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The Country Gentleman, 13 December 1924, with "The Barn-Burner"
"Craig Kennedy on the Farm,
Harper & Brothers, New York, 1925
CLANG! Clang! Cla-ang! A fire at night! Always there is something in me that thrills at the very suggestion of a fire. Again the sound reverberated through the still night air. It seemed in front of us, all around us.
Clang! Clang! Cla-ang!
With practiced skill Kennedy jammed on the foot-brake, pulled up on the emergency. We stopped short.
We had just crossed the main line of the railroad into a sleepy little Long Island village. Through the darkness I peered. In a field off the road, between it and the track, hung suspended one of those huge split iron rings one sees so often in the country. With a great hammer a man was beating it vigorously, to arouse the countryside for help. It is a sound peculiar, weird, alarming.
"Where's the fire, neighbor?" called Kennedy. "How do you get there?"
"Better hurry!" the man called above the vibrations that one could actually feel. "Kale Loomis just stored his hay last week. Dry as tinder. If it's a sight ye're after, 'twon't last long. Straight ahead on the Middle Country Road, second turn to the left, then on till ye come to the fire. Ye can't miss it!"
He kept on clanging that fire-alarm as if his life depended on it. There was yet no activity in the road, only the pretty heads of Queen Anne's lace bobbing distractedly in the beams of our headlights about the old farmer, as he disturbed their somnolent tranquillity in the field about the fire signal.
IN the sky now a warm red glow was visible. Craig stepped on the gas. The roadster shot ahead with a vicious growl of the motor that had us turning off the Middle Country Road in an incredibly short time, down a crossroad in a cloud of dust. Others were now converging on the fire, headlights back of us, tail lights showing faintly through the dust ahead of us.
"Seems as if the reception committee was getting busy!" I didn't say it exactly for humor. We had expected to stay a few days at the Kale Loomis farm.
Was this fire an accident? Or was it a threat to Kale Loomis and Kennedy on the matter which brought us out there?
"H'm!" Kennedy nodded, stopping just in time to save us from a flivver with no tail light at all. "Thrasher Hall told me to keep quiet about our stopping place. He didn't ask me out to his farm. He thinks it is watched. But he said he'd meet me first somewhere in Middle Village. I'll wager we'll find Hall at the Loomis place now. Evidently a clever fire bug is at work. Yes, I should say the reception committee was busy!"
THE sky became redder as we neared the Loomis farm. We turned up the Loomis lane, joining the usual gathering of helpers at a country fire.
Just as we turned, the blazing roof of the barn fell in. Kennedy and I jumped out ready to help the none-too-large bucket brigade at work to save the other buildings.
It is hard work fighting fires in the country, especially during a drought when water is scarce and everything so dry. There were both cisterns and wells on the place, but the cisterns were dry and the surface wells low.
"Work everything as hard as you can!" Loomis' face was set hard. With most of his crops ruined by the drought, this fire was an added burden when he was least able to bear it. But he was a fighter.
"Did you get your livestock out?" asked Kennedy.
"Yes. It didn't start in that barn. It's the hay barn. My farm hand, Gus Weismuller, is taking care of them. Go help him."
Evidently the activity of Gus and the bucket brigade was futile. Even as we came up flames began to lick up where embers had fallen on the bone-dry shingles of the other barn. We ran to the horses, leading them out blindfolded. Horses are such fools in a blaze. The rest of the cattle were rescued and led away.
"Kale, I'm sorry. The Mutual will make good the loss tonight. We feel responsible, in a way. But I'm sorry!" It was Thrasher Hall who approached us. He had been too busy before, so intent had everyone been on saving what he could. "I thought you'd come here when you heard of the fire, Kennedy. But I didn't think I'd have you on the job, though, as soon as you arrived."
The local fire company from the town had arrived with a chemical engine and, with more help, nothing else caught. In a sense a country fire is a social occasion, as much as a funeral, but now the crowd was dispersing. The rest of us, rather exhausted, had gone up to the Loomis house, which was intact. "By the looks of things, Hall," remarked Kennedy in a low voice, "it is about time you people waked up to this fire bug. Somebody is going to get killed."
