“But how--?” began Quarrier. “That door is a steel one; it was locked--I’ll swear to that. You didn’t jimmy it; you didn’t have a Fourth Dimension handy, did you, Harrison? But--go on; it’s beyond me, I’ll confess.”
Harrison permitted himself the ghost of a grin.
“Why--just a newspaper, and a bit of wire, sir--that was how it was done. I didn’t dare unlock the connecting door--beforehand, sir--from the office side; I never had the chance. I was never alone in the office, sir, even for a second, as you know; but there’s a clearance of nearly half an inch, sir, beneath that connecting door--just enough for the newspaper. From the lumber-room here I pushed the paper under the door, into the office, and then, with the wire, it wasn’t so difficult to push the key out of the lock; the door was locked from the office side, of course.
“The key fell on the paper; we pulled the paper with the key on it back under the door, sir, into the lumber-room here, and--we just _unlocked_ the connecting door there, and walked into the office. Afterwards I locked the door again, from the office side, and I just did make it out the front door of the office, when I heard your step on the stair. _He_ was waiting for me in the lumber-room; he said it was safer. Anyway, I just did make it along the hall and into the lumber-room by the hall entrance before you came.”
He paused, a queer expression in his face.
“But I don’t understand how you _knew_, if you’ll excuse me, sir--how you suspected. Afterward, from the corridor, you saw our light when we were ready to come out; we thought you’d gone for good, of course.... But nothing was touched, sir, except--that is--of course--” He stumbled.
Quarrier silenced him with upraised hand.
“I didn’t _suspect_, Harrison--I _knew_,” he said. “And I heard, through the keyhole of that connecting door, the ticking of that watch of yours; it’s big enough. That helped, of course. But that was afterward. There was one little thing you overlooked, and, for the matter of that, so did I--nearly.”
There came the sound of heavy footsteps on the concrete flooring of the corridor, voices: His guards, summoned by Quarrier’s “light-bombs.”
Quarrier continued, as if he had not heard:
“Well--it was right under my eyes, but I almost missed it, at that. I saw it moving, and I knew that something must have made it move.”
He paused, with a faint grimace of recollection.
“You see--you had your hat on in the office, didn’t you?... Yes, I thought so. You’re a bit deaf, too.... Well, you should have been--to Marston. But that’s past. And you have a good, thick crop of hair--_so far_.”
Quarrier smiled frostily. “Well, you struck against it and set it moving--that was all. You never noticed it. Because it was--_the chain from the electrolier_, Harrison, and that was how--”
“You caught us, sir! I--I’m glad. You might call it a--”
“--Chain of circumstance,” finished Quarrier, his eyes outward, gazing into the new dawn.
_The_ Place of Madness
_By_ Merlin Moore Taylor
“Nonsense. A penitentiary is not intended to be a place for coddling and pampering those who have broken the law.”
Stevenson, chairman of the Prison Commission, waved a fat hand in the direction of the convict standing at the foot of the table.
“This man,” he went on, “has learned in some way that the newspapers are ‘gunning’ for the warden and he is seizing the opportunity to make a play for sympathy in his own behalf. I’ll admit that these tales he tells of brutality toward the prisoners are well told, but I believe that he is stretching the facts. They can’t be true. Discipline must be maintained in a place like this even if it requires harsh measures to do it at times.”
“There is no call for brutality, however,” exclaimed the convict, breaking the rule that prisoners must not speak unless they are spoken to.
Then, ignoring the chairman’s upraised hand, he went on: “We are treated like beasts here! If a man so much as opens his mouth to ask a civil and necessary question, the reply is a blow. Dropping a knife or a fork or a spoon at the table is punished by going without the next meal. Men too ill to work are driven to the shops with the butts of guns. Petty infractions of the most trivial rules mean the dark cell and a diet of bread and water.
