Jupe looked around wildly. For the first time he saw something that might give them a chance. There was a trap-door under the long table that the boys used for wrapping and sorting.
Jupe pointed. “Look! There must be a cellar. The air’s bound to be better down there.”
The boys ran to pull the table away from the wall. Pete prised open the trap-door, and they looked down into a brick-walled cellar. Its dirt floor was more than eight feet beneath them, and they smelled air that was heavy with damp and decay. The boys didn’t hesitate. Pete swung down through the trap-door opening, holding on to the edge of the floor, then let himself drop the few remaining feet. The others followed. When they were safely in the cellar, Bob stood on Pete’s shoulders and pulled the trap-door shut.
The boys stood in the darkness and strained to listen. They could still hear the fire. They were safe, but for how long? In his mind’s eye Jupe pictured flames mushrooming through the first floor and eating away at the roof. What if the roof caved in? Would the floor above them hold if flaming timbers came crashing down on it? Even if it did hold, would anyone fight through the fire to find them hiding in the cellar?
“Hey!” Pete grasped Jupe’s arm. “Hear that?”
There were sirens in the distance.
“It’s about time!” said Bob.
“Hurry up, firemen!” pleaded Pete. “We haven’t got all night!”
The sirens came closer and closer. Then there were more sirens and still more. Then, one by one, the piercing mechanical wails stopped.
“Help!” cried Pete. “Help! Hey, you guys!”
The three waited. After what seemed an age, they heard a wrenching sound and a crash above them.
“I’ll bet that’s the window!” said Bob. “They’re yanking the grille out of the window!”
Water thundered and gushed on the planks above them. Jupe felt wetness on his face, and on his shoulders and arms. Rivulets of dirty water spattered down all around him.
“We’ll drown!” Pete yelled. “Stop! We’re down here!”
The sound of rushing water ceased.
“Open the trap-door!” Bob cried.
There was the protest of wood scraping on wood. The panel above them opened and a fireman looked down.
“They’re here!” he shouted. “I found the kids!”
The fireman leaped into the cellar. An instant later Bob was being boosted up through the trapdoor to a second fireman, who seized him and sent him staggering towards the window. The iron grating was gone and two hose lines ran into the mail room. Bob scrambled over the sill and out on to the narrow walkway.
Bob had gone only a few steps when he heard Jupiter behind him. Pete followed, and the firemen who had pulled the boys from the cellar came after them. “Keep going!” ordered one of the men. “Move! Fast! The roof’s going to cave in any second!”
The boys ran until they reached the open street. It was blocked with fire engines. Hose lines lay in tangles from kerb to kerb.
“Thank heaven! You’re safe!” Mr Grear ran forward, clutching a paper sack of fried chicken.
“Hey you, get back!” shouted a fireman.
Mr Grear retreated towards the crowd that had gathered across the street. The boys went with him. “They wouldn’t let me go in after you,” said Grear. “I told them you were in there, but they wouldn’t let me go.” He seemed to be in a daze.
“It’s okay, Mr Grear,” said Jupiter. “We’re safe.” He took the sack of chicken from the old man and helped him sit down on a low wall in front of a little shopping centre.
“Mr Grear! Mr Grear!” The boys looked round to see Mr Thomas hurrying towards them. He was dodging this way and that to get through the crowd of onlookers. “Mr Grear, what happened? I saw the smoke. I was having dinner at a place near here and I saw the smoke. Mr Grear, how did it start?”
Before Mr Grear could comprehend that Thomas was questioning him, Beefy Tremayne came dashing around the corner on to Pacifica Avenue. His uncle trailed him, with Mrs Paulson bringing up the rear.
“Mr Grear!” cried Beefy. “You okay? Hey, are you boys all right?”
“We’re okay,” Pete assured him.
Beefy crouched beside Mr Grear.
“I would have called you,” said Grear, “but I was too concerned about the boys.”
“We saw the smoke from our apartment and came running,” said Beefy.
A shout went up across the street. Firemen scrambled to get clear of the adobe. Then the roof of the building fell in with a roar.
