Kitabı oku: «Amusement Only», sayfa 2
The constable looked as if he could not quite make out how such a mistake could have arisen, hesitated, then, with another salute, he moved away.
The stranger was still holding his watch in his hand.
"Only eight minutes," he said.
The Duke seemed to experience some difficulty in giving utterance to what he had to say.
"If I give you this five hundred pounds, you-you-"
As the Duke paused, as if at a loss for language which was strong enough to convey his meaning, the stranger laughed.
"Let us take the adjectives for granted. Besides, it is only boys who call each other names-men do things. If you give me the five hundred sovereigns, which you have in that bag, at once-in five minutes it will be too late-I will promise-I will not swear; if you do not credit my simple promise, you will not believe my solemn affirmation-I will promise that, possibly within an hour, certainly within an hour and a half, the Duchess of Datchet shall return to you absolutely uninjured-except, of course, as you are already aware, with regard to a few of the hairs of her head. I will promise this on the understanding that you do not yourself attempt to see where I go, and that you will allow no one else to do so." This with a glance at Ivor Dacre. "I shall know at once if I am followed. If you entertain any such intentions, you had better, on all accounts, remain in possession of your five hundred pounds."
The Duke eyed him very grimly:
"I entertain no such intentions-until the Duchess returns."
Again the stranger indulged in that musical little laugh of his:
"Ah, until the Duchess returns! Of course, then the bargain's at an end. When you are once more in the enjoyment of her Grace's society, you will be at liberty to set all the dogs in Europe at my heels. I assure you I fully expect that you will do so-why not?" The Duke raised the canvas bag. "My dear Duke, ten thousand thanks! You shall see her Grace at Datchet House, 'pon my honour. Probably within the hour."
"Well," commented Ivor Dacre, when the stranger had vanished, with the bag, into Piccadilly, and as the Duke and himself moved towards Burlington Gardens, "if a gentleman is to be robbed, it is as well that he should have another gentleman to rob him."
CHAPTER III
AND FOUND
Mr. Dacre eyed his companion covertly as they progressed. His Grace of Datchet appeared to have some fresh cause for uneasiness. All at once he gave it utterance, in a tone of voice which was extremely sombre:
"Ivor, do you think that scoundrel will dare to play me false?"
"I think," murmured Mr. Dacre, "that he has dared to play you pretty false already."
"I don't mean that. But I mean how am I to know, now that he has his money, that he will still not keep Mabel in his clutches?"
There came an echo from Mr. Dacre:
"Just so-how are you to know?"
"I believe that something of this sort has been done in the United States."
"I thought that there they were content to kidnap them after they were dead. I was not aware that they had, as yet, got quite so far as the living."
"I believe that I have heard of something just like this."
"Possibly; they are giants over there."
"And in that case the scoundrels, when their demands were met, refused to keep to the letter of their bargain, and asked for more."
The Duke stood still. He clenched his fists, and swore:
"Ivor, if that – villain doesn't keep his word, and Mabel isn't home within the hour, by – I shall go mad!"
"My dear Datchet" – Mr. Dacre loved strong language as little as he loved a scene-"let us trust to time and, a little, to your white-hatted and gardenia-button-holed friend's word of honour. You should have thought of possible eventualities before you showed your confidence-really. Suppose, instead of going mad, we first of all go home?"
A hansom stood waiting for a fare at the end of the Arcade. Mr. Dacre had handed the Duke into it before his Grace had quite realised that the vehicle was there.
"Tell the fellow to drive faster." That was what the Duke said when the cab had started.
"My dear Datchet, the man's already driving his geegee off its legs. If a bobby catches sight of him he'll take his number."
A moment later, a murmur from the Duke:
"I don't know if you're aware that the Prince is coming to dinner?"
"I am perfectly aware of it."
"You take it uncommonly coolly. How easy it is to bear our brother's burdens! Ivor, if Mabel doesn't turn up I shall feel like murder."
"I sympathise with you, Datchet, with all my heart, though, I may observe, parenthetically, that I very far from realise the situation even yet. Take my advice. If the Duchess does not show quite so soon as we both of us desire, don't make a scene; just let me see what I can do."
Judging from the expression of his countenance, the Duke was conscious of no overwhelming desire to witness an exhibition of Mr. Dacre's prowess.
When the cab reached Datchet House his Grace dashed up the steps three at a time. The door flew open.
