pumped their streams of water on the blaze which now leaped from all the length of the roof and spread a crimson glare to the sky.
A floor fell, scattering flaming embers, the brick walls became sides of a furious furnace so hot that Miss Cornwall and her tin box and huge suitcase were moved farther away. What had been an early morning breeze became a wind. Shrubbery on the lawn and the tops of trees caught fire. The men who had come from the village had to satisfy themselves with a triumph over these fires and with drenching the garage so no ember could set it ablaze. However, Granger drove out the Rolls-Royce and two other cars.
He had helped the firemen for a while and so had Hardy and Donald Cornwall, and now, with the shrubbery wet down, there was nothing for anyone to do but watch.
Donald Cornwall went to the fire engine and found two blankets and laid one about his aunt. With the other he approached Melicent.
"It's all I can rustle for you. Are you all right?"
"Perfectly."
"Shaking a bit," he observed.
"Am I? I'm not cold."
His face was grimy and the grime almost camouflaged a grin that held more praise than humor. "Don't dream that I grudge you a shiver or two. Do you know, I thought you were never coming out. Did you save anything of your own?"
"Do I look as if I did? returned Melicent, quieted now of her quivering.
"Too bad. I guess my aunt and the insurance company will make amends for that."
It was the first moment in which Melicent had thought of the fate of her personal belongings. The fervor with which Miss Cornwall had packed the big suitcase and clung to the tin box had so impressed Melicent that she had forgotten her own in helping save the old lady's personal belongings. What were her dresses and hats and underthings compared to the putative contents of that tin box?
Abruptly she recollected that over the nightdress belonging to Miss Cornwall she was wearing a borrowed sweater and skirt, and that everything she had possessed--except the bedroom slippers on her feet--had been consumed in the crackling, thundering caldron before them.
Miss Cornwall approached her. "Granger has the car ready. I think we had better go to town. There is quite a nice little hotel there. I am sorry about all this."
Melicent looked at the face of Hannah Cornwall, ruddy in the crimson glare. She wondered if Miss Cornwall was sorry. There was no tone of regret in the voice that said the words and perhaps they carried a trace of relief. Now that gloomy old Blackcroft had been consumed before her eyes, now that it had been blotted from the earth, was the old lady finding herself almost glad that it was gone?
This home had been for her a dwelling place of dread, in recent days at least, and in it yesterday her brother had been murdered.
Did she realize that it was murder which had come to her brother with the little copper spider clenched in his hand?
She stumbled as she strode toward the car and Melicent caught her on one side, Donald Cornwall on the other. They helped her into the car and packed in her big suitcase and her precious tin box in front of her.
Melicent stepped away then in the direction of the burning house and Donald followed her.
"There's not a chance of saving anything now," he said.
"Of course not. I was just thinking."
"What?"
"About what I saw in there; about what I told you. There was a hole in the plaster in that room just opposite the tub in the bathroom."
"But there was no hole through into the bathroom," said Donald Cornwall.
"No, nothing that we noticed, but--do you know about the message he received before he went to bathe?"
"He got a message?" asked Donald quickly. "What sort of a message?"
"Then your aunt didn't mention it to you."
"No, she didn't mention any message. What sort was it?"
"A five word message--meaningless to him."
"What were the words--meaningless or not?" He had seized her wrist again, almost as he had in the burning room, but this