The Long Lane's Turning Part 26

He went with them to the great double-gate. "It's a curious thing," he said thoughtfully, as they said good-bye, "that the man who did that should have been the very one we had been talking about, isn't it?"

The same thought was in all their minds. There had flashed across Echo's, too, a memory of her childhood, a revolting incident of another prison, where a hundred convicts had risen, had killed their keepers and for two days had run desperate riot within the enclosure--till troops had been rushed to the scene. What if that flaming human lava had burst beyond control to-day? She shuddered.

A single hand, maybe, had prevented this--the hand of the man who once before had saved her--who was now shut in this horrible place, perhaps for want of the testimony which she alone could give!

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE COMING OF JOHN STARK

Harry rose from his seat at the desk in the Record-Room and went over to the window. The frost had painted silver ferns and sea weed on its pane, and the prison yard, under the high, saffron-tinted sun, was white with a light powdering of snow which hid its harsh outlines and dingy yellow hue with a mantle of purity and beauty. It was a stinging cold though suns.h.i.+ny afternoon. Along the wall the sentries, as they paced, swung benumbed arms to start the sluggish blood coursing to warmth. Here and there on the hard ground a pigeon traced its feathery footprints, startling the quarrelsome sparrows, and above in the clear sky a buzzard drew widening circles, an ink-blot on the blue. Across the open s.p.a.ce came the m.u.f.fled roar of the shops and down under the inner gateway the gate-keeper was stamping his Arctic-shod feet and whistling "Weep no more my lad-ee," in syncopated time.

Two weeks Harry had been in the hospital ward, for after those months of confinement the depleted blood had made recuperation slow; but he had steadily mended, and now, though still at times his healing shoulder pained him somewhat, he was practically as strong as before.

He had been acutely grateful for the change to the pleasant Record-Room, with its broad window to the suns.h.i.+ne and the drier upper air, for the fact that he no longer tramped in the lock-step or took his meals in the common mess-room--most of all for release from his unsavoury cell-mate. For since the affair in the shop, he had been given a cell to himself.

His momentary glimpse on that day of Echo had stung his every sense to quivering protest. It had pierced, as with a fiery sword, the torpor which had unwrapped his love with its protecting armour and that love had awaked to agonised consciousness, vivified and intensified. Then, in his loneliness, the knowledge that the woman he would have died for had left him to drag out his penalty, would sweep over him till a fierce hatred of her would rise up in him--to be swept away as swiftly by something sweeter and stronger that would not be denied. So, in the end, mingled with this confusion of feeling, there came to him the knowledge that the bitter conviction that she could never again be anything to him, with the contempt for life which had grown from it, had been nevertheless inexpressibly softened by the living warmth of her presence, sad and fleeting as that had been.

Presently Harry turned back to the desk, and picked up the annotated card, a portion of whose record he had been about to transcribe in permanent form in a leathern tome that lay there. It was the filing-card on whose reverse side was pasted his own photograph, full-face and profile, and containing his physical measurements--taken upon the precise and delicate instruments that lined the room--which had been filled out on the day of his arrival. It was the sight of this, with the bitter memories it evoked, which had given him pause.

There it was, an enduring monument, stamping forever the man to whom it corresponded, a convict, thrust, so long as he should live, from the society of clean and upright men and women, debarred even from the exercise of the functions of citizens.h.i.+p!

As he dipped his pen in the ink, a quick step sounded on the stairway, and the door opened to admit a man wearing a frogged overcoat with huge fur collar and lapels, and a fur cap whose flaps were turned down over his ears. He was about Harry's age though of slightly heavier build, with somewhat similar firm chin and grey eyes, but with cheeks in which the blood darkled redly, and across one was a slanting scar, slight but sufficiently perceptible. He carried a small valise which he set down, blowing on his nattily-gloved fingers.

"Oh! I beg pardon," he said. "The Warden told me I might change my togs up here. I didn't know the room was occupied."

"You'll not disturb me," answered Harry. "As it happens, I am occupied too."