"Has the Duchess returned?"
"Hereward!"
A voice floated downwards from above. Some one came running down the stairs. It was her Grace of Datchet.
"Mabel!"
She actually rushed into the Duke's extended arms. And he kissed her, and she kissed him-before the servants.
"So you're not quite dead?" she cried.
"I am almost," he said.
She drew herself a little away from him.
"Hereward, were you seriously hurt?"
"Do you suppose that I could have been otherwise than seriously hurt?"
"My darling! Was it a Pickford's van?"
The Duke stared:
"A Pickford's van? I don't understand. But come in here. Come along, Ivor. Mabel, you don't see Ivor."
"How do you do, Mr. Dacre?"
Then the trio withdrew into a little ante-room; it was really time. Even then the pair conducted themselves as if Mr. Dacre had been nothing and no one. The Duke took the lady's two hands in his. He eyed her fondly.
"So you are uninjured, with the exception of that lock of hair. Where did the villain take it from?"
The lady looked a little puzzled:
"What lock of hair?"
From an envelope which he took from his pocket the Duke produced a shining tress. It was the lock of hair which had arrived in the first communication. "I will have it framed."
"You will have what framed?" The Duchess glanced at what the Duke was so tenderly caressing, almost, as it seemed, a little dubiously, "Whatever is it you have there?"
"It is the lock of hair which that scoundrel sent me." Something in the lady's face caused him to ask a question: "Didn't he tell you he had sent it me?"
"Hereward!"
"Did the brute tell you that he meant to cut off your little finger?"
A very curious look came into the lady's face. She glanced at the Duke as if she, all at once, were half afraid of him. She cast at Mr. Dacre what really seemed to be a look of enquiry. Her voice was tremulously anxious:
"Hereward, did-did the accident affect you mentally?"
"How could it not have affected me mentally? Do you think that my mental organization is of steel?"
"But you look so well?"
"Of course I look well, now that I have you back again. Tell me, darling, did that hound actually threaten you with cutting off your arm? If he did, I shall feel half inclined to kill him yet."
The Duchess seemed positively to shrink from her better-half's near neighbourhood:
"Hereward, was it a Pickford's van?"
The Duke seemed puzzled. Well he might be:
"Was what a Pickford's van?"
The lady turned to Mr. Dacre. In her voice there was a ring of anguish:
"Mr. Dacre, tell me, was it a Pickford's van?"
Ivor could only imitate his relative's repetition of her inquiry:
"I don't quite catch you-was what a Pickford's van?"
The Duchess clasped her hands in front of her: "What is it you are keeping from me? What is it you are trying to hide? I implore you to tell me the worst, whatever it may be! Do not keep me any longer in suspense; you do not know what I already have endured. Mr. Dacre, is my husband mad?"
One need scarcely observe that the lady's amazing appeal to Mr. Dacre as to her husband's sanity was received with something like surprise. As the Duke continued to stare at her, a dreadful fear began to loom upon his brain:
"My darling, your brain is unhinged!"
He advanced to take her two hands again in his; but, to his unmistakable distress, she shrank away from him:
"Hereward-don't touch me. How is it that I missed you? Why did you not wait until I came?"
"Wait until you came?"
The Duke's bewilderment increased.
"Surely, if your injuries turned out, after all, to be slight, that was all the more reason why you should have waited, after sending for me like that."
"I sent for you-I?" The Duke's tone was grave. "My darling, perhaps you had better come upstairs."
"Not until we have had an explanation. You must have known that I should come. Why did you not wait for me after you had sent me that?"
The Duchess held out something to the Duke. He took it. It was a card-his own visiting-card. Something was written on the back of it. He read aloud what was written:
"'Mabel, come to me at once with bearer. They tell me that they cannot take me home.' It looks like my own writing."
"Looks like it! It is your writing."
"It looks like it-and written with a shaky pen."
"My dear child, one's hand would shake at such a moment as that."
"Mabel, where did you get this?"
"It was brought to me in Cane and Wilson's."
"Who brought it?"
"Who brought it? Why, the man you sent."
"The man I sent?" A light burst upon the Duke's brain. He fell back a pace. "It's the decoy!"
Her Grace echoed the words:
"The decoy?"
"The scoundrel! To set a trap with such a bait! My poor, innocent darling, did you think it came from me? Tell me, Mabel, where did he cut off your hair?"
"Cut off my hair?"