"Someone has been killed already. A murder! We feel it; we know it. But the worst of it is, we can't prove it."
Hall's face was stern. Kale Loomis looked like an avenger. These men were tired of such lawbreaking. It had to be stopped.
"There's been fire after fire since the drought and ruin of the potato crop," remarked Loomis solemnly.
"Yet all barns are substantially the same barn," said Thrasher Hall thoughtfully, "just as all farmers' lanterns and electric wiring are the same. Lightning strikes equally the just and the unjust. At least it ought to. But it doesn't, Mr. Kennedy. That's why we've asked you to come out here."
Thrasher Hall was a man to be admired, both in principles and in physique. Tall, rather portly now, he commanded respect. Hair that was white and thick, worn rather long, fell over a broad intelligent brow. Ruddy-skinned, his bright blue eyes twinkled with merriment or blazed with wrath, as his mood happened to be.
"I tell you, Kennedy, that Hendrickson fire was too much for this little community. Hendrickson gave up everything in his fire. It took the house, the barn and the general store of the old man. Not satisfied with that, it took his life too!"
"How did that happen?" I asked gravely.
"In the lingo of the insurance investigator, it was a real 'roast.' Peter Hendrickson was burned in bed. His property, all of course but the land on which the buildings stood, has been wiped out. Loomis said it bitterly. "Just because I was hit tonight ain't the reason I'm so excited. But there's something mighty strange about that fire and death of Hendrickson. He'd been looking into these things. It's something suspiciously like murder. Then my barns tonight, maybe because I extended the hopitality of my home to you and Mr. Jameson."
Kennedy nodded. We began to realize why the farmers on all the east end of Long Island were alarmed at this most mysterious sequence of barn burnings, a dozen or more fires in quick succession, which were terrorizing the county.
"Tell me about some of the fires," asked Craig thoughtfully. "Give me the cause accepted by the authorities."
"Well, take five. It will give you an idea what we're up against."
Thrasher Hall told them off on his fingers, with succinct comments of his own. There was the Homan fire—rats and matches: In a steel-and-concrete cannery, with matches no longer tipped by phosphorus too. Next was the Tuthill fire, laid to the malice of a discharged employee. The Terry fire was put up to careless use of the diabolical cigarette. The Miller fire was given as due to a defective flue. In the Shepherd fire it was given as "cause unknown," as the fire marshals put it. Shepherd just couldn't account for it at all.
Instead of making any immediate comment, Kennedy asked another question. "Who is the leading insurance agent?"
"A young fellow named Brant; Joe Brant."
"Live around here long?"
"Yes, with his folks. Mighty decent people they seem, too," replied Hall.
"Those five fires," commented Kale Loomis, "were all in the regular companies."
"Yes, Kale, but they're not all the fires by a good deal. Oh, no. Just some of the latest. There've been a lot of others. At first, too, they were among our own Mutual barns. I tell you, the county is terrorized.
Kennedy was very thoughtful. "Who are some of the men most interested in the Mutual? " he asked.
"Most of the reliable men in the county are in it," answered Hall with a bit of pride. "Some of the younger men are active in trying to locate the fire bug, too, and some of them have suffered, like Loomis here. Those boys are hustlers. I tell you, fellows like young Treadwell and Tom Floyd are worth their weight in gold."
"Did I see them tonight? Were they at the fire?"
"You saw Floyd—that young giant who pulled the wagons out safe. But Treadwell wasn't there. He has been laid up, flat on his back. He was drenched the nignt Peter Hendrickson was burned to death. He took so many risks that night he caught cold. It developed into summer flu, and he is still in bed, I hear. Jack Treadwell was mighty active in promoting the Mutual. I can see him when he hears about Kale's barn. He has a mighty warm feeling for Kale."
"Well, everybody likes Jack Treadwell," returned Loomis, then paused and added, "All except Joe Brant."
Both men laughed. Somehow, without being told, I knew what that laugh implied. It is strange, but a cryptic remark can be made between some men and from the laugh that follows, nine times out of ten, you can safely guess from the tone that a woman is involved.
"Oh, I see," nodded Kennedy with a smile. "It's over a girl. So Brant doesn't like Treadwell?"
"I calc'late it's more the other way 'round."
