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                             THE INCENDIARY

                           A Story of Mystery.

                             BY W. A. LEAHY.


    CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:
    RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY,
    MDCCCXCVII.

    A PRIZE STORY
    In THE CHICAGO RECORD series of "Stories of Mystery."

    THE INCENDIARY

    BY W. A. LEAHY.

    (This story--out of 816 competing--was awarded the fourth prize in the
    CHICAGO RECORD'S "$30,000 to Authors" competition.)

    Copyright, 1896, by W. A. Leahy.




THE INCENDIARY.




CHAPTER I.

FANFARE: THE PLAY BEGINS.


It was about half-past three in the afternoon when Bertha, the
housemaid, came running down the steps, with a shrill cry of "Fire!" and
fell plump into the arms of the bake-shop girl, who had seen the smoke
curling from Prof. Arnold's window and was hastening across to warn the
occupants of his house. The deep bark of a dog was heard within and
presently Sire, the professor's old St. Bernard, rushed by the two young
women and darted hither and thither, accosting the bystanders
distractedly, as if burdened with a message he could not communicate.

"Ring the alarm!" cried Bertha and the bake-shop girl in a breath, as
soon as they had recovered from the shock of their collision. Their cry
was taken up by a knot of three boys, who, as usual, were the first on
the spot; passed along till it reached some loungers on the corner,
whose inertia was more gradually overcome; and presently half the
neighborhood, as if by a spontaneous impulse, came thronging into
Cazenove street, each following his leader, like a flock of startled
ewes. Bertha, caught in the middle of this ring of sight-seers, stood
paralyzed a moment; then singling out the one man of action, she broke
through the crowd and stopped him midway in his advance.

"For the love of heaven, will you ring the alarm?"

The postman turned and scudded to the box. There was an interval of
suspense that seemed an age.

"Is there any one in the house?" was the first question of Patrolman
Chandler, when he galloped up to the scene. He had been attracted at
once by the barking of Sire.

"Mr. Robert," cried Bertha, wringing her hands. "Mr. Robert was in the
study." The crowd looked up and measured the swift gains of the
destructive element.

"Young Floyd?" said Chandler. Then he rushed into the house and up the
first flight of winding stairs, the dog, as he did so, following him
with a great fusillade of delighted barks.

"There's some one inside," said the crowd, and the rumor passed from
mouth to mouth.

"Fire! Fire!" called Chandler from the corridor window above. "Yell, you
fellows, as you never yelled before!"

In response a cry of "Fire!" went up from man, woman and child, bass and
treble intermingling, loud enough to have waked the seven sleepers from
their trance. But no one stirred inside. Just at this moment the tardy
bells rang out the number of the box, and almost immediately, as an
engine came rounding a distant corner and the great gray horses bounded
up the grade, the uproar began to subside. On, on, past the doomed
house, now enveloped in flames, to the nearest hydrant, the driver
lashed his pair. The hydrant cover had been thrown off and the first
block of coal flung into the engine's furnace before Patrolman Chandler
reissued from the door which he had entered.

"There is no one there," he gasped, as if choking with the smoke. But
the dog continued to leap about, accosting the bystanders appealingly,
until his barks and pawing became a nuisance to several and they spurned
him pettishly away.

Now engines from many directions came clattering by and the air was full
of clangor. Lines of hose were unraveled, ladders hoisted against the
walls, and finally, amid hoarse shouts that pierced the deep sighing of
the flames within, a rubber-clad, helmeted fellow, with a nozzle
strapped to his body, slowly led a line up to the second-story window,
where the fire had apparently started. There was another interval of
suspense, orders to and fro, and then a helpless pause. Something
refused to work.

But the fire met no such impediment. Suddenly an explosion