“Do you know what the dark cell is? ‘Solitary’ they call it here. ‘Hell’ would be a better name. Steel all around you, steel walls, steel door, steel ceiling, steel floor. Not a cot to lie upon, not even a stool to sit upon. Nothing but the bare floor. And darkness! Not a ray of light ever penetrates the dark cell once the door is closed upon you. No air comes to you except through a small ventilator in the roof. And even that has an elbow to keep the light away from you.
“Is it any wonder that even the most refractory prisoner comes out of there broken--broken in mind, in body, in spirit? And some of them go insane--stark, staring mad--after only a few hours of it. And for what? I spent two days in ‘solitary’ because I collapsed from weakness at my bench in the shoe factory.
“See this scar?” He pointed to a livid mark over one eye. “A guard did that with the barrel of his rifle because I was unable to get up and go back to work when he told me. He knocked me senseless, and when I came to I was in ‘solitary.’ Insubordination, they called it. Two days they kept me in there when I ought to have been in a hospital. Two days of hell and torture because I was ill. People prate of reforming men in prison. It’s the other way around. It makes confirmed criminals of them--if they don’t go mad first.”
The chairman wriggled in his seat and cleared his throat impatiently.
“We have listened to you for quite a while, my man,” he said pompously, “but I, for one, have enough. A dozen or more prisoners have testified here today, and none of them has made a statement to back up the charges you have made.”
“And why?” demanded the prisoner. “Because they are afraid to tell the truth. They know that they would be beaten and starved and deprived of their ‘good time’ on one excuse or another if they even hinted at what they know. You wouldn’t believe them, anyhow. You don’t believe me, yet I probably shall suffer for what I have said here. But that doesn’t matter. They can’t take any ‘good time’ away from me. I’m in for life.”
His voice grew bitter.
“And that is one reason I have gone into this thing in detail--for my sake and the sake of others who cannot look forward to ever leaving this place. The law has decreed that we shall live and die here, but the law said nothing about torturing us.”
“This board guaranteed its protection to all who were called upon to testify here,” answered the chairman. “It has no desire to whitewash any person in connection with the investigation which is being made, and in order that there might be no reflection upon the manner in which this hearing is conducted neither the warden, his deputies nor guards have been permitted to attend. Unless you have tangible evidence to offer us and can give the names of those who can back up your charges, you may go.”
“Just a minute.” It was the board member nearest the prisoner who interrupted. Then, to the convict, “You said, I believe, that only a few hours in the dark cell often will drive a man insane. Yet you spent two days there. You are not insane, are you?”
“No, sir.” The convict spoke respectfully. “My conscience was clear and I was able to serve my time there without breaking. But another day or so would have finished me. You testified against me at my trial, didn’t you? I hold no grudge against you for that, sir. I give you credit for doing only what you thought was your duty. Your testimony clinched the case against me. Yet I am innocent--”
The chairman rapped sharply upon the table.
“I utterly fail to see what all this has to do with the matter under investigation,” he protested irritably. “We are not trying this man’s case. The courts have passed upon that. He is just like all the rest. Any one of them is ready to swear on a stack of Bibles that he is innocent. Let’s get on with this investigation.”
The convict bowed silently and turned toward the door beyond which the guards were waiting to conduct him back to his cell. A hand upon his arm detained him.
“Mr. Chairman,” said Blalock, the member who had questioned the prisoner, “I request that this man be permitted to go on with what he was saying. I shall have no more questions to ask. You were saying”--he prompted the man beside him.
“I was saying that I was innocent,” resumed the convict. “I was about to add that not even a man who is guiltless of wrongdoing would be able to withstand the terrors of solitary for any length of time. You, for instance, are a physician, a man of sterling reputation against whom no one ever has breathed a word. Yet I doubt that you could endure several hours in the dark cell. If you would only try it, you would know for yourself that I have spoken the truth. Gentlemen, I beg of you to do all in your power to abolish the dark cell. Men can stand just so much without cracking, and if you will dig into the facts you will find that nine times out of ten it is men broken in ‘solitary’ who are responsible for the outbreaks in prison. That is all.”