Her Grace put her hand up to her head as if to make sure that her hair was there.
"Where did he take you to?"
"He took me to Draper's Buildings."
"Draper's Buildings?"
"I have never been in the City before, but he told me it was Draper's Buildings. Isn't that near the Stock Exchange?"
"Near the Stock Exchange?"
It seemed rather a curious place to which to take a kidnapped victim. The man's audacity!
"He told me that you were coming out of the Stock Exchange when a van knocked you over. He said that he thought it was a Pickford's van-was it a Pickford's van?"
"No, it was not a Pickford's van. Mabel, were you in Draper's Buildings when you wrote that letter?"
"Wrote what letter?"
"Have you forgotten it already? I do not believe that there is a word in it which will not be branded on my brain until I die."
"Hereward! What do you mean?"
"Surely you cannot have written me such a letter as that, and then have forgotten it already?"
He handed her the letter which had arrived in the second communication. She glanced at it, askance. Then she took it with a little gasp.
"Hereward, if you don't mind, I think I'll take a chair." She took a chair. "Whatever-whatever's this?" As she read the letter the varying expressions which passed across her face were, in themselves, a study in psychology. "Is it possible that you can imagine that, under any conceivable circumstances, I could have written such a letter as this?"
"Mabel!"
She rose to her feet, with emphasis:
"Hereward, don't say that you thought this came from me!"
"Not come from you?" He remembered Knowles's diplomatic reception of the epistle on its first appearance. "I suppose that you will say next that this is not a lock of your hair?"
"My dear child, what bee have you got in your bonnet? This a lock of my hair! Why, it's not in the least like my hair!"
Which was certainly inaccurate. As far as color was concerned it was an almost perfect match. The Duke turned to Mr. Dacre.
"Ivor, I've had to go through a good deal this afternoon. If I have to go through much more, something will crack!" He touched his forehead. "I think it's my turn to take a chair." He also took a chair. Not the one which the Duchess had vacated, but one which faced it. He stretched out his legs in front of him; he thrust his hands into his trousers-pockets; he said, in a tone which was not only gloomy but absolutely gruesome:
"Might I ask, Mabel, if you have been kidnapped?"
"Kidnapped?"
"The word I used was 'kidnapped.' But I will spell it if you like. Or I will get a dictionary, that you may see its meaning."
The Duchess looked as if she was beginning to be not quite sure if she was awake or sleeping. She turned to Ivor:
"Mr. Dacre, has the accident affected Hereward's brain?"
The Duke took the words out of his cousin's mouth:
"On that point, my dear, let me ease your mind. I don't know if you are under the impression that I should be the same shape after a Pickford's van had run over me as I was before; but, in any case, I have not been run over by a Pickford's van. So far as I am concerned there has been no accident. Dismiss that delusion from your mind."
"Oh!"
"You appear surprised. One might even think that you were sorry. But may I now ask what you did when you arrived at Draper's Buildings?"
"Did! I looked for you!"
"Indeed! And when you had looked in vain, what was the next item in your programme?"
The lady shrank still further from him:
"Hereward, have you been having a jest at my expense? Can you have been so cruel?" Tears stood in her eyes.
Rising, the Duke laid his hand upon her arm:
"Mabel, tell me-what did you do when you had looked for me in vain?"
"I looked for you upstairs and downstairs, and everywhere. It was quite a large place, it took me ever such a time. I thought that I should go distracted. Nobody seemed to know anything about you, or even that there had been an accident at all-it was all offices. I couldn't make it out in the least, and the people didn't seem to be able to make me out either. So when I couldn't find you anywhere I came straight home again."
The Duke was silent for a moment. Then, with funereal gravity, he turned to Mr. Dacre. He put to him this question:
"Ivor, what are you laughing at?"
Mr. Dacre drew his hand across his mouth with rather a suspicious gesture:
"My dear fellow, only a smile!"
The Duchess looked from one to the other:
"What have you two been doing? What is the joke?"
With an air of preternatural solemnity the Duke took two letters from the breast-pocket of his coat.
"Mabel, you have already seen your letter. You have already seen the lock of your hair. Just look at this-and that."
He gave her the two very singular communications which had arrived in such a mysterious manner, and so quickly one after the other. She read them with wide-open eyes.
"Hereward! Wherever did these come from?"
