by Otto Penzler
To the warders and those about him, Manfred was a source of constant wonder. He never wearied them with the recital of his coming attempt. Yet all that he said and did seemed founded on that one basic article of faith: I shall escape.
The governor took every precaution to guard against rescue. He applied for and secured reinforcements of warders, and Manfred, one morning at exercise seeing strange faces among his guards, bantered him with over-nervousness.
‘Yes,’ said the Major, ‘I’ve doubled the staff. I’m taking you at your word, that is all—one must cling tight to the last lingering shreds of faith one has in mankind. You say that you’re going to escape, and I believe you.’ He thought a moment. ‘I’ve studied you,’ he added.
‘Indeed?’
‘Not here,’ said the governor, comprehending the prison in a sweep of his hand, ‘but outside—read about you and thought about you and a little dimly understood you—that makes me certain that you’ve got something at the back of your mind when you talk so easily of escape.’
Manfred nodded. He nodded many times thoughtfully and felt a new interest in the bluff, brusque man.
‘And while I’m doubling the guard and that sort of thing, I know in my heart that that “something” of yours isn’t “something” with dynamite in it, or “something” with brute force behind it, but it’s “something” that’s devilishly deep—that’s how I read it.’
He jerked his head in farewell, and the cell door closed behind him with a great jangling and snapping of keys.
He might have been tried at the sessions following his committal, but the Crown applied for a postponement, and being informed and asked whether he would care to raise any objection to that course, he replied that so far from objecting, he was grateful because his arrangements were not yet completed, and when they asked him, knowing that he had refused solicitor and counsel, what arrangements he referred to, he smiled enigmatically, and they knew he was thinking of this wonderful plan of escape. That such persistent assurances of delivery should eventually reach the public through the public press was only to be expected, and although ‘Manfred says he will escape from Wandsworth’ in the Megaphone headline became ‘A prisoner’s strange statement’ in The Times, the substance of the story was the same, and you may be sure that it lost nothing in the telling. A Sunday journal with a waning circulation rallied on the discovery that Manfred was mad and published a column-long account of this ‘poor lunatic gibbering of freedom.’
Being allowed to read the newspapers, Manfred saw this, and it kept him amused for a whole day.
The warders in personal attendance on him were changed daily, and he never had the same custodian twice till the governor saw a flaw in the method that allowed a warder with whom he was only slightly acquainted, and of whose integrity he was ignorant, to come into close contact with his prisoner. Particularly did this danger threaten from the new officers who had been drafted to Wandsworth to reinforce the staff, and the governor went to the other extreme, and two trusted men, who had grown old in the service, were chosen for permanent watchdogs.
‘You won’t be able to have any more newspapers,’ said the governor one morning. ‘I’ve had orders from headquarters—there have been some suspicious-looking “agonies” in the Megaphone this last day or so.’
‘I did not insert them,’ said Manfred, smiling.
‘No—but you may have read them,’ said the governor drily.
‘So I might have,’ said the thoughtful Manfred.
‘Did you?’
Manfred made no reply.
‘I suppose that isn’t a fair question,’ said the governor cheerfully. ‘Anyhow, no more papers. You can have books—any books you wish within limits.’
So Manfred was denied the pleasure of reading the little paragraphs that described the movements and doings of the fashionable world. Just then, these interested him more than the rest of the newspaper put together. Such news as he secured was of a negative kind and through the governor. ‘Am I still mad?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Was I born in Brittany—the son of humble parents?’
‘No—there’s another theory now.’
‘Is my real name still supposed to be Isadore something-or-other?’
‘You are now a member of a noble family, disappointed at an early age by a reigning princess,’ said the governor impressively.
‘How romantic!’ said Manfred in hushed tones. The gravity of his years, that was beyond his years, fell away from him in that time of waiting. He became almost boyish again. He had a never-ending fund of humour that turned even the tremendous issues of his trial into subject matter of amusement.
