The Flame Breathers

CHAPTER IX The Curious House

In Fergus MaeMurdie’s drugstore was one of the few remarkable, large television sets designed by the giant, Smitty. In Bleek Street headquarters there were two. But one of them was for very local reception, indeed. Its activity was confined to the building housing Justice, Inc.

There was a large screen on the front of the cabinet, as on the other one. But this screen was active all the time because the set was constantly warmed up.

It caught activities in the tiny lobby of the place.

There was a soft buzzing sound now. Josh and Mac went at once to the second television cabinet. On the screen was reflected the doorway of the building, two floors below.

A man had just come in that doorway. Josh and Mac watched. No one had any business in that entire short block unless the business concerned The Avenger, because The Avenger was the block’s sole tenant.

The man in the vestibule was burly, dressed in good but ill cared for clothes that bulged at the armpit. He looked searchingly around him, aware that he was being watched, but unable to find anything to confirm the hunch.

He went to the inner door and pressed the bell set there over a small nameplate that repeated the inconspicuous slogan over the doorway:

Mac looked at Josh, who shrugged and nodded.

The door downstairs swung silently open in front of the man. They saw his startled look, then saw him doggedly ascend the stairs.

Josh and Mac met him in the small anteroom between the stairs and the great top-floor room which took up the whole of the third stories of the three buildings. Few people ever got past the anteroom into the big chamber.

“I want to see Mr. Benson,” the man said, staring from Mac to Josh.

The Negro spoke.

“Mistuh Benson ain’t heah, jus’ now,” said Josh. “I’m ’spectin’ him soon, though.”

Always with strangers, Josh Newton talked as folks expect a Negro to talk. It was protective coloration, he always said.

“We’ll take a message for him,” said Mac.

Their caller fidgeted a little and glanced nervously at his watch.

“I can’t leave a message, and I haven’t time to wait. This is very important. You’re sure he isn’t in?”

Mac nodded. Benson was at the wrecked home of Lorens Singer. The pale-eyed man might be back here in an hour — or not for several days.

“This is very important,” mumbled the man. “And I can’t hang around, or come back again, because I’m sure I’m being watched, and—”

He didn’t finish that, but switched off on another tack.

“I wanted to see Mr. Benson about the Singer explosion,” he said.

Behind Mac’s homely Scottish face and behind Josh’s sleepy-looking mask were tense reactions, but neither showed them.

“Look here,” said the man, with the air of one making a quick decision, “you two are supposed to be close to Benson. And anybody close to that guy must be good. I’ll spill my song to you and maybe you can look into it.”

“We’re listenin’, mon,” said Mac.

“The song’s short, and sweet. I think there’s a hot lead to what happened at Singer’s place in a house in New Jersey, near Milford.”

“What kind of lead?” snapped Mac.

“I don’t know,” said the man, looking so honest that it was incredible he could be lying.

“How did you find out there might be one?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Who are you?”

“That doesn’t make any difference.”

“I suppose you know,” said Mac, “that ye’re being kind of suspicious not wanting to tell us about yourself.”

The man shrugged.

“There’s your tip. Take it or leave it. In a house near Milford, New Jersey, called the old Carp place, you might find something that’ll tell a story on the Singer explosion.”

“The directions are pretty vague but—”

“Oh, I’ll go with you, if you decide to act on the tip,” said the man. “I’ll direct you to it.”

Not even a glance passed between Josh and Mac. But with perfect teamwork, each knew the other’s decision.

“Ah’ll get our hats, Mistuh MacMurdie.”

“Are you going, too?” said the man, staring at Josh with impatience in his eyes. It was habitual for people to underestimate the Negro’s ability.

“Yas, suh. I’se important aroun’ heah,” said Josh, managing to sound so vain and silly that the man underestimated him still more.

“Suit yourself,” shrugged the man. His face tightened. “Easy on leaving this place. I think I might have been trailed here.”

“And if you were? And if your trailers catch up with us?” said Mac.

“Maybe none of us would stay on living’ much longer,” replied the man grimly.

They went with the man to the basement. A dozen or more cars, each unique in its way, were garaged there for The Avenger and his aides to use on various purposes. Mac and Josh took a sedan that didn’t look like much but was armored like a tank. And it could do over a hundred an hour.

