He stepped down from the
veranda among the mingled guests and servants, and saw that the smoke
was only pouring from a chimney. He heard, too, that the chimney had
been on fire, and that it was Mrs. Van Loo's bedroom chimney, and that
when the startled servants had knocked at the locked door she had told
them that she was only burning some old letters and newspapers, the
refuse of her trunks. There was naturally some indignation that the
hotel had been so foolishly endangered, in such scorching weather, and
the manager had had a scene with her which resulted in her leaving the
hotel indignantly with her half-packed boxes. But even after the smoke
had died away and the fire been extinguished in the chimney and hearth,
there was an acrid smell of smouldering pine penetrating the upper
floors of the hotel all that afternoon.
When Mrs. Van Loo drove away, the manager returned with Demorest to the
rooms. The marble hearth was smoked and discolored and still littered
with charred ashes of burnt paper. "My belief is," said the manager
darkly, "that the old hag came here just to burn up a lot of
incriminating papers that her son had intrusted to her keeping. It looks
mighty suspicious. You see she got up an awful lot of side when I told
her I didn't reckon to run a smelting furnace in a wooden hotel with the
thermometer at one hundred in the office, and I reckon it was just an
excuse for getting off in a hurry.
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