THE PENDULUM OF PERIL

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 43, 20 February 1929, Page 20

THE PENDULUM OF PERIL

(By HAROLD MARKHAM.)

(SHORT STOKT:)

The chief officer of the Heathvale Volunteer Fire Brigade was having a quarrel with his fiancee, and Molly, her ten-year-old orphaned sister, one of those nice, quiet, thoughtful children, overheard most of it.

•'The fact is, Cynthia," Jack Nelthorpe was saying, "you had no right to take my car without asking me, and you jolly well know it!" Cynthia tossed her shingled head. "I don't agree. You said I might drive it one day, and I thought you were a man of your word." "I agree I said that." Jack swallowed his righteous indignation. "But I did not say you were to walk off with it from outside the station, when I was five miles away giving a demonstration. Hang it, Cynthia, can't you see that? What kind of a fool d'you suppose I looked in front of the men when we got back and found my car pinched— by my fiancee of all people!" Cynthia's lips compressed themselves into a straight line. "I think," she announced, 'that you are unreasonable— most unreasonable!" "And I think you haven't played the game." "Very well, I don't think we need discuss the matter any further. Good evening!" Jack reddened. "I see. I never stop where I'm not wanted. Good evening. I shall come back again when I'm invited and not before," he added. "Do as you please about it!" "I shall! I eha'n't cross your threshold again, my girl, till you ask me, and you can take that as my last wordj" He jumped into the scarlet and aluminium two-seater that had caused the dispute, banged the door, jabbed his finger on the self-starter, and drove off. Cynthia indulged in a good cry, and Molly, inwardly .upbraiding her elder sister and guardian for being such a fool as to pack such an incomparable specimen of manhood out of the house, went off to the far end of the garden. Jack Xelthorpe was Molly's ideal and she would listen to him talking ehop by the hour. She knew from him all that a child should know about how fires are started and extinguished, for Jack, like all up-to-date Chief Officers, believed in teaching the rising generation.

At first Molly's determination was to let the guilty Cynthia fade from the picture and wait until she herself was old enough to capture the desirable Jack, but after a while mare charitable counsels prevailed and her face took on that expression of thoughtfulness which would have given anyone versed in the ways of children reason to look out for trouble ahead. Those nice, quiet, thoughtful children are never so dangerous as when they are thoughtful and quiet.

It was late in the evening and Jack Nelthorpe was deep in study of Gamble's "Outbreaks of Fire." He had not seen Cynthia for over a week, and was trying to crush out the very memory of her by application to a particularly dry and technical section of that excellent book, dealing with water-pressure tables from hydrants. A sudden burst of ringing from his alarm bell cam? as a relief.

In the tenth part of a minute his slippers were off and his trqpsers camouflaged with ''thigh" gum boots; in another couple of seconds he was half into his tunic and belt, had his cap on his! head, and wae making for the garage. The car swallowed the distance between his house and the fire station at a gulp; and, leaving it by the kerb, he jumped onto the engine, which swung off down the street. He had not stopped to inquire the name of the house in trouble, but the driver bawled it to him over the wild clanging of t"he bell: "Fir View— Huntsman's Hill."

Jack nearly tumbled into the road. "Fir View! Cynthia's house!" "Smoke coming through t]ie roof, sir!" shouted the driver, as he turned up Huntsman's Hill." "Is it? Then put her all out and hang the chance of an accident!" Volumes of dense smoke were leaking up through the tiles of Cynthia's roof, and it scarcely needed Jack's order for the escape to be released and wheeled into position. "Everyone out?" he asked a policeman as two men ran up, drew their axes, and began to hack a way through the tiles. "That is so, Captain. Lady's out and says the child followed her." "Ah! Both safe!" "That is so. The lady*e fainted and the ambulance is looking after her." Jack turned away and gave orders for hose to be run out from a near-by hydrant. Then he made to enter the house. He couldnt help smiling quietly to himself as he realised how Fate had conspired to make him go back on his word. His foot was almost on the threshold when his name was called from the attic window. "Jack! Jack! Help!" That policeman had been wrong. A little figure in pyjamas wae there, and smoke was eddying outwards from behind her. A fireman came out of the house almost colliding with his chief. "Staircase blacked with smoke, sir," he reported. "Can't find the seat of the fire!" Jack glanced up at thp escape. It would take a minute or two to get it down and shift it, but it was only a few feet to the left of that window, and with luck one might just manage to ''swing in."

