Фредерик Браун - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 37, No. 6. Whole No. 211, June 1961

“Did you frame him?”

“Ed,” Sims began, “we all got separated when he left the drive-in during the pizza break. Stinnard took one route looking for him, and got here just as I was nabbing Fischer.”

“I didn’t ask you that.”

Sims tried to see through the glaring light. “What’s got into you, Ed? The dame knocking you off-center?”

“I’m dead-centered on that question, Chick. Answer it.”

Manning lowered the light. Sims swore bitterly.

“All right, Ed. But use your head. Fischer was going to do it sooner or later. So why shouldn’t we get him when there are no lives in danger?”

“For the same reason,” Manning snapped, “the department didn’t give you the boot before you got out of line.” He strode out to the police sedan. “Release the prisoner.”

He couldn’t look at Julia Worden. She went in the house with the Fischers. When she came out she didn’t glance toward Manning’s car.

In the morning, to protect the department, he had to tell the Old Man.

“Too bad,” the Old Man said gravely. “I’ll have to suspend him. On past performance he’s earned a pension. I don’t want to jeopardize it, charging him before a trial board, unless the Fischers sue or the parole office complains. What do you think Julia Worden will do?”

Manning sighed. “I wouldn’t risk asking. She might try to rig a deal for Fischer. And that wouldn’t be good either.”

A curved edge of moon cut through the dark sky again, grew into the first quarter, then bulged toward the full. Manning, really short-handed now with Sims on suspension, put in extra tricks, personally dogging Fischer’s movements as unobtrusively as possible.

He didn’t encounter Julia Worden, nor did anything come from her office regarding Sims. The uncertainty — about Fischer, about Sims, about Julia — made Manning irritable. When Mrs. Ackerman, the P.T.A. president, phones a request for him to speak to the women’s auxiliary on the eve of full moon, he curtly refused.

And then Fischer, that very afternoon, led him to Grammar School Six after lunch hour. The cafeteria tile linoleum was a tripping menace for little feet — it had buckled where the flood from the sprinkler had worked down in the seams. Mrs. Ackerman spotted Manning first. Her smile scarcely came through the make-up.

“How nice you managed to come after being so positive you couldn’t, Marshal. But we’ve arranged for an oldtime movie. I do hope you’re not planning a fire drill in the midst of it.”

Manning bowed slightly. His embarrassment became worse when he saw Julia Worden approaching in the corridor. Mrs. Ackerman moved on, head high. Julia Worden glanced into the cafeteria, side to side, then came on, frowning.

“At least you’re not breathing over his shoulder,” she remarked coolly. “So I suppose I’ve got no cause to complain.”

“You had plenty of cause,” said Manning, thinking of Sims. “Why didn’t you?”

The sudden tinge of color was beautiful on her. “You gave my man a break, Marshall. It took courage to make that decision. It made me — well, re-evaluate some of my attitudes.” She hesitated, then went on quickly. “I haven’t come to any decisions as yet.”

“It’s pretty tough sometimes,” Manning agreed, and then Mrs. Ackerman came back into the corridor.

“Marshal,” she called, very upset. “Did that linoleum man come by here with reels of film? He must have picked them up by mistake when he removed his materials from our meeting room.”

Manning started to shake his head, then jumped to the cafeteria doors. Ray Fischer was nowhere in sight!

“He wasn’t there,” Julia Worden exclaimed, “when I glanced in. I just thought—”

Manning raced past tables with chairs upturned on them and thrust through swinging doors into the kitchen. At the far end two women, hanging up gleaming copper pots, turned curiously.

Manning barked. “Where’d he go? The linoleum man!”

One woman pointed. “Out there with some round cans.”

Manning lunged out to a deserted courtyard, then spotted another door with a warning sign, STAY OUT . Oh, no, he prayed, not in there, the school’s service plant, furnace, incinerator, air conditioning. Mrs. Ackerman had said the film was an oldtimer. That meant it was highly flammable. If its acrid, suffocating smoke got into the school’s ventilation ducts there would be a lot of choking, asphyxiating kids and teachers.

“Find an alarm box,” Manning snapped to Julia Worden behind him. “Pull it. Get them out.”

But she was already inside the door with him. Clattering metal jerked his gaze to the right. It was the cover of a film can flopping on the floor as Ray Fischer spun around, his feet in a tangle of film beside the papers of an overturned rubbish container. And worse, the pyro was beside the air conditioner with an inspection door wide open. The fumes would be drawn in, distributed throughout the school, into every classroom.

“Don’t move, Fischer!” Manning commanded.

Fischer flung himself behind the unit, trailing film. Manning charged around the other side. He didn’t intercept Fischer. Barging on around, he stopped short. The canny pyro had doubled back to seize Julia Worden just as she reached for an alarm box. Holding her, he poised the hooked knife by her white throat.

“Now you stand still, Marshall,” he warned.

Manning obeyed, trying to watch him, not Julia Worden’s terror. Fischer’s eyes gleamed. His free hand fumbled in a pocket and brought out wooden matches.

“Don’t be a fool, Fischer,” Manning called. “The fumes will floor us. You’ll never get out.”

“I’ll get out. But you won’t.”

Manning measured the distance. Too far. And a mass of film lay between him and Julia Worden’s captor, between him and the door. He eyed a length of pipe leaning against the wall. Would he have a chance to grab and hurl it to distract Fischer? He crouched. Julia Worden gasped as the knife touched her throat.

“I warned you,” Fischer snapped.

“All right,” Manning replied, trying not to sound tense. “But give her a chance, Fischer. She’s tried to be your friend. Pull her closer to the door.” He was also thinking of all the kids and their teachers, and aware of what was going to stream into each classroom.

Fischer hauled Julia Worden to the brick wall, extended his hand and scraped a bunch of matches. Manning didn’t wait to see if the pyro’s eyes would divert to the flaring flame. Gambling on it, he scooped up the length of pipe and lunged, shouting.

“Grab the knife, Julia!”

He had to chance that she would and could. But more important were the lives of all those kids. Swinging the pipe up, he desperately batted a projecting overhead sprinkler. There was time for only one blow. It had to be enough to shatter the brass loops holding the locking unit so that an alarm would ring in automatically.

The pipe slipped from his stinging fingers as Julia Worden struggled to hold the knife away. Fischer flung the flaming matches. Manning charged through them, feeling heat, smelling sulphur.

And then he had his hands on Fischer’s wrist, twisting that knife away from Julia Worden. Behind him he heard film sputtering into flame. Cold water showered his face as he wrestled with Fischer. The school firebells clamored. It would ring in the alarm bureau too. Rigs would be rolling out, but they’d never respond in time to help him with this desperate maniac, strong from working on the prison honor farm — too strong for я guy who sat at a desk and rode around in a department coupe.

Manning suddenly stopped resisting. He relaxed, then suddenly ducked, flipping the off-balance pyro sprawling. Pouncing, he caught Fischer’s head between a smashing fist and the concrete floor. Again, and again until Fischer went limp. Manning looked around, coughing in the smoke, then scrambled to a fire extinguisher to complete the job the damaged sprinkler was trying to do.