Meanwhile a bitter, acrid odor penetrated through the windows and to every part of the structure, the odor of burning film, an odor one never forgets to fear.  All those uninjured in the explosions had rushed out to see the fire, or else to escape from any further danger, the moment they recovered their wits.  Manton, only cut at the wrist, and impatient as Kennedy cleaned, dusted, and bound the wound, was the first to receive attention.

“The vaults!” he called, to the men who seemed disposed to linger about.  “For God’s sake get busy!” The next instant he was gone himself.

Enid was cut on the head.  Tears streamed from her eyes as she clung to Kennedy’s coat, trembling.  “Will it make a scar?” she sobbed.  “Will I be unable to act before the camera any more?”

He reassured her.  In the case of Millard, who had several bad scalp wounds, he advised a trip to a doctor, but the scenario writer laughed.  Phelps was yellow.  It seemed to me that he whimpered a bit.  Gordon was disposed to swear cheerfully, although a point of glass had penetrated deep in his shoulder and another piece had gashed him across the forehead.

Finally Kennedy was through.  He packed the little envelopes in the bag, still in the possession of Mackay, and added the two rolls of film from his pocket.  Then, for the first time, he locked it.

As he straightened, his eyes narrowed.

“Now for Shirley,” he muttered.

“And Marilyn,” I added.

XXVIII

THE PHOSPHORUS BOMB

We rushed out into the courtyard, Kennedy in the lead, Mackay trailing with the bag.  Here there were dense clouds of fine white suffocating smoke mixed with steam, and signs of the utmost confusion on every hand.  Because Manton, fortunately, had trained the studio staff through frequent fire drills, there was a semblance of order among the men actually engaged in fighting the spread of the blaze.  Any attempt to extinguish the conflagration in the vault itself was hopeless, however, and so the workers contented themselves with pouring water into the basement on either side, to keep the building and perhaps the other vaults cool, and with maintaining a constant stream of chemical mixture from a special apparatus down the ventilating system into and upon the smoldering film.

The studio fire equipment seemed to be very complete.  There was water at high pressure from a tank elevated some twenty to thirty feet above the uppermost roof of the quadrangle.  In addition Manton had invested in the chemical engine and also in sand carts, because water aids rather than retards the combustion of film itself.  I noticed that the promoter was in direct charge of the fire-fighters, and that he moved about with a zeal and a recklessness which ended for once and all in my mind the suspicion that Phelps might be correct and that Manton sought to wreck this company for the sake of Fortune Features.