Three sevens A detective story
only clock, came the intermittent visits of the guards--the whispered
tread of the felt shoes, the blinding flash that was the light they
hungered for and which could be so cruel.
There was one thing about this light ration served the men of the
punishment block--it was blinding more or less to the guard, as well.
He could peer well enough at the creature who cowered in the cell, or
stared and swore; but he wasn’t likely to see anything so fine and
small as that lengthening streak, no wider than a fine black thread,
that fell from a corner of the upper hole in the door of cell No. 3.
“You rat!” snarled Craig.
“I’ll see that you get a week extra for that,” said Copton, the guard.
It was because of Copton that Craig was in the dark cell. Copton, a
week ago, had almost crushed in Craig’s ribs for no special reason
other than that he was in a bad humor, and Craig had struck him. He
had whirled on him right out of the lockstep, lifted him with an
uppercut to the chin, and dropped him with a jab to the stomach. And
then Copton had done practice on Craig with his club.
But it wasn’t because of all this that Craig had called Copton a rat.
He had expected a lengthening of his sentence, and had needed it.
Now, just one day more--two days.
He was following Bartow’s advice. Slow work it was, and killing work.
So the beaver gnaws a tree. So one of the big prison rats would draw
water from a thick lead pipe. But, like beaver or rat--or a caged
badger scratching forever at a knot hole, so this evolved animal of
a man shoved forward his fine saw and drew it back again, shoved
it forward, drew it back again. Not like cheese this boiler iron,
certainly; but easy to cut, as such things go.
Whoever had furnished those saws to Solly Wells had not risked the
great chance on inferior goods. Otherwise, moreover, Solly would
never have sent them to Chi Slim. The saws were good saws.
Was the spirit of Chi Slim there directing Craig now? He often felt
that this was so, for queer fancies come to a man who works in the
dark. Half the time he felt that not only was Chi Slim’s ghost there,
but a whole regiment of other ghosts--the ghosts of those who had
preceded him in this cell, and in San Pedro generally. For Craig had
seen things since coming to San Pedro that made him sick--sick as he
hadn’t been even with the big sickness of his arrest, his trial, his
conviction.
It was this latter element of his experience that was with him all
the time, even when the ghosts were there--one might almost say
especially when the ghosts were there. For it was this that vibrated
in Craig’s mind, day and night:
Now that he knew about the horrors of San Pedro---- _Saw! Saw!_
Now that he knew there were some men here who ought to be free----
_Scrape! Scrape!_
Now that he knew that he himself, his immortal soul, had already
atoned its sin a thousand times over---- _Rasp! Rasp!_
His fingers were bleeding. His knees were lacerated. His muscles were
become but a part of some machine that was killing him. But none the
less, Craig had that vision of a bigger thing to sustain him--a wider
liberty, a greater joy, a more stupendous prize. For he had joined
the small number of the great.
Who were the great? They were the men who, like himself, had fallen
into the cruel, huge power that drives the world ahead, and who are
thus marked to pass on that power to others, as Napoleon did, as
Cæsar did, and Moses.
The saw he was using snapped close to his fingers, as if this
tempered steel itself were unable to stand the strain. It was the
third saw that had snapped like that, despite his infinite pains and
the profane recommendations of his brethren. But Craig didn’t worry.
Not greatly. He would have enough saws to see him through. He knew he
would. This was too great a thing to fail because of a mere saw or
two.
Else, why had he been sent to San Pedro, of all prisons, when there
was a man at the head of it by the name of Green? And this man Green,
whom he had scarcely seen, and who had scarcely looked at him, so
closely woven into the scheme of Providence thus far revealed,
didn’t know anything about it? Or, did Green know? It didn’t matter.
Providence was running this. It was Providence helping him to extend
that invisible cut--invisible to the dull-witted guards who came from
top hole to bottom; and when this work should be complete, could he
doubt but that Providence likewise would show him the way?
Not that Craig failed to receive much advice along these lines also
from his fellows of the dark lodge. They were all willing to help.
Jim Bartow, cell No. 1, volunteered to throw soup in the guard’s
face, thus creating a diversion until Craig could get him from behind.
Whitey, cell No. 2, had a stiletto made from a wire he had once
removed from the rim of a tin plate and had since managed, the Lord
knows how, to keep concealed through numerous searchings and changes
of raiment. He thought he could hold the guard’s attention better
than Bartow. Anyhow, Craig could have the weapon the moment he was
out of his cell.
In cell No. 4 was a half-wit who sang, all the time that he wasn’t
weeping; and in cell No. 5 was Bangor--a six-footer who had once
sailed his own trawler--eager to help, but reduced by a fever.
It was from cell No. 6, the last in the row, that Craig got most of
his counsel--got this by a word here and a word there, and in long
silences, as if the inmate of cell No. 6 were speaking to him in a
sort of vocal Morse. For the inmate of cell No. 6 was an elderly
yegg, or safeblower, named Eddie; and Eddie had spent most of his
long life in prisons, had talked a lot with chaplains and reformers,
had read many books, had become, in short, a philosopher and sage.
“A great opportunity,” said Eddie softly, when he was sure that all
except Craig and himself were asleep. “Oh, I do hope, sir, that you
will make the most of it. A chance to do good!”