Armed with the authority of the Home Secretary came Luigi Fressini, the youthful director of the Anthropological Institute of Rome.
Manfred agreed to see him and made him as welcome as the circumstances permitted. Fressini was a little impressed with his own importance and had the professional manner strongly developed. He had a perky way of dropping his head on one side when he made observations and reminded Manfred of a horse dealer blessed with a little knowledge but anxious to discover at all hazards the ‘points’ that fitted in with his preconceived theories. ‘I would like to measure your head,’ he said.
‘I’m afraid I cannot oblige you,’ said Manfred coolly, ‘partly because I object to the annoyance of it, and partly because head-measuring in anthropology is as much out of date as bloodletting in surgery.’
The director was on his dignity.
‘I’m afraid I cannot take lessons in the science—’ he began.
‘Oh, yes, you can,’ said Manfred, ‘and you’d be a greater man if you did. As it is, Antonio de Costa and Felix Hedeman are both beating you on your own ground—that monograph of yours on “Cerebral Dynamics” was awful nonsense.’
Whereupon Fressini went very red and spluttered and left the cell, afterward in his indiscretion granting an interview to an evening newspaper, in the course of which he described Manfred as a typical homicide with those peculiarities of parietal development, which are invariably associated with cold-blooded murderers. For publishing what constituted a gross contempt of court, the newspaper was heavily fined, and at the instance of the British Government, Fressini was reprimanded and eventually superseded by that very de Costa of whom Manfred spoke.
All these happenings formed the comedy of the long wait, and as to the tragedy, there was none.
A week before the trial, Manfred, in the course of conversation, expressed a desire for a further supply of books.
‘What do you want?’ asked the governor and prepared to take a note.
‘Oh, anything,’ said Manfred lazily, ‘travel, biography, science, sport—anything new that’s going.’
‘I’ll get you a list,’ said the governor, who was not a booky man. ‘The only travel books I know are those two new things, Three Months in Morocco and Through the Ituri Forest. One of them’s by a new man, Theodore Max—do you know him?’
Manfred shook his head.
‘But I’ll try them,’ he said.
‘Isn’t it about time you started to prepare your defence?’ the governor asked gruffly.
‘I have no defence to offer,’ said Manfred, ‘therefore no defence to prepare.’
The governor seemed vexed.
‘Isn’t life sufficiently sweet to you—to urge you to make an effort to save it?’ he asked roughly, ‘or are you going to give it up without a struggle?’
‘I shall escape,’ said Manfred again. ‘Aren’t you tired of hearing me tell you why I make no effort to save myself?’
‘When the newspapers start the “mad” theory again,’ said the exasperated prison official, ‘I shall feel most inclined to break the regulations and write a letter in support of the speculation.’
‘Do,’ said Manfred cheerfully, ‘and tell them that I run round my cell on all fours biting visitors’ legs.’
The next day, the books arrived. The mysteries of the
Ituri Forest remained mysteries, but Three Months in Morocco (big print, wide margins, 12s. 6d.) he read with avidity from cover to cover, notwithstanding the fact that the reviewers to a man condemned it as being the dullest book of the season. Which was an unkindly reflection upon the literary merits of its author, Leon Gonsalez, who had worked early and late to prepare the book for the press, writing far into the night, while Poiccart, sitting at the other side of the table, corrected the damp proofs as they came from the printer.
CHAPTER XIII.
The ‘Rational Faithers’
IN THE HANDSOMELY FURNISHED SITTING ROOM of a West Kensington flat, Gonsalez and Poiccart sat over their post-prandial cigars, each busy with his own thoughts. Poiccart tossed his cigar into the fireplace and pulled out his polished briar and slowly charged it from a gigantic pouch. Leon watched him under half-closed lids, piecing together the scraps of information he had collected from his persistent observation.
‘You are getting sentimental, my friend,’ he said.
Poiccart looked up inquiringly.
