The Dawn of Reckoning

by James Hilton

  Feb. 25th. All prepared now. I shall be ill on the day of the poll, so that Stella can deputize for me at the Town Hall. That damnable speechifying. “Friends and constituents—I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the great honour you have done my husband…This is indeed a great and magnificent victory…” Ha, ha, ha, ha. A great and magnificent victory.

  This book goes off to-morrow morning according to the careful plans I have made. It will be well out of England by the 28th, and will not return until everything—if the plot works well—is carried out. Clever—wonderful. I shall succeed. I have the courage of hell in me. My soul grows apace. I am quite mad. Good luck and good-bye. The Great Day approaches—the Dawn of Reckoning—General Contango…

  She sat there reading in the compartment, while the early morning sunlight streamed in through the window.

  VII

  At Croydon she bought a morning newspaper. Across the top, in a streamer head-line, was “Ward to Die This Morning.” She spoke to herself very firmly and almost aloud: “Ward shall not die this morning…”

  “All night long,” declared a front-page special message, “there has been a large crowd outside Holloway Jail…”

  The leading article was headed “Murder,” and defended the Home Secretary’s refusal to grant a reprieve. “We hope it will be a long time before the so-called ‘crime passionel’ is regarded in England as less heinous than any other species of crime. Why should one single passion of the human heart be specially licensed to pursue its aims and desires to the bitter end, while others are curbed by the strong hand of the hangman? Jealousy is cruel as the grave, says the wise man, and we do not see why Avarice and Hate and Envy should be placed in a less favoured position. That a man, no matter what his rank, profession, reputation, or past career, should deliberately and in cold blood murder his lifelong friend in order to possess his friend’s wife, is as despicable a crime as we can imagine. The Home Secretary is to be congratulated on doing his duty in the face of a hysterical and baseless agitation such as we hope will never occur again.”

  It was eight o’clock as the train raced through New Cross. A few minutes after that, she was on the platform at London Bridge, squirming her way through the crowd, and praying that there might be a taxi in the yard. Fortunately there were many of them. “Holloway Prison,” she cried out to the Driver, “and a pound extra if you do it in a quarter of an hour.”

  “Impossible, mum. Twenty minutes, maybe—with luck.”

  “All right. Only for God’s sake be as quick as you dare.”

  The sight of all the scurry and bustle of London threw her into panic again. It seemed to her that every van and every omnibus was bent upon getting into her way and snatching the precious seconds from her. At the corner of Cannon Street there was a two-minute hold-up of traffic. She felt that her brain was bursting…But the driver took her through Queen Street, Cheapside, Aldersgate, Goswell Road, past the Angel, Islington, and then along Upper Street. There were no further delays. But she had only a vague idea where Holloway was, and the distance surprised her. It was after half-past eight when the driver pulled up outside the huge prison gates. He had hardly earned his extra pound, but she gave it him.

  She worked her way through the crowd, or rather the crowd gave way to her, assuming no doubt that anybody who pushed hard enough must have some special and important business. At last she reached the two expressionless policemen who were guarding the gates.

  “I’m Mrs. Monsell,” she gasped breathlessly. “I’ve got very important evidence here “—she pointed to the package in her hand—“and I must see the Governor at once.”

  The two policemen looked down at her unmoved. “Nobody admitted without a permit, mum,” said one. “Got a permit?”

  “No, I haven’t—but surely—oh, you must let me see the Governor—it’s a matter of life and death—”

  “Nobody ain’t admitted without a permit,” said the other policeman, more forcibly. “That’s orders.”

  “And is an innocent man to die because of your orders?—Good God—you mean I can’t see anybody?”

  “Not without a permit, mum,” replied the first policeman stolidly.

  By this time the crowd had become aware of her identity. Cries of “It’s you that ought to be hung” and “She’s the one who made him do it” reached her ears; she did not care about them, but they strengthened the dreadful impression that every hand was against her. She stood looking first this way and then that, absolutely crushed and bewildered. If she could not get inside the prison to place her evidence before the responsible authorities, then she might as well never have found the evidence. Ward would be hanged…Nothing could save him. She was powerless…She felt panic, sheer panic, rising inside her like a bubbling frothy tide. They would hang him without listening to her…The cries of the crowd became more menacing…

  “You’d better go away,” said one of the policemen. “You ‘aven’t got a permit…Move on now…”

  She suddenly turned round and darted through the crowd into the bleak streets. The great smoke-mist of London was slowly covering up the last rays of sunlight. She heard somebody on the fringe of the crowd say: “Go on, she ain’t Mrs. Monsell…She’s got delusions—there’s always a lot like that…Mrs. Monsell don’t care…she knows she’s damned lucky not to be ‘anged herself…”

  She turned into a street of small dilapidated shops. A policeman stood at the corner. Perhaps he would be more reasonable than those at the prison gates.