The stranger laughed--a rather eager, boyish laugh which caught Harry with a subtle tang of old acquaintance. With the pen in his hand, he was staring curiously at that ruddy cheek and its slanting scar, his mind following something elusive and far away. He was feeling the edge of a half-recollection, vague and shadowy and dream-like, of a saw-dust bar-room floor lighted with flaring lamps, of ribald conversation, of a deal table across which a face like that had looked at him. But the memory at which he grasped had belonged to that phase of intoxication in which sense-impression had left no enduring record, and he could not capture it.

John Stark was unconscious of the fixed gaze. He had opened the valise upon a chair and now was laying its contents upon another. Harry saw with surprise that these included a striped jacket and trousers, flat peaked cap and heavy hob-nailed shoes such as each inmate of the prison wore. Last he took out a flat tin box which opened out in two sections, and set it on the end of the desk. It was a "make-up" box of the stage dressing-room, and the sight of its tiny compartments, holding rouge, lamp-black, powder and grease-paint, the pencils and hare's foot, brought back to Harry with a rush old days of amateur theatricals and society stagery. These articles laid out, the other began rapidly to undress. He chuckled as, turning, he caught the look of puzzle on Harry's face.

"I'm not really crazy," he said laughingly. "The fact is, I'm trying an experiment--with the Warden's permission. For half an hour I'm going to take my place with those fellows down there;"--he nodded towards the window--"going in to supper with them. I have a bet on with the Deputy Warden that I can do it so that none of the Superintendents will spot me!"

He had discarded s.h.i.+rt, collar and shoes, and was now arraying himself in the coa.r.s.e striped garments and clumsy foot-wear. He looked himself over half-humorously. "Ugh!" he exclaimed. "I swear, it gives me the creeps. This is the real stuff, you see! I don't get the true spirit of the thing when I play it."

"When you play it?" repeated Harry, inquiringly.

"Oh," said the other. "I ought to explain. I'm starring in 'The Jail Bird'--the play that's on here this week. I have the t.i.tle-role. It's a fad with me to get up my 'business' first-hand, and this inst.i.tution is too good a chance to miss. It's mighty good press-agent stuff for the local papers, incidentally!" The lid of the tin box was a mirror, and propping this upright, he now busied himself with the facial make-up, applying a greyish grease-paint which obliterated the scar on the cheek and lent the requisite pallor, and deepening this with darker pencilled shades. In the midst of his labour he asked:

"Have you seen the piece?"

"No," said Harry, grimly. "Our business here interferes somewhat with our evening pleasures."

Something in the tone made the other look up quickly. Harry's cap had been pushed back when the visitor had entered. He had on, also, a spotless duck over-jacket which b.u.t.toned close up to the throat. Now the cap was pulled low on his forehead, and the jacket was open, revealing the tell-tale stripes beneath. The actor started.

"By Jove!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, in embarra.s.sment. "I thought--I didn't know--"

"So I perceived," said Harry calmly. "Pray do not apologise, however.

The atmosphere does not tend to develop over-sensitiveness. I must congratulate you on your appearance. The effect is really wonderful."

There was no sarcasm in his words: the illusion was marvellously carried. When the peaked cap was pulled over the other's forehead, a little to one side, Harry thought him highly likely to carry off his wager with the Deputy Warden.

At the moment the bell sounded--the signal to knock off work for the early supper--and John Stark rose hastily. "I'm off now for the lock-step," he said, with his hand on the door. "By the way, if these duds of mine are in the way, chuck 'em in some other room. I can dress anywhere."

The brogans clattered down the stair.

Harry went to the window and watched him cross the yard, a turnkey, wearing a suppressed grin, by his side. Then he returned to the desk, but his pen lay idle by his hand. The curious visit, with its whiff of the outside world, had been packed with clutching reminders of things that had had pleasant part in his past--reminders of society nights when, for sweet charity's sake, he had played those old mimic roles.