‘You were smoking one of George’s cigars without realizing it. Halfway through the smoke, you noticed the band had not been removed, so you go to tear it off. By the band you are informed that it is one of George’s favourite cigars, and that starts a train of thought that makes the cigar distasteful to you, and you toss it away.’
Poiccart lit his pipe before replying.
‘Spoken like a cheap little magazine detective,’ he said frankly. ‘If you would know, I was aware that it was George’s, and from excess of loyalty I was trying to smoke it; halfway through, I reluctantly concluded that friendship had its limits; it is you who are sentimental.’
Gonsalez closed his eyes and smiled. ‘There’s another review of your book in the Evening Mirror tonight,’ Poiccart went on maliciously; ‘have you seen it?’
The recumbent figure shook its head.
‘It says,’ the merciless Poiccart continued, ‘that an author who can make Morocco as dull as you have done would make—’
‘Spare me,’ murmured Gonsalez, half asleep.
They sat for ten minutes, the tick-tick of the little clock on the mantelpiece and the regular puffs from Poiccart’s pipe breaking the silence.
‘It would seem to me,’ said Gonsalez, speaking with closed eyes, ‘that George is in the position of a master who has set his two pupils a difficult problem to solve, quite confident that, difficult as it is, they will surmount all obstacles and supply the solution.’
‘I thought you were asleep,’ said Poiccart.
‘I was never more awake,’ said Gonsalez calmly. ‘I am only marshalling details. Do you know Mr. Peter Sweeney?’
‘No,’ said Poiccart.
‘He’s a member of the Borough Council of Chelmsford. A great and a good man.’
Poiccart made no response.
‘He is also the head and front of the “Rational Faith” movement, of which you may have heard.’
‘I haven’t,’ admitted Poiccart, stolid but interested.
‘The “Rational Faithers”,’ Gonsalez explained sleepily, ‘are an offshoot of the New Unitarians, and the New Unitarians are a hotch-potch people with grievances.’
Poiccart yawned.
‘The “Rational Faithers”,’ Gonsalez went on, ‘have a mission in life; they have also a brass band and a collection of drivelling songs, composed, printed, and gratuitously distributed by Mr. Peter Sweeney, who is a man of substance.’
He was silent after this for quite a minute.
‘A mission in life, and a nice, loud, brassy band—the members of which are paid monthly salaries—by Peter.’
Poiccart turned his head and regarded his friend curiously.
‘What is all this about?’ he asked.
‘The “Rational Faithers”,’ the monotonous Gonsalez continued, ‘are the sort of people who for all time have been in the eternal minority. They are against things, against public houses, against music halls, against meat eating, and vaccination—and capital punishment,’ he repeated softly.
Poiccart waited.
‘Years ago, they were regarded as a nuisance—rowdies broke up their meetings, the police prosecuted them for obstruction, and some of them were sent to prison and came out again, being presented with newly furbished haloes at meat breakfasts—Peter presiding.
‘Now they have lived down their persecutions—martyrdom is not to be so cheaply bought—they are an institution like the mechanical spinning jenny and fashionable socialism—which proves that if you go on doing things often enough and persistently, saying with a loud voice, “pro bono publico”, people will take you at your own valuation and will tolerate you.’
Poiccart was listening intently now.
‘These people demonstrate—Peter is really well-off, with heaps of slum property, and he has lured other wealthy ladies and gentlemen into the movement. They demonstrate on all occasions. They have chants—Peter calls them “chants”, and it is a nice distinction, stamping them as it does with the stamp of semi-secularity—for these festive moments, chants for the confusion of vaccinators, and eaters of beasts, and such. But of all their “Services of Protest”, none is more thorough, more beautifully complete than that which is specially arranged to express their horror and abhorrence of capital punishment.’
His pause was so long that Poiccart interjected an impatient ‘Well?’
‘I was trying to think of the chant,’ said Leon thoughtfully. ‘If I remember right, one verse goes—
Come fight the gallant fight,
This horror to undo;
Two blacks will never make a white,
Nor legal murder too.
