the wonderful coolness and audacity of his companion filled jack with admiration. he had forgotten for the moment that there was any danger at all. it seemed to him to be a good thing to have so adroit and cunning a colleague to work with. the whole thing had been so wonderfully swift; hardly a moment seemed to have elapsed between the extinguishing of the light and the return of seymour with the duplicate of the plan safely in his pocket.
what he proposed to do next jack could not guess for the moment, neither did he much care. at the same time, he felt quite convinced of the fact that seymour had some deep scheme in his mind. jack's spirits rose in quite an unaccountable way. he warmly congratulated himself on the fact that he had found seymour and brought him into the campaign against anstruther. the danger was by no means over yet, as seymour must have recognized; but that did not seem to trouble him much, for he was shaking now with suppressed mirth, and was evidently enjoying the situation as one does a screaming farce from a comfortable place in the stalls.
jack was about to whisper something of this to his companion, when the latter checked him with a touch on the arm. inside the room, in the comparatively moderated light of the lamps, jack could see carrington fussing about uneasily. "i tell you that there were two plans," he muttered. "i am absolutely certain there was a duplicate. if you have played any kind of trick upon me i hope you will confess it at once."
"trick be hanged, suppose that i indulge in practical joking? i say you have made a mistake; the duplicate plan is somewhere else."
"and i am equally certain that it was with those papers," carrington blustered. "they were lying side by side a minute ago. and now one of them is gone, and you want me to believe that it has been spirited away by unseen hands."
"i don't want you to believe anything of the sort," anstruther replied. "not a minute had elapsed between the time that the light went out and the moment i lighted the match. what a nervous, frightened fool you are. you will be saying next that seymour is concealed somewhere in the room, and snatched this brilliant opportunity for purloining these papers. really, we are getting on. hadn't you better look round the house. you will have to go to bed presently, and i should advise you to lock your door."
all this brutal sarcasm was utterly lost upon carrington. he was as frightened and nervous as a lonely woman in a lonely house, who has discovered some strange man there. he darted from the room, followed by anstruther's contemptuous laughter, and returned presently, saying that he had made a thorough search of the flat.
"most assuredly nobody is on the premises," he said. he was by no means convinced yet that anstruther was not playing some cunning trick upon him. "it is most extraordinary. you may say what you like, and prove what you like; but i am ready to swear that i brought both those plans into the room with me five minutes ago."
"oh, look up the chimney," anstruther growled. "take all those plants out of your conservatory, and see if the thief hasn't vanished up the water pipe. i am sick of all these nervous fears and hysterical suspicions. it has always been the curse of my existence that i can never lay hands on an accomplice who is anything but a knave or a fool."
without heeding the savage outburst, carrington took one of the little silver lamps from the table, and, holding it up by its crystal receiver, advanced cautiously in the direction of the conservatory. jack held his breath, and prepared for the worst. he felt pretty sure now that he and seymour would be discovered. not that he much minded, except that he was extremely anxious not to be recognized by anstruther; but that risk had to be run. it was a pity, too, seeing what a marvelous amount of information had been gleaned during the last half-hour; but that was all part of the game.
"is it possible he has vanished through the skylight?" anstruther sneered.
carrington muttered that there was a drop of some thirty feet outside the conservatory. he still advanced with the lamp in his hand, and peered about him with an anxious face. the moment was a critical one indeed, and jack wondered if seymour's wonderful fertility of resource would be equal to the occasion. in the dim light of the lamp he saw seymour's right arm steal out, and his sinewy fingers close upon a piece of hose pipe attached to a tap in the wall. evidently this had been used for watering the flowers. the gardener responsible for the well-doing of the rooms doubtless understood his work, and watered each pot separately, instead of spraying the whole place indiscriminately; for attached to the hose-pipe was the small nozzle meant to convey a fine single jet for some distance.
jack began dimly to understand what seymour meant to do. it was going to be a dangerous experiment, but danger was quite absolutely necessary if the eavesdroppers were to escape unrecognized. if seymour's plan was absolutely successful, there was just the chance of them getting away without their presence there being indicated at all.
jack saw the lean, brown hand stretch forth and turn on the tap in the wall. then the tap at the end of the hose slid round, and a tiny spray of water, fine as a needle and strong as the arrow from a bow, struck the chimney of the lamp, now nearly red hot, and a tremendous smash of cracking glass followed.
carrington staggered back, and a kind of hysterical scream broke from his lips. with his nerves strung at high tension, the shock of the bursting explosion rendered him nearly mad with terror. seymour turned off the tap again, feeling sure that his business was well done.
"by jove, that was wonderfully smart, and quickly done," jack whispered to his companion. "i rather pride myself upon the ingenuity of my stories, especially as regards the plots of them, but i never could have thought of anything quite like that."
"not bad," the other said quite coolly. "it was all a matter of accuracy of aim and steadiness of hand. but to a man like myself, who has had vast experience of big game shooting, a little affair like that is a mere nothing."
"but you might have missed," jack said. "the deviation of that spurt of water by even so much as a hair's breadth would have carried it full into carrington's face, and then our presence must have inevitably been discovered. that is where the dramatic side of it appeals to me."
