Room 13
She suppressed the cry that rose to her lips. Both Johnny and her
father were there. Then Jeffrey had not lied.
How could she answer? She had no pencil. Then she saw that the end of
the cotton was weighted by a small piece of pencil, the kind that is
found attached to a dance programme. With this unsatisfactory medium
she wrote a reply and pushed it through the window, and after a while
she saw it drawn up. Johnny was there--and Johnny knew. She felt
strangely comforted by his presence, impotent though he was.
For half an hour she waited at the window, but now the daylight had
come, and evidently Johnny thought it was too dangerous to make any
further communications.
Exhausted, she lay down on the bed, intending to remain awake, but
within five minutes she was sleeping heavily. The sound of a key in
the lock made her spring to her feet. It was the man she had seen in
the early morning; he was carrying a big tray, set with a clumsy cup
and saucer, six slices of bread and butter, and an enormous teapot. He
put it down on the bed, for want of a table, and without a word went
out. She looked at the little platinum watch on her wrist: it was ten
o’clock. Half an hour later the man came and took away the tray.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“You’re in ‘boob,’” he said with quiet amusement. “But it is better
than any other ‘boob’ you’ve ever been in, young lady. And don’t try
to ask me questions, because you’ll not get a civil answer if you do.”
At two o’clock came another meal, a little more tastily served this
time. It seemed, from the appearance of the plate, that Jeffrey had
sent into Oxford for a new service specially for her benefit. Again
she attempted to discover what had happened to her father, but with no
more satisfactory result.
The weary day dragged through; every minute seemed an hour, every hour
interminable. Darkness had fallen again when the last of the visits
was made, and this time it was Jeffrey Legge. At the sight of his
face, all her terror turned to wonder. He was ghastly pale, his eyes
burnt strangely, and the hand that came up to his lips was trembling
as though he were suffering from a fever.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I want you,” he said brokenly. “I want you for the life of my
father!”
“What do you mean?” she gasped.
“Peter Kane killed my father last night,” he said.
“You’re mad,” she gasped. “My father is here--you told me.”
“I told you a lie. What does it matter what I told you anyway? Peter
Kane escaped on the way to Keytown, and he went back to the club and
killed my father!”
CHAPTER XXX
The girl looked at him, speechless.
“It isn’t true!” she cried.
“It’s not true, isn’t it?” Jeffrey almost howled the words. He was mad
with hate, with grief, with desire for cruel vengeance. “I’ll show you
whether it’s not true, my lady. You’re my wife--do you understand
that? If you don’t, you’re going to.”
He flung out of the cell, turning to voice his foul mind, and then the
door clanged on her, and he strode out of the hall into the little
house that was once the Governor’s residence, and which was now the
general head-quarters of the Big Printer.
He poured himself out a stiff dose of whisky and drank it undiluted,
and the man who had accompanied him watched him curiously.
“Jeff, it looks to me as if it’s time to make a get-away. We can’t
keep these people here very long. The men are scared, too.”
“Scared, are they?” sneered Jeffrey Legge. “I guess they’d be more
scared if they were in front of a judge and jury.”
“That’s the kind of scare they’re anxious to avoid,” said his
lieutenant calmly. “Anyway, Jeff, we’re getting near the end, and it
seems to me that it’s the time for all sensible men to find a little
home on the other side of the water.”
Legge thought for a long time, and when he spoke his voice was more
calm.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “Tell them they can clear to-night.”
The other man was taken aback by the answer.
“To-night?” he said. “Well, I don’t know that there’s that hurry.”
“Tell ’em to clear to-night. They’ve got all the money they want. I’m
shutting this down.”
“Who killed your father?”
“Peter Kane,” snarled Legge. “I’ve got the full strength of it. The
police are hiding him up, but he did the killing all right. They found
him on the premises in the morning.”
He sat awhile, staring moodily at the glass in his hand.
“Let them go to-night,” he said, “every one of them. I’ll tell them
myself.”
“Do you want me to go?” asked the other.
Legge nodded.
“Yes; I want to be alone. I’m going to fix two people to-night,” he
said, between his teeth, “and I’m fixing them good.”
“Some of the men like Johnny Gray; they were in boob with him,”
suggested his assistant, but Jeffrey stopped him with an oath.
“That’s another reason they can get out,” he said, “and they can’t
know too soon.”
He jumped to his feet and strode out of the room, the man following at
a distance.
There were two halls to the prison, and it was into the second that he
turned. This was brilliantly illuminated. The doors had been removed
from most of the cells, and several of them were obviously
sleeping-rooms for the half a dozen men who sat about a table playing
cards. At only four places were the cell doors intact, for behind
these were the delicate printing presses which from morning till night
were turning out and numbering French, American and English paper
currency. There was not one of the men at the table, or who came to
the doors of their cubicles, attracted by the unusual appearance of
Legge, who had not served long terms of imprisonment on forgery
charges. Jeffrey had recruited them as carefully as a theatrical
producer recruits his beauty chorus. They were men without homes,
without people, mainly without hope; men inured to the prison system,
and who found, in this novel method of living, a delightful variation
of the life to which they were most accustomed.
