Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/276

 in haste. Then they returned to the fire, but there was nothing to do but watch. No human agency could stop that devouring monster of flame, though the firemen worked like diminutive, foreshortened demons against it, scurrying here and there, all but being caught under the fall of some wall or column, even darting inside the red hot walls where they thought some human might be penned. It was the last of the famous old hotel.

“What about Miss Pomeroy?” asked Eddie, turning to his employer.

Val regarded him in silence. “Why, I guess you’re right,” he said at length. “Now would seem to be the time to get out there and dig up old Pomeroy’s money, wouldn’t it?”

Eddie nodded.

“I don’t think Teck’ll go out there for an hour or two yet—its only five o’clock now. We can be finished by the time he comes.”

Val acquiesced. “That’s right. It’ll be just as well if we can get that done before he gets out. There are complications whenever he shows up.”

In a few moments they had the flivver pointed toward Hampton, and were chugging on their way. The trip was not a long one—fifteen or twenty minutes sufficed to cover the intervening ground. They knew where Teck was, so there was no necessity of hiding their machine before advancing upon the cottage. They stopped beside the door.

The Virginia hills, at that time of the morning, just tipped by the rising sun, were at their prettiest, blue in the distance, softened in the ambient air. Bird life had already awakened, and there came to them, through the twittering of the small birds, the lusty