"Who is she?"
"Who? The purtiest in the county, I'm tellin' ye!" Loomis lapsed into the vernacular. "Y'see Jack Treadwell and Belle Browne's knowed each other ever since they're knee-high to a grasshopper. The farms adjoin and, now that old Treadwell's dead, what's more natural 'n that Belle and Jack should grow along into the sweetheart stage, eh? We took it as a matter o' course."
"Where does Brant come in? Has he supplanted Treadwell?"
"Seems so. Jack's frugal and industrious, with a future ahead o' him. He's from the old stock that stands the gaff and wears well. His car's only a flivver. This summer Brant bought a big shiny sport car; taught Belle how to drive it. There's speed in that girl. Yet sometimes I think she goes out with Joe Brant more because she's fallen in love with that there sport car than with him."
"I don't like it." This was from Thrasher. "It may be that sport car. If it is, it's bringing them together too much of the time."
"Well," considered Craig, "so you might say in a sense that they're rivals in business as well as in love."
"I s'pose so," admitted Loomis. "Leastaways, that's the way Jack looks on it."
"The first thing I do tomorrow," decided Kennedy as Hall took a pace or two toward his car after a glance at his watch, "is to go over to that Hendrickson place, what there is left of it, and take a look."
"I hope you can find something none of the rest of us have been able to find yet," nodded Hall. "These fires are getting on my nerves."
IN the village in the morning Hall led the way up Main Street to the ruins of what had once been the little frame country-store of Peter Hendrickson. It was not a wide building, but it was deep, with a driveway to the barn on one side and in front the standards of gas and oil pumps.
The whole building had been gutted out. The side walls had fallen in almost entirely. What remained was charred and useless.
"Where's the safe?" asked Kennedy.
"I had it moved over to my office," returned Hall.
Kennedy, searched about the ruins thoroughly. But there did not seem to be any evidence as to touching off the fire.
AMONG the idlers stood one with a round, red, rather too jovial face. He stepped forward, clutching a worn farm hat, twirling it round and round with grimy fingers, nervously.
"Got anything to say, Cummings?" asked Hall. "Out with it!"
Cummings shifted to the other foot. "You know, Mr. Hall, I'm the beatingest man when I fergits myself in licker. I hadn't oughter do it. I knows I'm breakin' laws, raising the Old Ned, but I just nacherly gravitate that way. When I gets the stuff I goes to sleep—anywheres I happens to be."
"Come on, Cummings. We know you drink too much and you know what we think of you for doing it." Hall was impatient. "Don't let your tongue get as twisted as your feet."
"Well, t'other night," the man went on shamefacedly, "down Coram way I gets way off the road. I mighta slep' on the ground. But pokin' around I found a sedan car in the woods and I crep' in it. Well, sir, I was waked up feeling a hand on my collar. It was Brenner, that fellow boards at Bunce's place. He was pokin' me, all-fired mad, an' he threw me out."
Cummings squared himself momentarily. "I kinda stood there dazed-like and Brenner drove off in that sedan car. I was gonter sleep on the ground when another man in a car come along and stopped, seemed to be lookin' for someone. It was too dark at first to see who it was. But it was Jack Treadwell. He went off in the same direction."
"Well, what of it?" questioned Hall sternly.
"Why, I been hearin' that there's a sedan car always seen where the fires is, before they takes place—and my coat was full o' oil that was in a five-gallon can in the car and there was a lot o' excelsior in a box in it too. Does that look right? That was the night Hendrickson's was burned and Jack Treadwell was so brave goin' into places that he wouldn't let none of the others go in. I'm askin' why? That there car mighta belonged to them both', eh?"
There was a deep silence. Hall looked at Kennedy.
"Just keep this quiet, Cummings," coaxed Craig.
The bum sidled off, shaking his head. Whose was this old sedan? Where was its hiding place? At least Hall knew nothing about it. Kennedy thought a moment, leaning against the wrecked gas pump.
"Let me see that safe," he exclaimed.
IN Thrasher Hall's office Kennedy crouched before the safe. Then he began pulling out the contents. There was a bundle of letters and papers regarding the Mutual.