"Life line and hook belt!" he ordered. "Quick as you can!" Buckling on the belt, lie hooked one end of the life line to it and ran up the escape. Over the top rung but one he passed the line, fixed it again to his belt, shouted to a couple of men below to hang on to the other end, and swung himself off towards the window. He missed it and swung back again with a barked knee; just caught the escape with a wrench that nearly took his arm out of its socket, and got back on to it for another try. Molly had disappeared from the window. He threw his cap down, shouted a second time to the men to take the strain on the rope, and again swung for the window. Beside it was a waterpipe which he managed to catch. Then, with that abnormal strength which, as any fireman will tell, one gets on such occasions, he dragged himsell sideways with one hand while clawing for the window-sill with the other. Oetting his fingers over this he hauled himself up until he could grasp it with his other hand. He was able to scramble up a little farther and get a grip of the lattice frame. He squeezed his body through and fell headlong into the room. Where was Molly? He called her name aloud, but there came no answer. Then his foot touched something and he found her crouched on the floor

beside him, semi-conscious, lie took her }n his arms and threw one le- over the sill. "Take the strain!" he cried hoarsely, with his lungs full of smoke, and got his other leg out. There were two dangers to look out for: one of swinging against the escape, and the other of swinging back against the wall— for the distance between the escape and the window gave one a pendulum motion while descending. He took the impact of one with his shoulder and the other with his feet, and a few moments later stood in the road with Molly. The usual crowd had collected to cheer him, but Jack was up on the roof again like greased lightning. He had seen Cynthia, pale and dishevelled, making for him, and a horror of appearing in front of her in the guise of a "film hero had come over him. "Found the trouble, sir!'" reported a begrimed fireman. "It's here. All smoke and not much fire to shew for it. See, sir?" Jack looked through a hole in the brickwork down into the Hue of the chimney. "'A beam it were, sir." the man continued. "Old house, I take it. A beam built into the inside of the flue. Sonic builders ought to be strung up, if you ask my opinion, sir!" Jack nodded. "You can cut the rest lof that beam out and put a little water down the chimney," he said. "I'll let them know they can open all windows now, and clear the smoke." He let himself down through the hole in the roof and felt his way to a door. The smoke was already clearing on the stairs and in the passage above! In the dining-room he found two men swabbing up water. He looked into the grate. "Hullo!" he exclaimed, "this looks odd. I should say there hasn't been a fire laid here for weeks or have you been polishing the grate up in voiir spare time?"

The men grinned. Sure enough, the bars and inside of the wpro neatly blackleaded. Whatever had started that chimney going, it was not a lire in the dining-room grate! "Perhaps there's another flue running into it," Jack said to himself, and went on a tour of exploration. But the draw-ing-room grate was as polished as the other, bo was that in the morning-room. In the kitchen there was only <-as. A search of the bedrooms took him no further—every grate was blackleaded and equipped with a paper fan. except one where were the remains of a fire, but that chimney was at the end of the house remote from the trouble-. There was nothing in the house to explain a burning chimney. Gradually an uneasy, chilly suspicion intruded on his thoughts. But it was absurd, monstrous! Cynthia commit arson? The idea was out of the question! Anyhow, the police must be. kept out of it.

He returned to the dining-room, dismissed his men, and then, hurrying upstairs again, collected the relies from that bedroom grate into a parcel ai.d arranged them artistically in the room below. "My dear Jack, what are you doing?" Jack faced Cynthia and saw tfat she had Molly in tow. "We came to thank you. Jack." continued Cynthia, gently, "and 1 came specially to apologise. I had no right to take your car. Will you torsive me?" "O3i, that's all right." said Jack, gruffly. "How's Molly after all her adventures?" They both looked at ihc child, who suddenly burst into tears. "It was all my fault," she sobbed, a* they tried to comfort her. "1 did what Jack told me not to do, and some of the j burning newspaper blew up the chimney and set it on fire." Jack gasped. "So that's why there was no fire in the grate! Really, I ought to apologise to you, Cynthia. When you came in I was just rigging a little evidence for the benefit of the police!" "Were you, Jack?" The light in Cynthia's eyes made further apology needless. "But,"—she turned to the child—"whatever made you burn a newspaper in the grate ?" More sobs followed, then confession leaked out. "You said you wouldn't come if you weren't asked. I wanted you to come—so —l—set the chimney on fire —then I ran back and waited—at the window—oh, Cynthia was I terribly wicked?" The two elder people looked at one another awkwardly—what was there to say?" "The maximum penalty for arson." said Jack, severely, "is fourteen years penal servitude, but I think we'll let you off this time. So pack off up to bed, because I want to send my men home and then have a good long talk with your sister!"