Guilt of the Brass Thieves by Mildred Augustine Wirt (unputdownable books txt) 📕

“There’s nothing to tell. I went to the Harpers a number of times—attended their dances, and spent a lot of money. I got into debt to that fellow Glowershick and he pressed me for it.”

“There was nothing more to it?”

“Not a thing, except that I didn’t want my folks to hear about it. That’s why I pretended I didn’t know Glowershick. I was afraid you would tell them. Don’t you believe me?”

“Oh, I do, Jack. I’m so relieved. And the jitterbug girl at Harpers’—”

“Oh, her!” Jack said scornfully. “She was a stupid thing, and I don’t see how I stood her silly chatter. Most of the money I borrowed from Glowershick was spent on her. As I’ve said, I was a complete chump.”

Reaching a house some distance back from the river, they found the owner at home, and were given permission to telephone the police. Jack was promised by an inspector that all police cruisers would be ordered to watch for the escaped brass thieves. Railroad terminals, bus depots and all roads leading from the city would be guarded.

“Watch the riverfront too,” Jack urged. “The men may have gone by boat to Tate’s Beach, intending to catch a train from there.”

Satisfied they had done everything possible, Penny and Jack hastened back to the Harpers’. The sky was tinted pink and flames now shot from the roof of the house. A large crowd had gathered, and there was excited talk and gesturing.

“Something’s wrong!” Penny observed anxiously.

Pushing through the crowd, they sought vainly to find Sally.

A woman was talking excitedly, pointed toward the flaming building.

“I tell you, I saw a girl run in there only a few minutes ago!” she insisted. “And she didn’t come out! She must be in there now!”

The words shocked Penny and Jack as the same thought came to them. Could it be that reckless Sally had ventured into the basement of the house, hoping to recover the brass lantern or other evidence which would incriminate the thieves?

“She acted funny when we left her here,” Penny whispered in horror. “Oh, Jack! If she’s inside the building—”

Pushing through the crowd, she grasped the arm of the woman who was talking. “Who was the girl? What was she wearing?” she demanded tensely.

“A blue sweater,” the woman recalled. “Her hair was flying wild and her face was streaked with dirt as if she’d already been in the fire. I thought maybe she lived here.”

“It was Sally,” Penny murmured, her heart sinking to her shoe tops. “Why hasn’t someone brought her out?”

“No human being could get into that house now,” declared a man who stood close by. “The firemen aren’t here yet. Anyway, we ain’t sure there’s anyone inside.”

“I saw the girl run in, I tell you!” the woman insisted.

To debate over such a vital matter infuriated Penny and Jack. Sally was nowhere in the crowd and they were convinced she had entered the blazing building. Flames were blowing from some of the lower windows and smoke was dense. It was obvious that no man present was willing to risk his life to ascertain if the girl were inside.

“She must have tried to reach the basement!” Penny cried. “Oh, Jack, we’ve got to bring her out!”

Nodding grimly, Jack stripped off his coat. Throwing it over his head as a shield, he darted into the burning building. Penny, close at his heels, had no protection.

Inside the house, smoke was so black they could not see three feet ahead. Choking, gasping for breath, they groped their way through the living room to the kitchen. Penny jerked open the door leading into the cellar.

Flames roared into her face. The entire basement was an inferno of heat. No human being could descend the stairs and return. If Sally were below, she was beyond help.

Closing the door, Penny staggered backwards. Her head was spinning and she could not get her breath.

“It’s no use!” Jack shouted in her ear. “We’ve got to get out of here! The walls or floor may collapse.”

Clutching Penny’s arm, he pulled her along. In the black smoke swirling about them, they missed the kitchen door.

Frantically, they crept along a scorching hot wall, seeking to find an exit.

Then Penny stumbled over an object on the floor and fell. As she tried to get up, her hand touched something soft and yielding. A body lay sprawled in a heap beside her on the floor.

“It’s Sally!” she cried. “Oh, Jack, help me get her up!”

Sally moaned softly but did not stir as Penny tried to pull her to a sitting position. The heat now was almost unbearably intense, with flying brands dropping everywhere. But near the floor, the air was better, and Penny drew it in by deep gulps.

Jack’s groping hand encountered the sink. Soaking his coat with water from one of the taps, he gave it to Penny to protect her head and shoulders.

“Help me get Sally onto my back in a Fireman’s carry,” he gasped. “We can make it.”

The confidence in Jack’s voice gave Penny new courage and strength. As he knelt down on the floor, she dragged Sally onto his back. Holding the inert body high on his shoulders, he staggered across the kitchen.

Penny guided him to the door. Flames had eaten into the living room, and a small portion of the floor had fallen through. To reach the exit was impossible.

“A window!” Jack directed.

Penny could see none, so dense was the smoke, but she remembered how the room had been laid out, and pulled Jack to an outer wall. Her exploring hand encountered a window sill, but she could not get the sash up.

In desperation, she kicked out the glass. A rush of cool, sweet air struck her face. Filling her lungs, she turned to help Jack with his burden. Before she could grasp him, he sagged slowly to the floor.