Kennedy looked up, thoughtful. "Look through this stuff, Hall. What was in this envelope marked 'Treadwell notes'? Where are they?"
"Nothing in it; empty!" exclaimed Hall. "There's something looks crooked here, I'd say, Kennedy. Why, I indorsed a note for Treadwell. Loomis' was the other name on it. Jack wanted to build up-to-date dairy barns. He was going to apply what he had learned in the agricultural school last winter. We were all with him in it."
Kennedy nodded. At a high desk he was going carefully over Hendrickson's ledger. "I see. This is what I wanted. Are there any strangers in the village—newcomers?"
"Oh, a couple of families. One is a farmer. Then there's a family named Bunce who have started a cheap boarding house. They have two boarders. One is this man Cummings, when he can pay. The other's that Brenner he mentioned."
"Do you know him?"
"Yes. Understand he's been working day's work on various places."
"Would the Bunces use much gas?"
"Just for an old secondhand flivver."
"That's a good deal of gas for a flivver," remarked Craig, his finger on an account.
A moment later up the street at the telegraph office he got off a message to the city, then went back to the ledger.
IN and about Hall's, Kennedy spent the rest of the day getting acquainted with some of the leading men in the Mutual. He was making inquiries about the old blue sedan, but finding nothing. All I could see as a tangible result was that he entered the names of a lot of men in his notebook, with the telephone numbers to reach them.
A few he asked with Hall to meet us at Loomis' that night.
"What were the Treadwell notes?" asked Kennedy late in the afternoon out at Loomis', handing him the empty envelope. "When were they due?"
Loomis looked puzzled a moment. Then he laughed. "Oh, not that kind of notes. These must have been notations, observations, jotted down, about the fires. I know Treadwell had been out scouting. You've perhaps heard rumors about an old blue sedan. Probably he gave Hendrickson an account of what he heard and saw. Hendrickson, with a gas station and a country store might have found out some more."
"But where's the notebook?"
Loomis shrugged. "Stolen, I guess!"
"That's the point," agreed Kennedy. "Old Hendrickson was getting dangerous to the safety of someone who knew that he never could be bought, intimidated, silenced or stopped—except in one way. That was more than a store and barn burning of Hendrickson's. That was murder to shut his mouth!"
OUR dinner was interrupted by a telegram for Kennedy from the city. He read it and shoved it into his pocket.
It was a wonderful summer twilight. We were waiting for the men to arrive.
Suddenly there seemed to be a thrill, a wild alarm in the air. We could hear the fire-bell clanging in the distance. Our telephone rang. It was Thrasher Hall. "It's Treadwell's place! And he with a turn for the worse last night! Bring Kennedy and Jameson. Hurry!"
The malevolent hand had struck again. As we pulled up under the big pines before the Treadwell house, Thrasher Hall ran up to us. He was hot and dusty. "House is all right now. Don't intend to take Jack out unless we have to. We need all the help we can get on the barn."
The freshening breeze had been blowing the sparks from the barn over to the house, but the women who had responded, led on by Belle Browne, were taking care of that roof. She was on a ladder.
"Belle! Come here a minute! I want you to meet some friends. I'll take your place. I'm not so quick—but just a bit stronger." Loomis gave her one of his sudden kindly smiles.
"Be right down!" The violence of work had made her lovely hair tumble down about her shoulders in long waves.
"Who gave the alarm?" asked Craig.
"I did," Belle answered simply. "I heard Jack had had a relapse last night. Mother fixed up a big tray, all the things she knew Jack liked. I made some, too. Well, I took it. I was sorry for Jack We'd had words. I didn't cross the fields very fast....
"You can imagine how I felt when saw smoke coming out of the house.
"The house? It's the barn on fire!" exclaimed Craig.
"I know. I dropped the tray, called mother and the men on our place. I never waited; went right ahead. Jack's help were out. The door was locked, but I found a window. There was a blaze in the cellar under the kitchen."
"Yes, then what?"
"I put it out. I just went at it with pail after pail from the old well in the cellar—and got the best of it.
"When I came up from the cellar I saw poor Jack standing there in a blanket wrapped about his pajamas, holding to the door, white as a ghost. I made him go upstairs, get back into bed—and I've had some time keeping him there!"
