"What good will it do?" asked Mary."This fire is beyond a little water like that.""Yes, but it will serve to keep our handkerchiefs wet so we can breathe through them if the smoke gets too thick," was his reply.
"It begins to look as if we'd need to try that soon," said Mary, and she pointed to thick smoke curling in under the door.
"Yes," agreed her uncle."It's getting worse." Hardly had he spoken when there came a rush of feet in the corridor outside his office door.Then a voice exclaimed:
"We're trapped! We can't get down either the stairs or the elevators!" "It can't be possible!" said another voice."Something must be done!
Help! Help! Take us out of here!"
"Foolish cowards!" murmured Mr.Keith, and then the door of his office was violently opened and two men rushed in.They were strangers to Mary and her uncle.
"Isn't there any way out of this fire trap?" cried one of the men."Are there any fire escapes at your windows?""None," said Mr.Keith.
"This is all your fault, Melling!" cried the smaller of the two men, whose voice, in loudness and depth of pitch, was out of all proportion to his size."All your fault! I told you we should have those new fire escapes!""And you were the one, Field, who objected to the cost of fire escapes when you found what the charge would be," retorted the other."You said we didn't need to waste that money, if the building was fire-proof.""But it isn't, Melling! It isn't!" yelled the other.
"We're finding that out too late!" came the retort."But I'm not going to die here like a rat in a trap!" And he raised the window and leaned out and yelled, "Help! Help! Help!""Don't do that," said Mr.Keith, coming over to close the casement."They can't hear you down below, and opening the window will only fill this place with smoke.Are you Field and Melling?""Yes, of the Consolidated Dye Company," was the answer from the big man."We are also part owners of this building, but I wish we weren't.""It is a pretty poor specimen of a modern building," said Mr.Keith."You have offices here, haven't you?" he went on."I remember to have seen your names on the directory.""We're on the floor above," was the answer from Field."We were in arear room, going over some accounts, and we didn't know anything was wrong until we smelled smoke.We tried to get down, and managed to come, by way of the stairs, as far as this floor," he explained quickly.
"You can't go any farther," said Mr.Keith."All there is to do is to wait for the firemen.""Suppose they never come?" whined Melling."Oh, they'll come!" asserted Mary's uncle, but he spoke more to quiet her alarm than because he really believed it, for the Landmark Building was a seething furnace of flame centering in and about the elevator shafts and stairs.
Meanwhile Tom and his companions in the airship had seen the red glow in the evening sky, and in another minute the young inventor had turned his craft more directly toward it.
"It surely is in Newmarket," said Mr.Damon."Right in the center of the city, too.There's one big building there--the Landmark.""Looks as if that was afire," said Ned quickly."Hasn't some relative of Mary's an office there, Tom?""Yes.Mr.Keith.And her other uncle, Jasper Blake, is also interested in the building.It's the Landmark all right!" cried Tom, as his craft rose higher and advanced nearer the blaze.
"What are you going to do?" yelled Mr.Damon, as he saw the young inventor head directly toward a spouting mushroom of flame, which showed that the fire had broken through the roof."What are you going to do?""Go to the rescue!" answered Tom Swift."I couldn't ask a better opportunity to try my new extinguisher! Sit tight, every one!"