"it appealed to me also," seymour whispered coolly. "but i had only to imagine that the lamp was the face of a famous old man-eating tiger who nearly did for me four years ago in upper burmah, to render my hand absolutely steady. if we had been discovered, we should have had to have fought our way out; but i think you will agree with me that i have managed the affair in a much more artistic way than that."
jack agreed cordially. he was watching now with breathless eagerness to see what was the full measure of seymour's success. carrington had staggered back with a startled cry, though even as yet he did not know the danger that was to follow.
"by heaven, you have done it well," jack muttered.
"i think i have," seymour whispered complacently. "it occurs to me that i have not left much to be desired."
it was done even better than he had anticipated, for a few drops of the cold water had trickled down the receiver of the lamp and mingled with the oil there. from all parts of the brass work round the flame a blue, fiery vapor gushed out. with a cry of dismay carrington almost threw the lamp upon the table; it tottered and fell sideways, and an instant later a stream of burning oil was flowing over the table-cloth, and dripping in long tongues of flame upon the carpet.
"for heaven's sake be careful, you clumsy coward," anstruther cried. "you'll have the whole place on fire; those lamps are very pretty to look at, but dangerous to use."
but carrington was not listening at all. he seemed to have lost his head entirely. but, frightened as he was, he did not fail to notice that the liquid flame was licking the other set of plans which were lying on the table. just for an instant his mind was clear enough to see the necessity of saving the papers. he leaned forward and made a clutch at them. something hot and stinging seemed to be gripping him by the fingers; he snatched his hand back again, and dragged the table-cloth, more than half of which was in flames, to the floor. crash fell the second lamp, its crystal receiver smashed by the fall, and in the twinkling of an eye the whole room was in flames.
so sudden, so swift and unexpected was the whole thing, that jack could only gasp. he was so lost in admiration of seymour's quickness and coolness, that he quite failed to realize the danger in which he and his companion stood. less than a minute had elapsed since seymour put his scheme into execution, and yet already the smoking-room was one mass of lambent flame.
"well, you have done it this time," anstruther yelled. "clear out at once, or there will be no occasion for me to trouble about either of us any further. give an alarm; go out in the street, and yell for the fire engine."
carrington needed no second bidding. together with anstruther he raced down the stone staircase and into the street. jack could hear his companion chuckling with triumph and delight.
"rather a close thing that," he said coolly. "and now we had best look to ourselves. no chance of making a dash through those flames without being badly burned; besides, i have no doubt there is some other way out of it. push those windows to, mr. masefield; there is no reason why we should be suffocated here."
by closing the windows leading to the smoking-room, which was now a roaring mass of flame, it was possible to cut off the heat and smoke for a moment, and perhaps gain sufficient time to discover another means of retreat.
but this was easier said than done. with the aid of a match or two, seymour found the window at the back of the conservatory, which opened outwards. so far as he could see there was a drop of something like thirty feet into a kind of alley at the back of the flats. "we shall have to wait our chance," seymour said. "there are several more flats in the building, and no doubt there will be plenty to do for the firemen later on. in all probability, anstruther and carrington are mixed up in the crowd which you may be quite sure has collected by this time. shall we wait on events, or shall we open the window and yell for assistance? we can pretend that we were cut off by the fire."
on the whole, jack thought it would be better to wait. they were quite safe for the next quarter of an hour, at any rate, and in that time much might happen.
"it is worth risking," he said. "what a great thing it would be if we could get away from here without those men knowing that anybody had been on the premises. suppose we try our hands as amateur firemen. there is plenty of water here."
but seymour did not think it would be worth while. a hose and pipe as small as that which they had at their disposal would not be likely to be of much use in dealing with the roaring tornado of flame behind the closed glass doors. the conservatory, too, was getting intolerably hot, but that discomfort was avoided by opening the window. there was just the outline of a leaded balcony to be seen above the arch of the conservatory; then, greatly to jack's delight, he saw the movements of some figures below, and then a ladder was slowly raised until it rested against the leads of the balcony.
"that is for the benefit of the people up-stairs," seymour suggested. "possibly they cannot make the inhabitants of the upper flats hear what is going on. see, the ladder is quite clear by this time--i expect those firemen have got in through a window somewhere. push this window back, and see if you can reach the ladder."
it was a comparatively easy matter to reach the ladder, as jack found to his great delight. a moment later he and seymour were upon it. they slid rapidly down, and found themselves at length in the alley without anybody being a penny the wiser.
"well, of all the lucky chances," jack exclaimed. "we are well out of that. let us go round to the front and see what is going on there."
a great crowd had assembled in front of the burning flat. the red outlines of a couple of engines could be seen; beyond the crowd there was a sound and regular rush of pumping water; and presently the crowd seemed to understand that all danger was over. jack touched his companion's arm, and called his attention to the fact that carrington and anstruther were standing within earshot of them.
"and what are you going to do now?" asked the latter.
"oh, i shall go off and stay at the great metropolitan. no, you needn't come along--i have had about enough of your company for to-night."
carrington called a hansom, and was whirled away. seymour smiled in a significant manner.
"wouldn't it be as well," he suggested, "that you also found it convenient to pass the night at the great metropolitan? padini is there, too, and it is possible that you may----"
"right you are," jack said eagerly. "then i can call upon you in the morning and report progress. good-night."
