19.
The fire at the Princess Hotel had obviously attracted some considerable amount of interest and activity, with hundreds of people flocking from their homes, on a Sunday evening, to witness the hysteria first hand.
Flames licked at the night sky. Billows of smoke, drifted into the surrounding area along the Wellington waterfront and Lambton Quay. The clang of the battery-powered fire bell rang out across the city.
The Bells of Wellington Cathedral in Thorndon, chimed in aid. Even the fairly recent installation of a high-pressure water main was of little use to the Municipal Fire Brigade, the rage of the blaze was so monstrous.
Aboard the HMS Himalaya, Constable Thaddeus Coffee and Captain Charles Grant had noticed the light in the sky from a fire, less than a mile away.
“If I were to hazard a guess,” Grant said to the policeman, “I’d say that fire is at the Princess Hotel. I guess that puts you in a bit of a dilemma, now doesn’t it?”
“Yes it does,” the cop replied. “You’d love me to leave wouldn’t you, get rid of all the evidence, very convenient for you.”
“But your boss has told you to stay and keep an eye on me,” Grant came back, before planting another seed in Coffee’s mind. “However, he may need help, he may be in danger.”
“Nevertheless,” Coffee facetiously responded, “he told me to stay here with you and that’s what I’m going to do!”
“You really are an imbecile man!” Grant was enraged. “I don’t expect you to understand of course, but Frank is a friend of mine and if you won’t go to see if help is needed, I certainly shall. You can arrest me later.”
With that, like swatting a fly, the huge forearm of a man who’d spent his life at sea thrust the constable aside.
Charlie Grant was down the ship plank and off along the wharf, as fast as his 60 something year old legs would carry him.
He was so obsessed with getting to the burning hotel as fast as he could, he raced straight past a desolate figure, sitting alone in the shadows of the dockyards, with head in hands.
John Valentine was devastated. He’d had little compunction in callously disposing of Tia Kawai, even though he’d known him since he was a youngster. But he’d failed Sarah Bainbridge, it was more than he could bare.
He’d scurried away from the scene, but was struggling to regain composure and control over his thought processes. There was so much activity in or around the Princess by now, that making his way to the rail yards unnoticed, shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
But as he sat on the docks, watching the commotion from afar, the whole sorry episode was starting to dawn on him and it was a grim picture in realisation.
He would surely hang for all the havoc he’d caused. His whisky turning into some form of death juice, had done enough damage in its own right. But setting fire to the hotel and locking all inside, including the police chief, was a different kettle of fish altogether.
Although it was hard to register much in the general bedlam, Valentine thought he heard the voice of Constance Frost, from afar. All of a sudden, he was jettisoned back to the reality of the situation. There’d be time for remorse later, if he was capable of it.
“C’mon now Sir, back from there please,” said Fire Chief, Walter Mannering. “When that roof goes, you’ll be smothered in flames standing there.”
“Indeed,” agreed John Plimmer, former councillor and the city’s original entrepreneur (and one of the first on the scene). “Step back now Miss Frost. This will be increasingly difficult to contain in this norwester and therefore exceptionally dangerous.”
“Oh, they’re all in there Mr. Plimmer,” sobbed Constance, “I can’t believe that this is happening!”
“Calm yourself Miss Frost. All who? Who do you believe to be in there?”
“We were all to meet here at 10pm,” she replied, now inconsolable. “If I hadn’t been late running errands for Sarah, I’d have been in there as well.”
This was partially true. In that it did have an element of truth to it, but was not wholly factual. Constance had left 307 Willis Street, not long after Sarah departed, having put her own plans firmly in place.
With a wad of cash, carefully manipulated into her own purse, she was heading for Thorndon, when she noticed the fire raging on the waterfront. Intuition led her to believe that John Valentine would somehow be involved and she decided to check it out.
She’d still have plenty of time to make the station for the midnight train. But would he?
“Who Miss Frost?” Plimmer enquired, placing his hands firmly on her shoulders. “Who is in there?”
“Sarah…” screamed Constance, hysterically, to which John Plimmer shook the young woman, in an attempt to get something sensible from her.
“There were reports of screams and people trapped inside, Sir,” confirmed Mannering.
“Lady Sarah Bainbridge for one, it would appear,” Plimmer reasoned.
“And Mr. Suisted. And Dr. Kebbel. Murphy,” Constance volunteered further.
“Good lord!” Plimmer exclaimed, with some anguish.
“Tommy...Tommy Roundtree,” she continued. “And John Valentine.”
Constance raised her voice to utter the last name, so that all folk in her surrounds had heard it, and then went into further hysterical sobbing.
She was certain that Jacky Valentine wasn’t inside the pub, but if the authorities were to be convinced, even by hearsay, that he had been, his chances of escape appeared rosier. Possibly.
Sure enough, when the name ‘Valentine’ was heard, it quickly resonated and ‘Chinese whispered’ itself around the gathered rabble.
“Valentine!,” exclaimed John Plimmer. “Good Lord! Are you sure? Where are the confounded police?”
As John Valentine picked himself up and refocused his attention toward somehow getting through this ordeal, Captain Grant arrived at the ‘under siege of fire’ drinking establishment. He had grabbed another couple of able seaman en route - also attracted by the commotion - and enlisted their help.
The large crowd could only stand by and watch, staying out of the way of the duty firefighters and volunteers as best they could. Grant went directly to the head fireman, Walter Mannering.
“Charles Grant, Captain and able seaman George Mudford and junior,” he stated with military precision. “Can we be of any assistance here?”
“Well Sir,” Mannering replied, the pressure of the event already etched across his face, “these hoses need to be attached here. We have some high pressure water available. Thank God for the new Wainuiomata Waterworks.”
“Where are the clamps?” Grant enquired. “They won’t attach without the clamps!”
Walter Mannering seemed a little vague and wasn’t altogether sure what the Captain was talking about.
“This is the work of the cut-price council is it?” Grant hollered. “Running scared of the fire underwriters, ineffectual equipment. The whole block will go up, while we stand and can do nothing.”
“Gone up Charles,” George Mudford corrected. “Alex Farmers furniture factory and the draper are on fire, George Smart’s oyster saloon will go also, with the wind as it is.”
“Are there any survivors?” Grant asked. “Any witnesses as to how it started?”
It was at this point that John Plimmer noticed that Miss Constance Frost, obviously emotionally distressed by the traumatic events, had left the scene, although no one had noticed her depart.
“There is a firsthand account of a man scurrying away from the scene toward the wharf,” John Plimmer chipped in, “but of its accuracy I cannot be sure.”
“Valentine!” Grant surmised. “Where’s Frank Aitchison? He was heading to the Princess before the fire started?”
It was a good point raised by the Captain. Where was Frank Aitchison?
“It looks like another fire has broken out,” interrupted young James Mudford. “Over there, by the South Seas Hotel.”
Most of the onlookers had now been alerted to this second fire, less than a mile away.
What on earth was going on?
Was there a pyromaniac on the loose in Wellington city?
Charles Grant, turned and high-heeled it back the way he came, at almost twice the speed, if that were at all possible.
“The Himalaya,” declared George Mudford solemnly. “It’s his ship, The Himalaya.”
The endless council and business meetings he’d attended throughout his long and successful career, ensured that John Plimmer was always able to keep a cool head. He turned to the younger Mudford.
“Now, young man,” he said. “Could we use the youth in your legs and ask you to run down to the Lambton Railway Station and fetch the police? Strangely we still have no representation from the law at this scene. I am at a loss to understand that, I’m afraid.”