It was believed by the authorities that Keytown Jail was in the hands
of a syndicate engaged in experimental work of a highly complicated
character, and no obstacle had been placed in the way of laying power
cables to the “laboratories.” Jeff had found the safest asylum in the
land, and one which was more strongly guarded than any he could have
built.
His speech was short and to the point.
“Boys, I guess that the time has come when we’ve got to make the best
of our way home. You’ve all enough money to live comfortably on for
the rest of your lives, and I advise you to get out of the country as
soon as you can. You have your passports; you know the way; and
there’s no time like the present.”
“Do you mean that we’ve got to go to-night, Jeff?” asked a voice.
“I mean to-night. I’ll have a car run you into London; but you’ll have
to leave your kit behind, but you can afford that.”
“What are you going to do with the factory?”
“That’s my business,” said Jeff.
The proposal did not find universal favour, but they stood in such awe
of the Big Printer that, though they demurred, they obeyed. By ten
o’clock that night the prison was empty, except for Jeffrey and his
assistant.
“I didn’t see Bill Holliss go,” said the latter; but Jeffrey Legge was
too intent upon his plans to give the matter a moment’s thought.
“Maybe you’ll see yourself go now, Jenkins,” he said. “You can take
your two-seater and run anywhere you like.”
“Let me stay till the morning,” asked the man.
“You’ll go to-night. Otherwise, what’s the use of sending the other
fellows away?”
He closed the big gate upon the car. He was alone with his wife and
with the man he hated. He could think calmly now. The madness of rage
had passed. He made a search of a little store-room and found what he
was looking for. It was a stout rope. With this over his arm, and a
storm-lamp in his hand, he went out into the yard and came to a little
shed built against the wall. Unlocking the rusty padlock, he pulled
the doors apart. The shed was empty; the floor was inches thick with
litter, and, going back, he found a broom and swept it clean. With the
aid of a ladder he mounted to a beam that ran transversely across the
roof, and fastened one end of the rope securely. Coming down, he spent
half an hour in making a noose.
He was in the death house. Under his feet was the fatal trap that a
pull of the rusty lever would spring. He wanted to make the
experiment, but the trap would take a lot of time to pull up. His face
was pouring with perspiration when he had finished. The night was
close, and a flicker of lightning illuminated for a second the gloomy
recesses of the prison yard.
As he entered the hall a low growl of thunder came to him, but the
storm in his heart was more violent than any nature could provide.
He tiptoed up the iron stairs to the landing, and came at last to No.
4 and hesitated. His enemy could wait. Creeping down the stairs again,
his heart beating thunderously, he stood outside the door of the
condemned cell. The key trembled as he inserted it in the lock. No
sound broke the stillness as the door opened stealthily, and he
slipped into the room.
He waited, holding his breath, not knowing whether she were awake or
asleep, and then crept forward to the bed. He saw the outline of a
figure.
“Marney,” he said huskily, groping for her face.
And then two hands like steel clamps caught him by the throat and
flung him backward.
“I want you, Jeffrey Legge,” said a voice--the voice of Johnny Gray.
CHAPTER XXXI
Johnny Gray came to consciousness with a violent headache and a
sense of suffocating restriction, which he discovered was due to his
wing collar holding tightly in spite of the rough usage that had been
his. This fact would have been pleasing to Parker, but was intensely
discomforting to the wearer, and in a minute he had stripped the
offending collar from his throat and had risen unsteadily to his feet.
The room in which he was had a familiar appearance. It was a cell,
and----
Keytown Jail! He remembered Fenner’s warning. So Fenner knew! Keytown
Jail, sold by the Government to--Jeffrey Legge! The idea was
preposterous; but why not? A timber merchant had bought a jail at
Hereford; a firm of caterers had purchased an old prison in the North
of England, and were serving afternoon teas in the cells.
Now he understood. Keytown Prison was the head-quarters of the Big
Printer. The one place in the world that the police would never dream
of searching, particularly if, as he guessed, Jeffrey Legge had
offered some specious excuse for his presence and the presence of his
company in this isolated part of the world.
The sound of voices came faintly up to him, and he heard a door bang
and the clicking of locks; and with that sound he recalled the
happenings of the evening. It must be Peter: they had got him too. In
spite of his discomfiture, in spite of the awful danger in which he
knew he was, he laughed softly to himself.
Above his bed was a window with scarcely a whole pane. But there was
no escape that way. A thought struck him, and, leaning down, he tapped
a Morse message on the floor. If it was Peter, he could understand. He
heard the answering tap which came feebly, and when he signalled again
he knew that whoever was in the cell below had no knowledge of the
Morse code. He searched his pockets and found a tiny scrap of pencil,
but could find no paper, except a bundle of five-pound notes, which
his captors had not troubled to remove. Here was both stationery and
the means of writing, but how could he communicate with the occupant
of the cell below? Presently a plan suggested itself, and he tore off
the lapel of his dinner-jacket and unravelled the silk. Tying the
pencil to the end to give it weight, he slowly lowered his message,