The Duke was standing with his legs apart, and his hands in his trousers-pockets. "I would give-I would give another five hundred pounds to know. Shall I tell you, madam, what I have been doing? I have been presenting five hundred golden sovereigns to a perfect stranger, with a top-hat, and a gardenia in his button-hole."
"Whatever for?"
"If you have perused those documents which you have in your hand, you will have some faint idea. Ivor, when its your funeral I'll smile. Mabel, Duchess of Dachet, it is beginning to dawn upon the vacuum which represents my brain that I've been the victim of one of the prettiest things in practical jokes that ever yet was planned. When that fellow brought you that card at Cane and Wilson's-which, I need scarcely tell you, never came from me-some one walked out of the front entrance who was so exactly like you that both Barnes and Moysey took her for you. Moysey showed her into the carriage, and Barnes drove her home. But when the carriage reached home it was empty. Your double had got out upon the road."
The Duchess uttered a sound which was half a gasp, half sigh:
"Hereward!"
"Barnes and Moysey, with beautiful and childlike innocence, when they found that they had brought the thing home empty, came straightway and told me that you had jumped out of the brougham while it had been driving full pelt through the streets. While I was digesting that piece of information there came the first epistle, with the lock of your hair. Before I had time to digest that there came the second epistle, with yours inside, and, as a guarantee of the authenticity of your appeal, the same envelope held this."
The Duke handed the Duchess the half of the broken sixpence. She stared at it with the most unequivocal astonishment.
"Why, it looks just like my sixpence." She put her hand to her breast, feeling something that was there. "But it isn't! What wickedness!"
"It is wickedness, isn't it? Anyhow, that seemed good enough for me; so I posted off the five hundred pounds to save your arm-not to dwell upon your little finger."
"It seems incredible!"
"Its sounds incredible; but unfathomable is the folly of man, especially of a man who loves his wife." The Duke crossed to Mr. Dacre. "I don't want, Ivor, to suggest anything in the way of bribery and corruption, but if you could keep this matter to yourself, and not mention it to your friends, our white-hatted and gardenia-button-holed acquaintance is welcome to his five hundred pounds, and-Mabel, what on earth are you laughing at?"
The Duchess appeared, all at once, to be seized with inextinguishable laughter.
"Hereward," she cried, "just think how that man must be laughing at you!"
And the Duke of Datchet thought of it.
THE STRANGE OCCURRENCES INCANTERSTONE JAIL
CHAPTER I
MR. MANKELL DECLARES HIS INTENTION OF ACTING ON MAGISTERIAL ADVICE
Oliver Mankell was sentenced to three months' hard labour. The charge was that he had obtained money by means of false pretences. Not large sums, but shillings, half-crowns, and so on. He had given out that he was a wizard, and that he was able and willing-for a consideration-to predict the events of the future-tell fortunes, in fact. The case created a large amount of local interest, for some curious stories were told about the man in the town. Mankell was a tall, slight, wiry-looking fellow in the prime of life, with coal-black hair and olive complexion-apparently of Romany extraction. His bearing was self-possessed, courteous even, yet with something in his air which might have led one to suppose that he saw-what others did not-the humour of the thing. At one point his grave, almost saturnine visage distinctly relaxed into a smile. It was when Colonel Gregory, the chairman of the day, was passing sentence. After committing him for three months' hard labour, the Colonel added-
"During your sojourn within the walls of a prison you will have an opportunity of retrieving your reputation. You say you are a magician. During your stay in jail I would strongly advise you to prove it. You lay claim to magic powers. Exercise them. I need scarcely point out to you how excellent a chance you will have of creating a sensation."
The people laughed. When the great Panjandrum is even dimly suspected of an intention to be funny, the people always do. But on this occasion even the prisoner smiled-rather an exceptional thing, for as a rule it is the prisoner who sees the joke the least of all.
Later in the day the prisoner was conveyed to the county jail. This necessitated a journey by rail, with a change upon the way. At the station where they changed there was a delay of twenty minutes. This the prisoner and the constable in charge of him improved by adjourning to a public house hard by. Here they had a glass-indeed they had two-and when they reached Canterstone, the town on whose outskirts stood the jail, they had one-or perhaps it was two-more. It must have been two, for when they reached the jail, instead of the constable conveying the prisoner, it was the prisoner who conveyed the constable-upon his shoulder. The warder who answered the knock seemed surprised at what he saw.
"What do you want?"
