three united efforts the upper hinge of the door gave; and, as it fell in, half a dozen men ran upstairs with the same impetus, not heeding the protests of the police official. A cordon had, however, been drawn by now across the main entrance to the building, so that the remainder of the crowd had to content themselves with watching from the street. It was evident that the fire had broken out in or near the chapel; the flames were already wreathed about the balcony from which the soldiers’ salute had been returned, scarce, half an hour earlier. By the time Almeda arrived in his car the mob in the street was so packed that it was almost impossible to pass. He turned up a side street, and parked his car at the back, where the sentries had stood, but stood no longer—they had been swept away in the general eagerness to help in fighting the flames. From the back, down the alley already mentioned, Almeda returned to the main street, and fought his way through the crowd, shouting his own name to secure himself a passage.
Half-way up the stairs he was met by Varcos himself, and asked eagerly whether they had got the fire under. ‘The fire—that is out,’ replied Varcos. ‘But the Inspirer—we have searched high and low without finding him. I’m going to the back, to see if he can have been cut off somewhere, trying to escape. For God’s sake, General, imprison all the fellows who broke in with us; trust nobody except the guards. If there has been foul play’—and he shook his hands in the air, with clenched teeth, as if to invoke some kind of infernal retribution.
Almeda gave a hasty order to the police at the door; every man who had been upstairs, except the firemen and the guards, was to be sent off at once in a prison van, to await interrogation. Then he took the stairs at a run, to find that, after all, the fire had done comparatively little damage. It must have broken out in the chapel, which was now blackened and gutted—everywhere the smell of blistered paint, and the gutterings of candles. The deputy altar his wife had carved, that had been set up only yesterday, was charred almost beyond recognition; plaster statues and plaster mouldings had cracked and splintered all over the floor; windows had fallen in, and carpets had burned to an ash. But the rest of the suite, although thick wreaths of smoke still hung about it, had remained untouched. The lights had fused, and the firemen were working by the glare of their own torches.
Nobody ever believes a place has been searched until he has searched it himself. General Almeda went from room to room, from cupboard to cupboard, as if he still hoped to find some trace of the missing man. He was so engaged when one of the sentries plucked him by the sleeve and told him, almost in a whisper, that Captain Varcos wanted to see him downstairs, at once; it was a matter of life and death.
He was ushered into a waiting-room, where Varcos and Dr. Lunaro sat in conclave, their brows heavy with disconcerting news. Lunaro was just saying, ‘That much, anyhow, they must be told’; and he added, almost before Almeda had had time to ask how much, ‘that the Inspirer is no more. That he has fallen from a window to his death.’
‘And they must not know, Doctor? Or not yet, at least?’
‘That he had a bullet-wound through the back of his head.’
‘Who found him?’
‘I,’ said Varcos. ‘The moment after I left you. I found the street at the back of the house empty; the dogs had joined with the crowd rushing in, and left their posts. I went close, to shine my torch against the back of the house, and immediately I noticed something dark lying in the area, beyond the railings, you know. I told one of my men to get a ladder, and we went down and found him.’
‘He was dead, of course?’
‘My dear General, a man does not survive a fall from that height, bullet or no bullet. We covered him up, and brought him in to a room on the ground floor, which we have locked for the present.’
‘Who knows, as yet?’
‘Only the sentry—one of the three who should have been on guard. He can be shot, if necessary, for deserting his post.’ Varcos shrugged his shoulders, as if to imply that shooting was, perhaps, not so good as formerly, since the deliverer of his country lay there clay-cold.
‘I can answer for the Army,’ said Almeda, uttering, with almost brutal abruptness, the thought which was in all their minds. ‘What about the Free Youth?’ This was the movement which had brought Gamba into power; and since he was dead, Varcos must be presumed to be at the head of it.
‘The Free Youth,’ replied Varcos evasively, ‘will take action in conformity with the situation. But they will want to know who was responsible for to-night’s work. They will want to see what the Avenger looks like, General.’ Almeda flushed, for he had sworn several times, ineffectively, to hunt out this lingering enemy of the State.
‘Be reasonable, Captain,’ urged Lunaro. ‘It is the police who have failed; it is the police who must find him. Meanwhile, it will do no good for us to quarrel. The Party had better meet—that is what I was saying—before anything is given out in public. At what hour, General?’
‘At eleven. I must have the full police report first, and go through it with Weinberg. He should be here by now—why is he not here?’ Colonel Weinberg was the Chief of Police.
‘He is waiting outside,’ explained Varcos. ‘I will make my own report to him as soon as he is at liberty; you, gentlemen, will hardly be interested in the details at present, since you have, so much else to consider. Shall I make my report to the meeting of the Party also?’
‘That will be best,’ agreed Almeda. The Junta which ruled in Magnolia was a very small body; and Varcos, although a trusted servant of Gamba’s, did not belong to it. ‘At eleven, then, Captain?’
‘At eleven to-morrow. And you will see Colonel Weinberg now?’
‘It will be better if you ask him to come round to my house early to-morrow. It is urgent that I should, make an announcement by wireless, for there will be all sorts of rumours flying about the city. For the present, then, I announce the disastrous news, explain that the Inspirer is thought to have met his death accidentally in trying to escape from the burning premises, pay the shortest of tributes to his memory, appeal for quiet behaviour and calm judgment—is there anything else, Doctor?’
‘Nothing, General. Unless you care to anticipate rumour by adding that if the police find any reason to suspect foul play the Government will know where to fix the blame. That kind of announcement does no harm; and it causes panic among the enemies of the State.’
‘True; I will make that allusion; it is excellently thought of Pray heaven we may know! I will hold the troops in readiness, in case of any disturbance; and you, Doctor, will attend to the Press reports; that is understood? Gentlemen, there will be little rest for any of us; but I wish you good night!’
Dispassionate critics are agreed that General Almeda’s broadcast, which he made from his own house as soon as he reached it, was a considerable improvement on most of his utterances. He spoke very simply, in tones of dignified emotion; and there was little or nothing of the fire-eating stuff which he was accustomed to talk. He announced that he would make himself responsible for keeping order in the country until the will of the people should have been expressed as to the future government of it, and warned his hearers that, until the Party had made its decision on the morrow, all public expressions of opinion would be regarded as unpatriotic activities. Then he switched off the microphone, and the city of San Taddeo industriously assumed an appearance of complete calm.
Colonel Weinberg, the Chief of Police, was one of the few officials who had been left over from the old régime. His reputation for detecting plots and laying criminals by the heels was really remarkable; and although his political sympathies were doubtful, Chief of Police he was still called—there was a Prefect of the City who dealt with rioting, and a Prefect of National Discipline who had charge of the prisons, so that his power was shorn while his usefulness remained unimpaired. He was a small, grizzled man, with an eye that fixed you only to disconcert you with a twinkle, and a sardonic habit of speech. When he came round to Almeda’s house next morning he carried a vast jacket of official papers with him, the result of the researches he had made during the midnight hours. So brisk was he, so fully master