Thrusting her head through the broken window, Penny shouted for help.

Willing hands lifted her to safety, and two men climbed through the window to bring out Jack and Sally. Both were carried some distance from the blazing building to an automobile where they were revived.

However, Sally was in need of medical attention. Hair and eyebrows had been singed half away, and more serious, her hands and arms were severely burned. Jack and Penny rode with her to the hospital when the ambulance finally came.

Not until hours later, after Captain Barker had been summoned, did Sally know anyone. Heavily bandaged, with her father, Jack, and Penny at her bedside, she opened her eyes and gave them a half-hearted grin.

“The Florence?” she whispered.

“Safely beached on a shoal,” Captain Barker assured her tenderly. “There’s nothing to worry about. All the passengers have been taken to hospitals or to their homes. A preliminary check has shown only one man lost, an engineer who was trapped at his post when the explosion occurred aboard the Florence.”

“Pop, you were marvelous,” Sally whispered. “You saved the waterfront.”

“And nearly lost a daughter. Sally, why did you try to get into that burning building?”

Sally drew a deep, tired sigh.

“Never mind,” said Penny kindly. “We know why you went in—it was to find the brass lantern.”

Sally nodded. “When I got to the basement, flames were shooting up everywhere,” she recalled with a shudder. “I realized then that I couldn’t possibly find the lantern or anything else. I tried to get back, but smoke was everywhere. That was the last I remembered.”

“It was Jack who saved you,” Penny said, but he cut in to insist that the credit belonged to her rather than to him.

In the midst of a good-natured argument over the subject, a nurse came to say that Penny and Jack both were wanted on the telephone.

“The police department calling,” she explained.

They were down the hall in a flash to take the call. Captain Brown of the city police force informed them they were wanted immediately at police headquarters to identify Sweeper Joe, the Harpers, and Clark Clayton who had been arrested at the railroad station. Adam Glowershick also had been taken into custody.

At headquarters fifteen minutes later, the young people found Mr. Gandiss, Penny’s father, and Heiney Growski already there. Questioned by police, the young people revealed everything they knew about the case.

“We can hold these men for a while,” Chief Bailey promised Mr. Gandiss, “but to make charges stick, we’ll have to have more evidence.”

Penny had told of the cache of brass in the Harper basement, and also of seeing Sweeper Joe and Clark Clayton dump much of the loot in the river. She was assured that the ruins of the house would be searched in the morning and that a dredge would be assigned to try to locate the brass which had been thrown overboard into the deepest part of the channel.

Heiney Growski produced records he had kept, showing a list of Gandiss factory employes known to be implicated in the plot.

“Most of the persons involved are new employes who smuggled small pieces of brass out of the factory and turned them over to Sweeper Joe for pin money,” he revealed. “The leaders are Joe, Clayton, and Glowershick. With them behind bars, the ring will dissolve.”

“There’s one thing I want to know,” Penny declared feelingly. “Who planted the brass in Sally’s locker while she was working at the factory?”

No one could answer the question at the moment, but the following day, after police had repeatedly questioned the prisoners, the entire story became known. Sweeper Joe, the real instigator of the plot, had slipped into the locker room himself, and had placed the incriminating piece of evidence in Sally’s locker, using a master key. He had disliked her because several times she had resented his attempts to become friendly.

Although police had obtained signed confessions, tangible evidence also was needed, for as Chief Bailey pointed out to Mr. Gandiss, the men might repudiate their statements when they appeared in court. Accordingly, police squads were sent to the Harpers’ to search the ashes for evidence, and also to the river to supervise dredging operations.

Throughout the day, between trips to the hospital to see Sally, Jack and Penny watched the dredge boat make its trips back and forth over the area where the loot had been dropped.

“I hope I wasn’t mistaken in the location,” Penny remarked anxiously as the vessel made repeated excursions without success. “After all, the night was dark, and I had no way of taking accurate bearings.”

Across the river and barely visible, the blackened, smoking skeleton of the Florence lay stranded on a sandbar. Throughout the night, a fireboat had steadily pumped water into the burning vessel, but even so, fires had not been entirely extinguished.

Morning papers had carried the encouraging information that there was only one known casualty as a result of the disaster. That many lives had not been lost was credited entirely to the courageous action of Captain Barker.

Becoming weary of watching the monotonous dredging operations, Jack and Penny joined a throng of curious bystanders at the Harper property. Police had taken complete charge and were raking the smoldering ruins.

“Find anything?” Jack asked a policeman he knew.

The man pointed to a small heap of charred metal which had been taken from the basement. There were many pieces of brass, but the missing lantern was not to be found in the pile.

However, from a member of the arson squad, they learned that enough evidence had been found to prove conclusively that the fire had been started with gasoline.

“Ma Harper spilled the whole story,” one of the policemen related. “She and her husband were fairly straight until they became mixed up with Sweeper Joe, who has a police record of long standing. Ma had a black market business in silk stockings that didn’t amount to much. So far as we’ve been able to learn, she and a taxi driver whom