Some one entered, bringing his supper in a tin pail, and went out again, but he did not look up. He was thinking with bitterness that the flippant masquerader, sitting now with that striped company in the mess-room, would presently emerge, free to pa.s.s out into the glad world. It would be only a lark to laugh over, an essay in effrontery performed for a wager and the delectation of a press-agent!

Harry suddenly felt the longing to be free take him by the throat, so that he trembled in every limb with the force of it. He smelled the wind racing across frosty meadows; he could almost fancy that he heard the flow of river-water under its icy coverlet; he could almost see the gnarled catalpas along the Allen driveway lifting their wintry twisted arms toward him. What would it not mean to him if he, like that cheerful stroller, might but slough off this hateful, unnatural character and step forth, himself again!

He started. A thought mad as a nightmare had flashed through his brain. He felt his blood beat to his temples; then instantly he became icily cool and tense in every nerve.

In another moment he had thrown off his over-jacket, and was seated before the make-up box.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE UNDERSTUDY

With the certainty of ancient practice he applied rouge and pencil deftly to his face, rubbing in a deeper tinge on the cheeks, shadowing the temples, accentuating by ever so little the corners of eyes and mouth. Lastly he drew a slanting scar on the right cheek, emphasising it a trifle, as the keynote of the counterfeit.

He looked at himself, swiftly, critically. There was but the one double gate and the single watchman to pa.s.s--and the sunlight was not bright under the archway! And luckily the fur cap, with its ear-flaps, effectually hid the cropped scalp. He wasted no time in changing clothes, but turned up the striped trousers and the sleeves of the jacket and donned the smart habilaments over his prison rig, the extra lining compensating for his slighter form. In five minutes he was completely dressed, even to spats and flaunting tie. All the while he was thinking rapidly and coolly, weighing contingencies, estimating chances, taking into lightning account each detail which might mean the slenderest advantage in the desperate game. Lastly he thrust his prison cap under his coat and put the make-up box and the tin dinner-pail into the empty valise.

Overcoated and with the valise in his hand, he strode to the door--to come back to his desk with a quick afterthought, to pick up the record-card that bore his own number, and slip it into an inner pocket.

Then he opened the door and went quickly down the stair.

Fate was kind. The Warden was not in his office. As a matter of fact, at that very moment, with outward gravity yet with inner amus.e.m.e.nt, he was witnessing John Stark's nonchalant experiment and finding the bit of clever impersonation, under the very eyes of his unsuspecting a.s.sistants, vastly diverting.

Harry went out to the gate.

The watchman looked up, surprised. "h.e.l.lo!" he said. "The half-hour isn't up already, is it? Or did you weaken?"

Harry laughed. "Not I!" he answered, airily. "I've had no end of a lark. I'd have stayed longer only I've got a rehearsal on. I could have pulled the wool over their eyes for a week!" As he spoke he drew out a silver cigarette-and-match box which his hand had encountered in the overcoat pocket, and lighted a cigarette behind his cupped hands.

In that crucial instant he dared not look at the face so near him and his heart seemed to flutter and then stop beating--till there came the ponderous grind of the great lock as the inner gate swung open.

The watchman was chuckling as he unlocked the outer barrier. "Well, that's one on the Deputy Warden!" he said appreciatively. "You're a clever one to have pulled it off!"

Harry stepped jauntily through. "Come and see me do it on the stage,"

he said, nodding a brisk good-bye. "It's up to the Warden to stand tickets all round, I should think!"

The gate clanged shut behind him.

The sound sent to his soul the first agonised stab of futility. He had won through those pitiless encircling walls, yet what chance had he of ultimate escape, after all, there on the highway, in that recognisable costume, with scant grace at best from pursuit? Then, even as the cold wave of hopelessness swept over him, he saw something which sent his blood running like quicksilver; it was the actor's empty motor standing at the side of the road.

In another minute he was in its seat, his grip on the wheel, his hand touching the lever of the self-starter. It was not of a make which he knew, but he had always been an ardent motorist, had known every cog and bearing of his own car's intricate mechanism, and before the machine was well under way he had mastered its essentials.