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seemed louder than before. It seemed the moan of a living, suffering thing. As if all the thousands of men and women in the building knew what was about to happen and had joined their voices in one vast moan of universal terror. For an instant the sound held them in the grip like paralysis. They felt the building sway giddily . . . Unconsciously, they leaned the opposite way as if by their feeble weight they would counterbalance the catastrophe that loomed. Their hearts thumped swiftly, for they felt that doom was upon them.
    "We're gone," said Kirkpatrick flatly. His face was white beneath its lean tan.
    The sway ended. The building seemed to poise on the split edge of oblivion, then there was a slight jerk. It wavered back into the wind. Wentworth snapped from his motionlessness.
    "We must clear the building, clear the streets and the neighboring places!" he poured out words. "Kirk, you get the reserves! I'll call out the fire department, send an alarm . . . ."
    He sprang into the main hall, flung a swift glance about, spotted a red box and sprang to it with an eager cry. He smashed the glass. An elevator operator gaped at him with open mouth.
    "Where's the fire?" he demanded.
    "This building is going to collapse!" Wentworth snapped. "The steel girders have been cut." He whirled to Ram Singh. "Get downstairs and tell them to stop everyone at the doors and send them away, let the elevators rise empty and take out people as fast as they can." He thrust a courtesy police badge into Ram Singh's hand for authority.
    "Operator, take this man down and don't stop until you hit the first floor!"
    Wentworth ran for a 'phone, heard Kirkpatrick's crisp voice barking orders into a transmitter in a public booth. His words came out swiftly, but clipped and precise as if he sat in his own office directing activities.
    Wentworth stared out the window at the evidence of the wind's power, heard the still mounting volume of its shrieks about the building. Now he was oversensitive to each fractional sway of the skyscraper. He smiled grimly to think that within seconds this huge tower of stone and crumbling steel would crash its hundreds of human souls into extinction.
    He was bitter with himself for having failed to guess the answer long before, but he could see no way in which he could have figured it out. It was a piece of murderous criminality without parallel. Even now that he knew what impended, he could discern no motive. What possible reason or profit could there be?
    He took a cigarette from his platinum case and smiled grimly at his unwavering hands. They wouldn't shake even in hell! But he was shaking inwardly, not in personal fear, but with dread of the horror that impended for the city's millions. He fought himself to calmness. His eyes gazing past the steady flame of his lighter spotted a NO SMOKING sign. The smile twisted on his lips. He blew out smoke and Kirkpatrick slammed out of the booth. He stopped short at sight of Wentworth calmly smoking, drew in a quivering breath. There was grayness beneath the tan of his face, but Wentworth's steadiness braced him. He nodded in approval.
     
    Both of them must keep their heads, even in the face of this overwhelming catastrophe, if they were to snatch the victims from imminent doom. They must forget themselves . . . . The flame wavered as he lighted a cigarette.
    "Suppose you and I take alternate floors and empty them," Wentworth suggested. "We'll clear them until reserves can arrive and take over. I sent word to the business office of the building and they're organizing the elevator banks now."
    "I'll take the floor below this," Kirkpatrick agreed. "You take the one below that."
    Once more the building swayed and groaned. This time there could be no doubt as to the cause of the sound. Wentworth checked his cigarette half way to his mouth, his eyes widening, his mouth feeling dry. Was this the last sway? Was the building heeling over into the final dive to destruction? Slowly