  “I want to see a police superintendent,” she said, forcing herself under control. “I’ve got important evidence…I’m Mrs. Monsell…Will you please take me to the nearest police-station…oh, quickly, quickly—it’s a quarter to nine—there’s no time to lose.”

  “You say you’re Mrs. Monsell?” The policeman glanced down at her critically.

  “Yes, yes—for God’s sake hurry.”

  “I can’t leave my beat…The police-station’s down there on the left…”

  She raced down the road, cursing herself and the world. She was wildly out of breath when she reached the grim, inhospitable building. Rushing up the steps she stumbled and fell, covering her clothes with dirt and dust. “For God’s sake listen to me!” she cried, plunging into the charge-room. “Listen to me…Read this…It proves…Oh, where’s the chief—somebody who’ll take notice of me…”

  A policeman seized her by the arm. “Now then, lady, keep calm. The superintendent’s out, but he won’t be long. Perhaps you’d like to wait. Just take a seat in here, will you?”

  She screamed at him: “I can’t wait. It’s a matter of life and death. In ten minutes it will be too late. I’m Mrs. Monsell—”

  “Oh, you’re Mrs. Monsell, are you?”

  He led her by the arm to the street entrance. “Look ‘ere, mum, we don’t want no trouble. You just go an’ take a walk. It’ll do you good.”

  She suddenly divined his meaning. “Oh, you think I’m mad, do you?” Through the glass swing-doors she caught sight at that moment of the superintendent entering the charge-room. “See, your chief’s just come in…Let me see him…I must come in…Oh, do give me a chance to talk to him. Let me in, let me in, let me in—”

  “You clear off. And quick, too!”

  “You won’t let me in?” Her voice changed its tone quite suddenly. “You won’t? Very well, I’ll make you.”

  She ran down the steps and across the road to a shop. It was a tobacconist’s. She took a running kick and smashed the window to splinters. One of them fell against her cheek, cutting her below the eye…She stood there on the pavement, waiting for them to fetch her, with face streaming with blood and eyes wildly staring. In another moment she was in the charge-room again, with a policeman on either side of her. Behind the desk a heavy-jowled grey-haired blank-eyed machine faced her; a man whom nothing on earth or in heaven could startle or surprise.

  When she spoke to him he took no notice of her.

  He opened a big lousy-looking
book, and began to write in it with a slow-moving scratchy pen. “What is the number of the shop?” he asked.

  One of the policemen said it was 192; another was quite certain that it was 194. In the midst of the discussion the tobacconist himself entered, raging furiously. It was neither 192 nor 194, he said; it was 196.

  The clock above the machine said five minutes to nine.

  “The book!” she kept screaming, but the book lay on the desk untouched and unnoticed.

  The cut on her cheek looked ghastly, but it was not a bad one. She heard them talking, just as if she were dreaming a dream, and they were the people in it.

  They thought she was babbling incoherently, but really she was protesting and cursing vehemently—in Hungarian.

  VIII

  She was in a cell, and the four blank walls were coming nearer to her and crushing her. Nearer—nearer—she screamed, and they went away again slightly. Then they began to come nearer to her again, and she had to scream a second time to frighten them off. Each time she screamed they moved a little farther off, but she had to keep on screaming louder and louder.

  A clock somewhere was striking the hour. One, two, three, four…

  She was dying. She knew that. It was not Ward whom they were hanging at nine o’clock, but she herself. She could feel the drop quivering under her feet, the noose about her neck, her eyes blindfold…

  Five, six, seven, eight…

  The drop fell, the noose tightened round her throat; she had a moment of blinding, exquisite agony full of strange colours and sounds, half-delicious, half-excruciating…

  She knew then that she was dead.

  Nine…

  IX

  A long silence. The silence of the tomb. Eternity.

  Somebody was standing before her. She thought at first it was God. She could not see him—she could only feel, as she had always felt.

  “Madam…”

  Would God call her “madam”? She stared into the blackness, and then she saw that it was not God at all.

  The cell-door was open, and the machine was standing beside it. For a machine he seemed curiously concerned, almost moved.

  “Madam…” he said again.

  She looked up, and he cleared his throat raucously.

  He went on, in his driest and most official tones: “I have examined the—er—the book you—er—brought with you…”

  She could hardly hear him; the sounds were all blurred; she caught stray words now and then: “…seemed to me…wise…precaution…personal authority…communicate…Holloway…fortunately…fortunately…fortunately…”

  But the last sentence rang out clear and whole above all the rest.

  “The execution has been delayed…”

  * * *

  THE END

  * * *

  GALLERY OF COVER IMAGES

  Cover of First US Edition, 1934.

  Cover of Penguin Books Edition, UK, 1937.

  Cover of Italian Edition, Rome, 1946.

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