They drove up a ramp that no one would ever see unless searching specifically for it and swung down Bleek Street.

Behind the sedan came a car without lights. It was a cheap, shabby roadster. In it was a girl with ink-black hair. The girl had jet-black eyes that were beautiful but cold. Had either Mac or Smitty or Benson seen her, they’d have recognized her at once. They had seen her twice before — behind a .45 automatic that looked like a cannon in her small but steady hand.

In this instance, Mac didn’t see her. Nor did Josh. The man leading them, however, did spot her. His hand moved in a small gesture at his side. And when the sedan moved off with Mac at the wheel, the girl followed in the roadster, without lights, far behind.

The house near Milford, called the Carp place, was ablaze with light. Light showed from every window. Mac turned to the man who had guided them there.

“There’s apparently a gang in yon home,” he said. “How can we go through it secretly, as ye say we must, when there’s a crowd around?”

“There’ll be no crowd,” said the man. He had dragged out a stubby old pipe and was lighting it. “Unless I’m much mistaken, there won’t be a soul in the place.”

“But all the lights—”

“That’s part of the lead you’ll find in there on the Singer business,” said the man.

The three got out. Mac and Josh walked a few steps toward the house.

“You’d better be the one to go in,” Mac began. But he stopped in a hurry.

He and Josh had turned a little to look at their guide while Mac addressed him. But the man was no longer with them.

The roadside where they’d stopped the sedan was clear in both directions. There were woods, though. The man could have ducked into these and hidden. But — why would he?

“The slinkin’ skurlie,” muttered Mac. “ ’Tis a bad conscience he must have, to lead us out here and then sneak away.”

“Or else,” Josh pointed out, “he may be afraid of whatever is in the house.”

“True,” Mac sighed. “A house all lit up and with not a soul in it would be a queer kind of place, indeed. Shall we go in without yon sneaker?”

“Of course,” said Josh, without hesitation and without fear. Josh had as much courage as any man on earth, white, red or brown.

They went on to the house.

Lighted from basement to attic it might be; but there wasn’t a sound coming from any part of it. No flickering shadow on the windows evidenced any movement within it, either. Apparently, their disappearing guide had been right; it was deserted.

They stepped up onto an old porch. Josh tried the front door. It opened to a touch, as if it had been set to welcome hospitably any person desiring to enter.

But Mac wondered dourly if the hospitality might not be akin to that offered to flies by spiders.

They went in. They could see now that the light had an odd quality. It was whiter than usual light — and softer. And at first they couldn’t spot where it came from.

Josh pointed suddenly toward the molding in the hall.

“This place may be old,” he said, “but it has certainly been modernized. Concealed lighting! What do you think of that?”

It was indeed true. Along the molding in the hall — and in the room next to them, into which they could see a little — was a narrow strip of ground glass. And from behind this came the pure, soft illumination.

“They must be tryin’ out a new kind of electric bulb,” ventured Mac.

But Josh abruptly pointed out another strange little fact.

There weren’t any electric light switches on the walls.

They went from room to room of the house. Nowhere did they find a switch. And now they noticed that they were perspiring a bit, though the early summer night was rather cool.

“There’s heat on, and plenty of it. Notice that all the windows are wide open?”

Josh nodded. And as one, the two started toward the basement.

Down there was a rusty old furnace of a common make. From its closed firebox came a soft roar, barely to be heard when you put your ear right next to it.

A half-inch iron pipe led from the base of the furnace to the end basement wall, and went out through a hole there.

“Oil burner,” guessed Mac. “Say!”

He stared around with widening eyes. The basement of any house is its key, mechanically. And in this basement the usual key was missing.

“There’s no electric meter in here, Josh,” Mac said.

“Maybe it’s upstairs—”

“Now that I think about it — there was no electric light poles leadin’ in here from the lane.”

“The wires could be buried to avoid poles,” Josh said.

“Say they’re buried,” nodded Mac. “Then the main wire’d come in through the basement wall, like yon oil pipe. In which case, why would the meter be in an upper floor? And where’s the main cable comin’ in?”

They combed the basement and confirmed the fantastic fact: there wasn’t an electric wire entering the house; there wasn’t a pipe, save the one leading to the furnace alone, through which gas could come.