There was awakened love in the girl's voice.
"It's fear that I'll go away! I told him I'd get Joe Brant, go for a ride, if he got up!"
She said it with a fleeting smile.
"I was so busy with the house and Jack I never thought of the barns. When our folks arrived the barn was blazing badly. I had the fire here out. They went to work on the barns."
The fire department from the village and the quick work of Belle and the neighbors had saved all the buildings, even the one barn in which it had started.
But for some reason the crowd about Treadwell's had not dispersed.
About Kennedy gathered many of the Mutual men he had expected to see at Loomis'. "I'm going to search the house and barns," Kennedy decided. "Those who want to come along, do so."
FROM the cupola down to the cellar of the barn they searched. Suddenly Kennedy stopped. Here was evidence, direct. The floor was oil-soaked. About the floor were excelsior and straw, also soaked. This fire had been set. Here it was. By whom?
"Well, Kennedy," remarked Loomis, "this was bungled. The 'touch-off' is evident. This is one fire too many."
"The reason there are so many fires is because the law is at fault," put in Brant. "You must virtually see a fire started, and bring the candle and match into court—with the man!"
Belle Browne, hovering, back of Kennedy, stamped her little foot.
"Joe Brant, Jack Treadwell had nothing to do with this fire—if that's what you mean! He was in bed, sick. I've been so busy fighting fire I forgot to tell anybody about an old blue sedan that sneaked out of the lane as fast as it could when the man in it, whoever he was, saw me cutting across over the field."
"There's been dirty work done tonight, men," cried Kennedy. "Get that sedan—and you have your fire bug!"
There was a hush fell on the crowd then. "How?" shouted one in the crowd. "Show us, Kennedy!"
The crowd had grown to fully a hundred cars. In every car was at least one man, in many three, or four. They were white-faced, serious men, ready for action. A murmur ran over them.
Craig held up his hand for silence. "Surround it!" he shouted.
Then Kennedy dashed into the house. There he was at the telephone, broadcasting the alarm.
"Hurry, Walter, get in the car!" I was in almost as quickly as he spoke. "Loomis, get down to the turnpike with your men!"
A shifting of gears and a dozen cars were away. That line was guarded to the east.
So it went. Every road to the west of any importance had a watcher and he knew what to do.
SUDDENLY I realized the magnitude of the iron ring Kennedy was welding. By this time hundreds of farmers, men to be depended upon, were out with shotguns in countless flivvers, scouring the county.
Pandemonium reigned in the air. Every fire-whistle, every siren in every village of the county was blowing, bellowing alarm. Automobile horns were tooting. Telephones were reaching those not yet reached. Fire apparatus was out and across the roads to block the flight of any blue sedan that might be fleeing to the city.
Everywhere were cars—more cars. Every stranger was being accosted. No sedan, blue, black or any other color had a chance to move an inch, unseen.
In the village Kennedy, with a picked flying squadron, waited anxiously at the telephone central office next the bank.
Brant was there, too, tapping nervously on a chair.
There is water on three sides of the county, Long Island Sound, Block Island Sound, and the Atlantic Ocean. The other side is the Nassau County line. That was the first objective. In half an hour I knew it was not possible for a single car in the darkness to get by in Suffolk County without giving a clean account of itself.
"Mr. Kennedy!"
The operator turned, still listening intently through the headpiece.
"There's a farmer name Blackwell has seen a sedan, blue, an old one, waiting in the lane this side of Commack, ready to sneak onto the turnpike when it's clear!"
There was a thrill in the words to those men.
"That's him!" growled Thrasher Hall. "Come on, men!"
Away Kennedy and his men rushed. Past one another, cars whizzed, all with one definite place in mind—Commack The road was more congested. But there was a strange lack of confusion.
ON, riding in the night, accepting and answering challenges from state troopers, village constables, Kennedy's flying squadron was hurtling ahead, growing as it sped. From all directions they came. Each little road leading into the highroad contributed its quota of cars.
Commack!
The old blue sedan had not a chance—surrounded before the driver knew it. A shout went up in the night.