‘The last line,’ said Gonsalez tolerantly, ‘is a trifle vague, but it conveys with delicate suggestion the underlying moral of the poem. There is another verse, which has for the moment eluded me, but perhaps I shall think of it later.’
He sat up suddenly and leant over, dropping his hand on Poiccart’s arm.
‘When we were talking of—our plan the other day, you spoke of our greatest danger, the one thing we could not avoid. Does it not seem to you that the “Rational Faithers” offer a solution with their querulous campaigns, their demonstrations, their brassy brass band, and their preposterous chants?’
Poiccart pulled steadily at his pipe.
‘You’re a wonderful man, Leon,’ he said.
Leon walked over to the cupboard, unlocked it, and drew out a big portfolio such as artists use to carry their drawings in. He untied the strings and turned over the loose pages. It was a collection that had cost the Four Just Men much time and a great deal of money.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Poiccart, as the other, slipping off his coat and fixing his pince-nez, sat down before a big plan he had extracted from the portfolio. Leon took up a fine drawing pen from the table, examined the nib with the eye of a skilled craftsman, and carefully uncorked a bottle of architect’s ink.
‘Have you ever felt a desire to draw imaginary islands?’ he asked, ‘naming your own bays, christening your capes, creating towns with a scratch of your pen, and raising up great mountains with herringbone strokes? Because I’m going to do something like that—I feel in that mood, which in little boys is eloquently described as “trying”, and I have the inclination to annoy Scotland Yard.’
It was the day before the trial that Falmouth made the discovery. To be exact, it was made for him. The keeper of a Gower Street boarding house reported that two mysterious men had engaged rooms. They came late at night with one portmanteau bearing divers foreign labels; they studiously kept their faces in the shadow, and the beard of one was obviously false. In addition to which they paid for their lodgings in advance, and that was the most damning circumstance of all. Imagine mine host, showing them to their rooms, palpitating with his tremendous suspicion, calling to the full upon his powers of simulation, ostentatiously nonchalant, and impatient to convey the news to the police station round the corner. Fo
r one called the other Leon, and they spoke despairingly in stage whispers of ‘poor Manfred’.
They went out together, saying they would return soon after midnight, ordering a fire for their bedroom, for the night was wet and chilly.
Half an hour later, the full story was being told to Falmouth over the telephone.
‘It’s too good to be true,’ was his comment, but gave orders. The hotel was well surrounded by midnight, but so skilfully that the casual passerby would never have suspected it. At three in the morning, Falmouth decided that the men had been warned and broke open their doors to search the rooms. The portmanteau was their sole find. A few articles of clothing, bearing the ‘tab’ of a Parisian tailor, was all they found till Falmouth, examining the bottom of the portmanteau, found that it was false.
‘Hullo!’ he said, and in the light of his discovery, the exclamation was modest in its strength, for, neatly folded, and cunningly hidden, he came upon the plans. He gave them a rapid survey and whistled. Then he folded them up and put them carefully in his pocket.
‘Keep the house under observation,’ he ordered. ‘I don’t expect they’ll return, but if they do, take ’em.’
Then he flew through the deserted streets as fast as a motorcar could carry him and woke the chief commissioner from a sound sleep.
‘What is it?’ he asked as he led the detective to his study.
Falmouth showed him the plans.
The commissioner raised his eyebrows and whistled.
‘That’s what I said,’ confessed Falmouth.
The chief spread the plans upon the big table.
‘Wandsworth, Pentonville and Reading,’ said the commissioner, ‘Plans, and remarkably good plans, of all three prisons.’
Falmouth indicated the writing in the cramped hand and the carefully ruled lines that had been drawn in red ink.
‘Yes, I see them,’ said the commissioner and read, ‘“Wall 3 feet thick—dynamite here, warder on duty here—can be shot from wall, distance to entrance to prison hall 25 feet; condemned cell here, walls 3 feet, one window, barred 10 feet 3 inches from ground”.’