"Three months' hard labour."
The warder stared. The shades of night had fallen, and the lamp above the prison-door did not seem to cast sufficient light upon the subject to satisfy the janitor.
"Come inside," he said.
Mankell entered, the constable upon his shoulder. Having entered, he carefully placed the constable in a sitting posture on the stones, with his back against the wall. The policeman's helmet had tipped over his eyes-he scarcely presented an imposing picture of the majesty and might of the law. The warder shook him by the shoulder. "Here, come-wake up. You're a pretty sort," he said. The constable's reply, although slightly inarticulate, was yet sufficiently distinct.
"Not another drop!" he murmured.
"No, I shouldn't think so," said the warder. "You've had a pailful, it seems to me, already."
The man seemed a little puzzled. He turned and looked at Mankell.
"What do you want here?"
"Three months' hard labour."
The man looked down and saw that the new-comer had gyves upon his wrists. He went to a door at one side, and summoned another warder. The two returned together. This second official took in the situation at a glance.
"Have you come from-?" naming the town from which they in fact had come. Mankell inclined his head. This second official turned his attention to the prostrate constable. "Look in his pockets."
The janitor acted on the suggestion. The order for committal was produced.
"Are you Oliver Mankell?"
Again Mankell inclined his head. With the order in his hand, the official marched him through the side-door by which he had himself appeared. Soon Oliver Mankell was the inmate of a cell. He spent that night in the reception-cells at the gate. In the morning he had a bath, was inducted into prison clothing, and examined by the doctor. He was then taken up to the main building of the prison, and introduced to the governor. The governor was a quiet, gentlemanly man, with a straggling black beard and spectacles-the official to the tips of his fingers. As Mankell happened to be the only fresh arrival, the governor favoured him with a little speech.
"You've placed yourself in an uncomfortable position, Mankell. I hope you'll obey the rules while you're here."
"I intend to act upon the advice tendered me by the magistrate who passed sentence."
The governor looked up. Not only was the voice a musical voice, but the words were not the sort of words generally chosen by the average prisoner.
"What advice was that?"
"He said that I claimed to be a magician. He strongly advised me to prove it during my stay in jail. I intend to act upon the advice he tendered."
The governor looked Mankell steadily in the face. The speaker's bearing conveyed no suggestion of insolent intention. The governor looked down again.
"I advise you to be careful what you do. You may make your position more uncomfortable than it is already. Take the man away."
They took the man away. They introduced him to the wheel. On the treadmill he passed the remainder of the morning. At noon morning tasks were over, and the prisoners were marched into their day-cells to enjoy the meal which, in prison parlance, was called dinner. In accordance with the ordinary routine, the chaplain made his appearance in the round-house to interview those prisoners who had just come in, and those whose sentences would be completed on the morrow. When Mankell had been asked at the gate what his religion was, he had made no answer; so the warder, quite used to ignorance on the part of new arrivals as to all religions, had entered him as a member of the Church of England. As a member of the Church of England he was taken out to interview the chaplain.
The chaplain was a little fussy gentleman, considerably past middle age. Long experience of prisons and prisoners had bred in him a perhaps unconscious habit of regarding criminals as naughty boys-urchins who required a judicious combination of cakes and castigation.
"Well, my lad, I'm sorry to see a man of your appearance here." This was a remark the chaplain made to a good many of his new friends. It was intended to give them the impression that at least the chaplain perceived that they were something out of the ordinary run. Then he dropped his voice to a judicious whisper. "What's it for?"
"For telling the truth."
This reply seemed a little to surprise the chaplain. He settled his spectacles upon his nose.
"For telling the truth!" An idea seemed all at once to strike the chaplain. "Do you mean that you pleaded guilty?" The man was silent. The chaplain referred to a paper he held in his hand. "Eh, I see that here it is written 'false pretences.' Was it a stumer?"
We have seen it mentioned somewhere that "stumer" is slang for a worthless cheque. It was a way with the chaplain to let his charges see that he was at least acquainted with their phraseology. But on this occasion there was no response. The officer in charge of Mankell, who possibly wanted his dinner, put in his oar.
"Telling fortunes, sir."
"Telling fortunes! Oh! Dear me! How sad! You see what telling fortunes brings you to? There will be no difficulty in telling your fortune if you don't take care. I will see you to-morrow morning after chapel."
