee Co. _All Rights Reserved_

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE I The Face at the Window 7 II A Thrilling Rescue 20 III The False Alarm 34 IV Jerry to the Rescue 48 V A Shot from Ambush 63 VI The Black Shack 76 VII The Burning of the Zoo 86 VIII Mazie and the Tiger 98 IX A Mysterious Island 104 X Ben Zook 116 XI Johnny Gets a Tip 125 XII The Mystery Man of the Marsh 134 XIII Johnny Reports to the Chief 142 XIV Johnny's Dark Dreams 148 XV Ben Zook's Diamonds 155 XVI The Strange Black Cylinders 171 XVII The Unanswered Call 181 XVIII The Return of Panther Eye 190 XIX A Den of the Underworld 197 XX Johnny Strikes First 208 XXI A Trip to Forest City 220 XXII A Startling Discovery 229 XXIII Forest City's Doom 237 XXIV Ferris Wheel and Fire 243 XXV The Human Spider 255 XXVI Safe at Home 261 XXVII The Contents of the Black Bag 269 XXVIII The Firebug's Secret Revealed 275

  THE FIREBUG

  CHAPTER I THE FACE AT THE WINDOW

  It was midnight. The room in which Johnny Thompson sat was a place of oddnoises and strange flashes of light. Here in the corner a tick-tickingwas followed by a yellow light that curved upward, over, then down;upward, over and down again. A gong sounded from overhead. A shadowy formmoved across the floor. Instantly came the clatter of a score ofinstruments sounding as one and a score of yellow lights curved up, overand down; up, over and down again. After that a voice said:

  "Cross and Fifty-fifth Streets. The Arlington Flats. The Arlington Flats.Cross and Fifty-fifth Streets."

  There followed twenty seconds of silence; then in a hollow tone, as ifcoming from the heart of a tree, there sounded the repeated words:

  "Cross and Fifty-fifth Streets. The Arlington Flats. Cross andFifty-fifth Streets." Then again there was silence.

  All this while, on a great board above and before him, Johnny saw ahundred and fifty glowing spots of light. The spots of light seemed likeeyes--red, white and green eyes that stared and blinked at him. Even ashe looked, two of them blinked out--a red one and a white one.

  As he read the meaning of those extinguished lights he again caught theclick-click from the corner and saw again the yellow light shoot up andover and down.

  This time, however, he heard a voice from another corner say:

  "Johnny, that's one of yours. School at Fourteenth and Van Buren."

  With one bound Johnny was out of his chair and across the room. The nextsecond found him aboard an elevator, dropping through space. Ten secondsfrom the time the alarm had sounded he was in a long, low built, powerfulcar, speeding westward.

  It would have been difficult to guess Johnny's age as he sat erect in thecar which the city's Fire Chief drove like mad. He might have been in hislate teens. His small stature suggested that. He might have beentwenty-two; his blue fireman's uniform with its brass buttons would haveseemed to prove this. But for all his uniform Johnny was not a fireman.The Chief had a very special reason for allowing him to wear thatuniform.

  For a week, night and day, Johnny had haunted the room he had just left.During all that time the powerful red car had waited below, parkedoutside the door.

  That room of many odd noises and strange lights was the central firestation of a great city. Every fire alarm turned in night or day in thiscity of three million people came to this central station. The tickerstold of fire-box calls. The telephone was ever ready for the call of somewoman who had upset her grease can on the stove, or some person who haddiscovered a blaze coming from the sixteenth floor of a skyscraper. Tensof thousands of calls a year; yet this untiring ear, listening by day andnight, hears and passes on every one. And it was in this central stationthat Johnny had waited so long. More than a thousand calls had cometicking and ringing in, yet he had turned a deaf ear to them all untilthe man at the phone had said quietly: "That's one of yours. School atFourteenth and Van Buren." Then he had leaped to his duty. And now he wasspeeding westward.

  Johnny was after a firebug. A firebug is a person who willfully sets fireto property, whether his own or another's. They're a desperate lot, thesefirebugs. Some are hired for a fee. Some work for themselves. All arebad, for who could be good who would willfully destroy that which costmen hundreds, perhaps thousands, of days of toil? Yet some are worse thanothers. Some burn for greed or gain, while others light the torch in thename of some mistaken idea of principle.

  The firebug Johnny had been sent out to catch certainly had some strangebent to his nature. Two schools, a recreation center and a bathhouse hadbeen destroyed, and here was another school fire at night. And in allthese fires the firebug had neither been seen nor traced.

  The police, fire inspectors and insurance detectives were all on histrail, yet all were baffled. And now the Fire Chief had called Johnny tohis aid. "For," he had said, "sometimes a youngster discovers thingswhich we elders are blind to."

  So, with their clanging gong waking echoes in the deserted midnightstreets, they sped westward to Fourteenth, then southward. Before theyhad gone two blocks in this direction they caught the light of the fireagainst the sky.

  "It's going to be a bad one," said the Chief, increasing his speed. "Inthe very heart of the poorest tenement section--have to turn in thesecond alarm at once. We can't afford to fool around with this one."

  These words were scarcely out of his mouth when they reached the edge ofa throng drawn there by the fire.

  The car came to a sudden stop. The Chief sprang to a fire-box andinstantly in that room Johnny had so recently left a ticker sounded and ayellow light rose up and over. The second alarm had been sent.