This from Eddie who had blown safes, and shot at the citizens of
villages on dark nights, and was down here in the punishment cells
now for calling Warden Green bad names in the presence of visitors.
“_Saw! Saw!_” And Craig was almost through.
CHAPTER II
PROVIDENCE AIDING
There had been a change or two in the population of the cells since
the work began. Bartow was gone. So was the half-wit of cell No. 4.
And these changes, while regrettable to the extent that they caused
some doubt and consequent delay, were useful in bringing the calendar
up to date, so to speak. For some time there had been a discussion
as to whether the following day would be Friday or Saturday. The
newcomers decided it.
Not only would the next day be Saturday, and hence the next day
Sunday; but the following day also would be a holiday--Monday.
“What holiday?” asked Craig.
“Lincoln’s Birthday, you crazy stiff,” laughed the man who had taken
the half-wit’s deserted lodgment.
There came a groan from cell No. 1. A soft voice succeeded it:
“Mah name’s Geawge Washington, but I guess no Lincoln ain’t goin’ to
set me free.”
Then, in the blackness and the humming silence of the place, Craig
felt the door of his iron box yield, snap open. Himself he found
staggering forward until he almost lost his balance. He was as dizzy
as a man standing on the edge of a precipice--a precipice imagined
rather than seen. It was the wall of the cellar that saved him from
falling completely.
“He’s out,” thrilled the whisper.
“_Tommy!_”
That was his prison name--Thomas Masters. Not even the judge who had
committed him, not even the chaplain, knew that his name was Craig.
That, at least, he had kept untarnished out of his past. He had
dreamed of the time when he could use that name again.
“_Hey, Tommy!_”
There were other whispers. There for a space, the subcellar was
shaking with a vibration like that of a passing train or the engines
of the power house. Then Craig was getting the upper hand of himself
and of the crowd.
“Every one shut up,” he said; “and let me think.”
He had plenty of time to think. It would be almost an hour yet before
the night guard made his first round. So he gave himself to thought,
panted back his strength, and suppled himself there in the darkness.
Then he pawed his way down the line to the iron box wherein Eddie was
locked like a thing of great price, and he and Eddie talked--in the
all but silent lip speech that the others couldn’t hear.
“Yes,” said Eddie. “Meet him at the door, and then, if there is a
slip----”
“There’ll be no slip.”
“Many a good man has said as much, then slipped. If there is a slip,
you’ll still have a chance to slam the door and make the guardroom at
the top of the stairs----”
“There were three guards there the day they brought me down.”
“There’ll be that many there, now, if not more,” said Eddie, to whom
the prison was an open book. “They like to assemble there, especially
Saturdays at this hour, for their evening pinochle. That’s your
chance. They’ll be playing pinochle, and you can grab a gun.”
“I don’t want to kill any one if it can be helped,” said Craig.
“’Tis a thought that’ll bring you luck,” said Eddie. “But the numbers
will be on your side. They’re no marksmen, and will be afraid of
shooting each other. You can bluff the gatekeeper----”
“If I get that far. But I’m telling you, Eddie----”
“Tut! Tut!” said Eddie. Or, at least, he dropped a silence to that
effect. “Yourself first.”
“But it’s not that that I’ve been working for,” said Craig. “I’d feel
like a hound, if I beat it and left the others.”
“A thought that’ll bring you luck,” said Eddie. “But, once you’re
outside, there are the messages you can write, the politicians you
can see, so’s mebbe San Pedro will be reformed.”
“Hey, Tommy,” came the voice of him who had announced that Monday was
Lincoln’s Birthday, “turn me loose with a gun. I’m a killer, I am.”
And Whitey, from cell No. 2, was begging him to come and get his wire
stiletto. Whitey had cherished his stiletto so long that he loved it
greatly, spoke of its virtues. He said that it was lucky, that he had
done things to it that would lead the point of it straight to any
stiff’s heart.
Through all this--not that it was noisy, not that it was
obstreperous, for they were all listening as men listen when their
lives depend on small sounds and the significance thereof--Craig and
Eddie debated and quested out into the great unknown and came back
again, to the very present problem of handling the night guard when
that worthy should arrive.
Finally Craig said:
“Eddie, have I got your sacred oath?”
“By all that’s holy!”
“Because I’ll need help after a while. And, whatever we do, we’ll be
trying to do good.”
“’Tis a thought that’ll bring you luck.”
“_Sh!_”
Some one had heard, or thought that he had heard, the door open at
the top of the stairs. It wasn’t time yet for the night guard to
begin his rounds. But you never could tell. Perhaps the guard would
be coming early, eager to get back and sit in at the opening round of
the pinochle game.
As Craig crept away from Eddie’s cell and found the wall in the
darkness, then crept along this wall in the direction of the door by
which the guard would enter this sunless hole of human misery, he
felt as if he had died and were emerging from the grave, going up for
judgment. What would that judgment be?
A rat squeaked, and the cold sweat was on his brow. He stood still.
He forced himself to breathe deeply. He sought steadiness from the
rocks and mortar of the wall against which he leaned. Again he moved
forward.
“_Hey, Tommy!_”
The call brought out his sense of leadership.
“Not another word from any one,” he whispered, “until I give
permission.”