Kennedy stepped forward, shooting-iron ready. He advanced cautiously, Thrasher Hall on one side, myself on the other, Brant just behind. He flung open the sedan door. There, crouching on the floor, was a wretched creature. Kennedy yanked him out, none too gently. A low growl of surprise swept over the angry men.
"Brenner!"
His eyes wore a frightened look as he begged and implored for mercy.
"I know you, Brenner!" With his other hand Craig had dived into his pocket, pulling out a crumpled yellow telegram. "A fine bit of scum from the city! A city fire bug! Brenner is an occupation as well as a name with your kind!"
All the time the Suffolk farmers were now gathering, and I was worried. There was an ominous undercurrent in that crowd.
"Treadwell!" A shout went up.
"I heard you had him," called Treadwell. "I said I'd come if it's the last thing I ever do! Belle bundled me up. The only way I could get here was to bring her along, too, in the flivver!"
"Is that the sedan, Belle?"
"Yes, the same!"
"KEEP hold of him, Walter." Kennedy turned to the crowd. "Some of those fires you've been having are friction fires."
"Friction fires?" demanded Hall.
"Yes. By rubbing a ten-thousand-dollar policy against a five-thousand-dollar building!"
Kennedy turned toward Brenner. "You are about as low as they make them! I've had you looked up by city fire investigators, Brenner. I have your record here. In the city you are known as a 'touch-off' man. Your real name is Izzy Stein—expert mechanic of an arson ring once, now a murderer!"
"Think, Izzy, how old Peter Hendrickson died!" It was Thrasher Hall who interrupted Kennedy. "You ask for mercy? Did you show him any?" He twisted his arm.
There was a loud scream from the wretched man.
"The first fires you did for what you call 'fire money'," went on Kennedy relentlessly. "But the Hendrickson fire was for robbery of your record in his safe—and murder—just murder—to save your own dirty hide—and someone above you who was paying you!"
In a spotlight as Kennedy swung it with the other hand in the crowd, Brenner seemed to see only one face. I shall never forget that moment. In the night, lighted only by the headlights and that spot, Brenner stared at that face. For a moment he seemed incapable of speech. All he could do was to point and gibber.
"Joe Brant! It is you! You hired me!"
"So!" boomed Kennedy's voice as the crowd wedged closer about Brant. "So it was your plot, eh?"
"Yes, sir; yes, sir!" Brenner was going on, both hands clutching wildly as Hall and I held him back by the collar. "Yes! Every time you have a payment on that sport car coming you make a deal, burn a place, get a few hundred on the side. You see that the crooked ones get the insurance—and you get yours from them. Here, take it back!"
Brenner had flung a roll of bills into Brant's face.
Kennedy drew back. "Not always money, was it, Brant? Sometimes it was revenge, passion, fear! You knew Belle loved the old Treadwell place, the old furniture. You would wipe out the rival you feared—as much as you feared Kale Loomis, and Hall, and Hendrickson! So you paid this man money—"
"The companion of a fire bug is a rope!" shouted someone in the back of the crowd, interrupting Craig. "I got one—here!"
THE crowd surged forward as Kennedy jumped between it and the two men. "Don't!" he cried. "The state will see that justice is done for Hendrickson and the fires!"
"Aye! Hendrickson!"
Again the crowd pushed forward. Kennedy looked in the sea of faces.
"Men!"
No one paid any attention except Jack Treadwell. Craig caught his eye. He milled nearer. Then Craig nodded to Belle. Jack glanced at her, then back to Kennedy with another nod. He beckoned.
How could Craig stop that crowd? Could he think quick enough?
No longer was Brenner struggling. He was laughing, laughing shrilly, trying to dance, to shimmy!
The crowd fell back. It dawned suddenly, on them. The chase, the capture, the threat had turned Brenner into a gibbering idiot! They fell back from him.
"Brant!"
"Men!"
It was Treadwell, pushed forward now by Kennedy. They hesitated at Jack Treadwell. He was one of their own.
"Brant tried to steal my girl, burn me out, kill me. Let me have my revenge. Brenner to the asylum, Brant to jail, the night I am married—tonight!" A shout went up. "Jack Treadwell, yay! Come on, boys! We're going to hold a dance at Jack Treadwell's tonight—for the bride!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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