  Ten seconds later, on the wall of that strange room, two red spots andtwo white ones blinked out, then one that was half red and half white,and then a green one. At the same instant three fire engines, three truckand ladder companies and an emergency squad made the night hideous withtheir clanging bells and screaming sirens. The second alarm had beenheard. Reinforcements were on the way.

  Johnny thrilled to it all. It was, he told himself, like a great battle;on
ly instead of fighting fellow human beings, men were fighting the enemyof all--fire.

  "Fire! Fire! Fire!" rang up and down the streets.

  In Johnny's whirling brain one fact remained fixed; this fire had beenset. By whom? How? These were the questions he had pledged to answer.

  To Johnny, battle with a fire was always fascinating and inspiring. Heknew well enough how this one would be waged. The enemy was within, andmust be rushed, beaten back, defeated. There were three entrances. Thesewould be stormed with men and water. There was a great central stairwayto the very top of the six story building. The fire, if freed from theroom in which it had its origin, would go leaping and laughing up thosestairs. The top of the building must be reached at once. The poisonousfumes of the fire must be freed there and its flames beaten back. Theroof might be reached from the fire escape. Already a line ofrubber-coated men were toiling upward.

  Ah yes, it was all very fascinating, but Johnny had his part to do. Howhad the fire started, and where? This he must discover if possible. Onemore thing; if the fire had been set, was the firebug still about theplace? It is a well known fact that these men frequently linger about thescene of the fire.

  "If he's here mingling with the throng could I recognize him?"

  As Johnny asked himself this question, he realized that the answer mustalmost certainly be "No." And yet there was a chance. An expression ofthe face, a movement of muscles, might give the man away.

  "But first the fire," Johnny exclaimed as, leaping from the car, hesprang for the already battered down door of the front entrance. Grippinga hose that was being slowly dragged forward by the line of pluckyfiremen, he struggled forward with the rest. Beating back smoke andflames, they battled their way forward against the red enemy who even nowmight be seen leaping madly up the stairs.

  Unaccustomed as he was to the smoky fumes, half suffocated, eyessmarting, Johnny found himself all but overcome; yet he fought his wayforward.

  When the line of firemen halted he battled his way to the side of theforemost man. To go farther would be foolhardy. He could but pause hereto study with burning eyes the location of the fire, to imprint upon thecells of his brain a mental sketch of the building, then to back slowlyaway.

  As he staggered blindly into the outer air he all but fell over a boywho, as boys will, had escaped the guard and was at the very door.

  "See here," said Johnny, collaring him.

  "You leave me be," said the boy, struggling to free himself.

  "Tell me," said Johnny, tightening his grip, "how did the fire start?"

  "How'd I know?" Another yank.

  "Where did it start?" A tighter grip.

  "You could see if you had eyes."

  "Where?" with a shake.

  "In the office, of course."

  "In the office, huh," Johnny loosed his hold a trifle. "Come on back outof the way of the firemen."

  The boy obeyed reluctantly. The moment he was released he darted fromsight.

  "So much, so good," Johnny murmured. "Only thing I can do now is to watchfaces; see if I can spot the man or the woman. Lots of women firebugsthey say, but not on a thing like this I guess. Takes a man to burn aschool, and such a school, in such a place."

  Even as his gaze swept the circle he caught sight of hundreds of white,frightened faces peering from windows of rickety tenements--veritabletinder boxes waiting the red, hungry flames.

  "And yet," Johnny muttered, "poor as they are, they are homes, the bestthese people can afford. And this is their school, the hope of theirchildren, the thing that promises to lift them to better places in thefuture. Who could have set a fire like that?"

  The fire was gaining headway. It burned red from the fourth floorwindows; sent partitions crashing dismally within and belched forth greatshowers of sparks from the roof.

  Reinforcements were coming. Bells jangled, hose uncoiled on the hotpavement; a water screen from a dozen nozzles poured upon the steaminghomes to the lee of the fire.

  And all this time Johnny Thompson wandered back and forth in front of theline of staring and frightened men, women and children held back by arope line hastily established by the police.

  When his eyes were tired and he had told himself there was no hope offinding his man, he drifted wearily back through the line and into asmall shop that stood open. There on the top of a barrel he sat down tothink.

  For a moment or two he was entirely unconscious of the other occupants ofthe room. When at last he cast a glance about him it was to give a greatstart that all but threw him from his seat.

  Before him, staring out of the window at the fire, was one of the mostpeculiar men he had ever seen. An albino, men would have called him, yetof unmistakable white blood. His hair was white and soft as a baby's. Hisface was quite innocent of beard and, what startled Johnny most, the eyesof the man were pink as a white rabbit's. To accurately judge the age ofsuch a man was impossible. Johnny told himself that the man might betwenty-five or he might be forty.

  Most astonishing of all was the expression on the man's face. Johnny hadseen just such an expression on the face of a boy when he had donesomething he thought of as extraordinarily clever. Even as Johnny lookedat him the expression changed to one of fear and dismay.

  "Look!" the man exclaimed. "A child! There at the window on the sixthfloor!"

  It was true. At a window, staring wild-eyed at the throng below her, wasa girl of some twelve years.

  "A child in the school house at midnight, and on the attic floor!" Johnnyexclaimed. "What can it mean?"

  The next instant his mind was on fire. Two thoughts fought for occupationof his brain. The child must be saved. All escape from within was shutoff by flames; yet she must be saved; yes, she must be saved, and afterthat she must be questioned.

  "It may be," he told himself, "that she knows something regarding theorigin of the fire."

  In this he was not entirely wrong.