Flames leaped up against the sky. The thick walls of the old building still stood, but the firemen ignored them now. Hoses played steadily on the roofs and walls of buildings up and down the street.
Jupe looked at Mrs Paulson. She was crying.
“Please don’t,” said Beefy. “Please, Mrs Paulson, it’s only a building.”
“Your father’s publishing house!” sobbed Mrs Paulson. “He was so proud of it!”
“I know,” said Beefy, “but it is just a building. As long as no one was hurt . . .”
The young publisher stopped talking and looked at the boys in a questioning way.
“We were the last ones out,” said Bob. “Nobody was hurt.”
Beefy managed to smile. “That’s what’s important,” he said to Mrs Paulson. “And Amigos Press isn’t wiped out–not by a long shot. Our inventory of books is safe in the warehouse and our plates are in storage. Why, we’ve even got the Bainbridge manuscript!”
“We have?” said Mrs Paulson.
“Yes. I put it in my briefcase and took it home. So things aren’t that bad, and . . .”
Beefy broke off. A man with a hand-held camera had stepped on to the street and was walking towards the fire.
“Uh-oh,” said Beefy. “The television stations are covering this. I’d better find a phone.”
“Why?” asked William Tremayne.
“I want to call Marvin Gray,” Beefy explained, “to tell him the Bainbridge manuscript is safe. If he watches the news and finds out that Amigos Press burned down, he’ll think the manuscript went with it unless I tell him differently.”
Beefy headed for the filling station on the corner, where there was a pay telephone. At that moment, Jupiter became aware that there was a man approaching from across the street–a man whose face was ghastly white. He was bleeding badly from a wound on his scalp.
“Oh, gosh!” exclaimed Pete.
The blood coursed down the man’s cheek and soaked the front of his shirt.
“What on earth?” said William Tremayne.
Jupiter started forward as the man collapsed in the street. A fireman ran to bend over the fallen man, and two policemen hurried to help him. Gingerly they turned him over on his back, and one of them looked quickly at the wound on his head.
“Say, I know him!” A stout woman pushed her way out of the crowd and went to the policemen. “He works in that film place there.” She pointed towards Film Craft Laboratory, a solidly built brick building which was next to the ruins of Amigos Press. “I’ve seen him come and go lots of times,” said the woman.
One of the policemen stood up. “I’ll call an ambulance,” he told his partner. “Then we’d better check out that film lab. Doesn’t look as if this guy’s going to be able to tell us anything. He might not wake up for quite a while!”
3
The Double Disaster
THERE WAS a brief account of the fire on the late news that night. Jupiter watched it with his aunt Mathilda and uncle Titus, with whom he lived. The next morning, he was up in time to see the Los Angeles Now show.
“Haven’t you had enough of that fire?” said Aunt Mathilda as Jupe put the portable TV on the kitchen counter. “It could have killed you!”
Jupe sat down and began to sip his orange juice. “Maybe there’ll be news about that man,” he said.
“The one who collapsed in the street?” Aunt Mathilda sat down to watch, and Uncle Titus poured himself a second cup of coffee.
On the television screen, newscaster Fred Stone looked grave. “There was a double disaster in Santa Monica yesterday,” he said. “Fire broke out in the historic Amigos Adobe on Pacifica Avenue at approximately six o’clock. The building, which housed the offices of Amigos Press, was empty except for three young mail clerks. They were trapped by the flames, but were rescued unharmed by firemen.”
The image of Stone faded from the television screen. It was replaced by scenes of the smoking ruins of Amigos Press. Stone’s voice went on narrating. “The adobe building was completely destroyed. Damage is estimated at half a million dollars.
“As the fire burned, police discovered that a robbery had taken place at Film Craft Laboratory, immediately adjacent to the adobe. At some time between five and six, thieves entered the laboratory, which specializes in the restoration of old motion pictures. They made off with almost one hundred reels of film, the negatives of motion pictures made by actress Madeline Bainbridge more than thirty years ago. Miss Bainbridge, who was once a leading star, had just sold the motion pictures to Video Enterprises, which owns this station–Station KLMC–and its affiliates.”