But with no electricity and no gas, the house was being lavishly lighted and warmed.

There was a slight sound over their heads.

Josh and Mac raced for the stairs, went silently up. At a nod from Mac, Josh slipped out the rear door, around the house and in the front door. From opposite directions they converged on the doorway from which slight noises were still coming.

The sounds of paper rustling.

Mac leaped in and to one side to duck any bullets. Josh followed him two seconds later, leaping to the other side. All very efficient, and all designed to conquer any man or men lurking within the room with guns.

But there weren’t any gunmen in there.

There was one small man with outstanding ears seated in an easychair reading a newspaper through horn-rimmed glasses. The man blinked owlishly, peaceably at them over the specs.

“For Heaven’s s-s-sake,” stuttered Mac, feeling about as foolish as he ever had in his life. Then he stared harder.

“Xisco!” he said, recognizing the little man they had met in Montreal.

“Why, hello,” said Xisco, beaming at him. “I remember you now. You were investigating the death of Veck. A great man, Veck. But what are you doing here in my house?”

“Your house?”

“Yes. You’re welcome of course. But just why are you here at this hour of the night?”

“Wheah was yo’ a few minutes ago?” asked Josh, looking sleepy and dull. “We was all through de house and we didn’t see nobody.”

“That must have been when I stepped out to look at my water pump,” said Xisco. “Annoying things, pumps. Always breaking down—”

“How,” said Mac bluntly, “d’ye light your house — and heat it — without gas or electricity?”

“Without— Oh, you must be rather mistaken. I have the usual—”

The scream came then!

It was a cry of agony, eerie, sending shivers up and down their spines. It came from near the road; and if it wasn’t the call of a dying man, then Mac would never trust his big, homely ears again.

The three raced out of the house and toward the sound. The maker of the sound could be seen plainly. All too plainly, in the darkness of surrounding night!

He could be seen because something like an intermittent halo of soft white fire surrounded his head where he lay on the ground.

The man was the fellow who had anonymously guided Mac and Josh here, and he was almost dead. He had doubled in the agony of a man poisoned. But from lips and nostrils, with each last breath he drew, came fire!

It steamed out as if the man had been turned into a wick. It hissed in the dew-wet grass. It blackened and curled his lips.

Then it stopped — because his breathing had stopped. The man was dead!

The sound of a car being driven stealthily but rapidly away was heard. Mac started to run toward the sound. The shrill cry of Xisco whirled him back again.

“My house!” the little man screamed. “Look what’s happened! Look at that! My house!”

They had left the place seemingly in perfect shape. But now, so rapidly that it could scarcely be credited, the whole building was being enveloped in flame!

Streamers of fire shot four stories high. It was as if the structure had been soaked with gasoline and ignited in a hundred spots at once.

“My house — fire! Put it out!” wailed Xisco.

Mac and Josh raced toward the line of dense small trees marching in a rather sloppy line across open fields. The line indicated a creek. They got to it, splashed in it, turned to call to Xisco for buckets.

But they saw that water on that flame would be even more futile than it looked at first. A fire brigade could not have handled it.

Then there wasn’t any more flame to fight. There was a soft, roaring bellow, and the house went up in a thousand pieces. It settled down, the flaming fragments darkening soon.

Josh and Mac looked at each other and started back toward the road. Josh tripped, looked down. His exclamation drew Mac’s attention. And Mac, too, went rigid with surprise.

The two went back to pick up Xisco and take him to Bleek Street. The Avenger wanted to talk to the man who had passed the water pitcher in the Montreal hospital.

But Xisco wasn’t anywhere around.

“Wonder where he went?” Mac mused.

“I wonder, too, who was in that car we heard sneak away?” said Josh.

The car that had sneaked away had carried the girl with the ink-black hair and the cold black eyes. But even if they had known that, Mac and Josh wouldn’t have been as impressed as they were by the strange discovery at the creek.

The thing Josh had tripped over had been a half-buried length of half-inch iron pipe. Exactly the kind that had led into the base of the rusty old furnace. And this pipe had seemed to go on and on toward the house.

A pipe leading, not from furnace to oil tank buried in the yard, but to a meandering little creek.

Both decided the pipe was just a loose length that happened to be lying here. That’s all it could be.