A reddish, fitful light was coming from a window above. Great God! His picture gallery! He ran to the foot of the stairs that led up to it. A stealthy sound, a scent of burning much more emphatic, staggered him. He hurried up the stairs and pulled open the door. Heavens! The far end of the gallery, at the extreme left corner of the house, was on fire. Little red flames were licking round the woodwork; the curtains of the far window were already a blackened mass, and the waste-paper-basket, between them and his writing-bureau, was a charred wreck! On the parquet floor he saw some cigarette ash. Someone had been up here smoking! The flames crackled as he stood there aghast. He rushed downstairs and threw open the door of Fleur’s room. She was lying on her bed asleep, but fully dressed! Fully dressed! Was it –? Had she –? She opened her eyes, staring up at him.
‘Get up!’ he said, ‘there’s a fire in the picture gallery. Get Kit and the servant out at once – at once! Send for Riggs! Telephone to Reading for the engines – quick! Get everyone out of the house!’ Only waiting to see her on her feet, he ran back to the foot of the gallery stairs and seized a fire-extinguisher. He carried it up, a heavy great thing. He knew vaguely that you dashed the knob on the floor and sprayed the flames. Through the open doorway he could see that they had spread considerably. Good God! They were licking at his Fred Walker, and the two David Coxes. They had caught the beam, too, that ran round the gallery, dividing the upper from the lower tier of pictures; yes, and the upper beam was on fire also. The Constable! For a moment he hesitated. Should he rush at that and save it, anyway? The extinguisher mightn’t work! He dropped it, and, running the length of the gallery, seized the Constable just as the flames reached the woodwork above it. The hot breath of them scorched his face as he wrenched the picture from the wall, and, running back, flung open the window opposite the door and placed it on the sill. Then, seizing the extinguisher again, he dashed it, violently, against the floor. A stream of stuff came out, and, picking the thing up, he directed that stream against the flames. The room was full of smoke now, and he felt rather giddy. The stuff was good, and he saw with relief that the flames didn’t like it. He was making a distinct impression on them. But the Walker was ruined – ah I and the Coxes! He had beaten the fire back to the window-wall, when the stream ceased, and he saw that the beams had broken into flame beyond where he had started spraying. The writing-bureau, too, was on fire now – its papers had caught! Should he run down and get another of diese things, all the way to the hall! Where was that fellow Riggs? The ‘Alfred Stevens’! By heaven! He was not going to lose his ‘Stevens’ nor his ‘Gauguins’, nor his ‘Corots’!
And a sort of demon entered into Soames. His taste, his trouble, his money, and his pride – all consumed? By the Lord, no! And through the smoke he dashed again up to the far wall. Flame licked at his sleeve as he tore away the ‘Stevens’; he could smell the singed stuff when he propped the picture in the window beside the Constable.
A lick of flame crossed the Daubigny, and down came its glass with a clatter – there was the picture exposed and fire creeping and flaring over it! He rushed and grasped at a ‘Gauguin’ – a South Sea girl with nothing on. She wouldn’t come away from the wall; he caught hold of the wire, but dropped it – red hot; seizing the frame he gave a great wrench. Away it came, and over he went, backwards. But he’d got it, his favourite Gauguin! He stacked that against the others, and ran back to the Corot nearest the flames. The silvery, cool picture was hot to his touch, but he got that, too! Now for the Monet! The engines would be twenty minutes at least. If that fellow Riggs didn’t come soon –! They must spread a blanket down there, and he would throw the pictures out. And then he uttered a groan. The flames had got the other Corot! The poor thing! Wrenching off the Monet, he ran to the head of the stairs. Two frightened maids in coats over their nightgowns, and their necks showing, were half-way up.
‘Herel’ he cried. ‘Take this picture and keep your heads. Miss Fleur and the boy out?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Have you telephoned?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Get me an extinguisher; and all of you hold a blanket spread beneath the window down there to catch the pictures as I throw them out. Don’t be foolish – there’s no danger! Where’s Riggs?’
He went back into the gallery. Oh – h! There went his precious little Degas! And with rage in his heart Soames ran again at the wall and snatched at his other Gauguin. If ever he had beaten Dumetrius, it was over that highly-coloured affair. As if grateful to him, the picture came away neatly in his scorched and trembling hands. He stacked it, and stood for a moment choked and breathless. So long as he could breathe up here in the draught between the opened door and window, he must go on getting them off the wall.