The chaplain turned away. But his prediction proved to be as false as Mankell's were stated to have been. He did not see him the next morning after chapel, and that for the sufficient reason that on the following morning there was no chapel. And the reasons why there was no chapel were very curious indeed-unprecedented, in fact.
Canterstone Jail was an old-fashioned prison. In it each prisoner had two cells, one for the day and one for the night. The day-cells were on the ground-floor, those for the night were overhead. At six a.m. a bell was rung, and the warders unlocked the night-cells for the occupants to go down to those beneath. That was the rule. That particular morning was an exception to the rule. The bell was rung as usual, and the warders started to unlock, but there the adherence to custom ceased, for the doors of the cells refused to be unlocked.
The night-cells were hermetically sealed by oaken doors of massive thickness, bolted and barred in accordance with the former idea that the security of prisoners should depend rather upon bolts and bars than upon the vigilance of the officers in charge. Each door was let into a twenty-four inch brick-wall, and secured by two ponderous bolts and an enormous lock of the most complicated workmanship. These locks were kept constantly oiled. When the gigantic key was inserted, it turned as easily as the key of a watch-that was the rule. When, therefore, on inserting his key into the lock of the first cell, Warder Slater found that it wouldn't turn at all, he was rather taken aback. "Who's been having a game with this lock?" he asked.
Warder Puffin, who was stationed at the head of the stairs to see that the prisoners passed down in order, at the proper distance from each other, replied to him.
"Anything the matter with the lock? Try the next."
Warder Slater did try the next, but he found that as refractory as the first had been.
"Perhaps you've got the wrong key?" suggested Warder Puffin.
"Got the wrong key!" cried Warder Slater. "Do you think I don't know my own keys when I see them?"
The oddest part of it was that all the locks were the same. Not only in Ward A, but in Wards B, C, D, E, and F-in all the wards, in fact. When this became known, a certain sensation was created, and that on both sides of the unlocked doors. The prisoners were soon conscious that their guardians were unable to release them, and they made a noise. Nothing is so precious to the average prisoner as a grievance; here was a grievance with a vengeance.
The chief warder was a man named Murray. He was short and stout, with a red face, and short, stubbly white hair-his very appearance suggested apoplexy. That suggestion was emphasised when he lost his temper-capable officer though he was, that was more than once in a while. He was in the wheel-shed, awaiting the arrival of the prisoners preparatory to being told off to their various tasks, when, instead of the prisoners, Warder Slater appeared. If Murray was stout, Slater was stouter. He was about five feet eight, and weighed at least 250 pounds. He was wont to amaze those who saw him for the first time-and wondered-by assuring them that he had a brother who was still stouter-compared to whom he was a skeleton, in fact. But he was stout enough. He and the chief warder made a striking pair.
"There's something the matter with the locks of the night-cells, sir. We can't undo the doors."
"Can't undo the doors!" Mr. Murray turned the colour of a boiled beetroot. "What do you mean?"
"It's very queer, sir, but all over the place it's the same. We can't get none of the doors unlocked."
Mr. Murray started off at a good round pace, Slater following hard at his heels. The chief warder tried his hand himself. He tried every lock in the prison; not one of them vouchsafed to budge. Not one, that is, with a single exception. The exception was in Ward B, No. 27. Mr. Murray had tried all the other doors in the ward, beginning with No. 1-tried them all in vain. But when he came to No. 27, the lock turned with the customary ease, and the door was open. Within it was Oliver Mankell, standing decorously at attention, waiting to be let out. Mr. Murray stared at him.
"Hum! there's nothing the matter with this lock, at any rate. You'd better go down."
Oliver Mankell went downstairs-he was the only man in Canterstone jail who did.
"Well, this is a pretty go!" exclaimed Mr. Murray, when he had completed his round. Two or three other warders had accompanied him. He turned on these. "Someone will smart for this-you see if they don't. Keep those men still."
The din was deafening. The prisoners, secure of a grievance, were practising step-dances in their heavy shoes on the stone floors: they made the narrow vaulted corridors ring.
"Silence those men!" shouted Mr. Jarvis, the second warder, who was tall and thin as the chief was short and stout. He might as well have shouted to the wind. Those in the cells just close at hand observed the better part of valour, but those a little distance off paid not the slightest heed. If they were locked in, the officers were locked out.
"I must go and see the governor." Mr. Murray pursed up his lips. "Keep those men still, or I'll know the reason why."
