Читать книгу The Secret of the Barbican and Other Stories - J. S. Fletcher - Страница 10

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In the grey gloom of a dull October morning Normanstowe entered the dock of the police court, and afforded its habitués some occasion of interest and merriment. Officialdom could make nothing of him. He pleaded guilty with alacrity. He refused to give any name or address. The police were unanimous in testifying to his sobriety; nothing but his extraordinary conduct of the previous night suggested any doubts as to his sanity. Incidentally, it was reported, that when he was asked why he had done this thing, he answered that he had done it for fun. But at that the magistrate shook his head, and looked at the prisoner with a certain amount of speculative inquisitiveness.

“Did you break these windows for fun?” he asked.

“No,” answered Normanstowe, “not at all!”

The magistrate looked down at the charge sheet, and then at Normanstowe.

“Why did you break them, then?” he inquired mildly.

“Why did I? Oh, by way of protest!” replied Normanstowe. “Protest, of course!”

“Protest against what?” inquired the magistrate.

Normanstowe looked at the edge of the dock, and then at the ceiling of the court, and then at a point somewhere between the top and bottom buttons of the magistrate’s waistcoat.

“Oh, I don’t know!” he answered. “Anything—everything! The Government, you know!”

The magistrate looked at the policeman who had brought Normanstowe to the seat of justice.

“Have you noticed anything about this man?” he inquired.

“Nothing, your worship,” answered the policeman. “Excepting that, when he had eaten his breakfast this morning, he asked if he couldn’t have another.”

“Well, I offered to pay for it,” interjected the prisoner. “You have one-and-eightpence-halfpenny of mine.”

The magistrate favoured Normanstowe with a look which a very observant person would have taken to mean many things.

“Fined twenty shillings and costs, and you will have to pay for the damage you have done,” he said tersely, “or you will go to prison for twenty-eight days.”

“I am much obliged to you,” said Normanstowe. “I will go to prison for twenty-eight days. Unless you like to take my one-and-eightpence-halfpenny as a first instalment, and——”

The magistrate made a slight motion of his pen, and Normanstowe found himself ushered out of the dock by a gruff-voiced person who asked him pertinently how long he wanted to keep the next gentleman waiting.

After that, Normanstowe himself waited at other people’s pleasure in a comfortless, whitewashed receptacle, until such time as a cargo of evil-doers was ready for conveyance to Wormwood Scrubs. Some of his fellow passengers sang as Black Maria carried them westward. Normanstowe occupied himself in speculating on the best method of profitably spending the moments of what he was determined to regard as a rest cure.

For the various little preliminary rites of prison life Normanstowe was rigidly resolved to feel no distaste; certainly he would die before he would show any. He cheerfully did all that he was ordered to do. He looked confidingly, and in quite a polite manner at the various officials with whom he now commenced acquaintanceship. And suddenly he saw a face of which he had some curious recollection. It was the face of a warder; a youngish, good-looking, smartly-set-up fellow, who moved about with alert steps.

“Where have I seen that man before?” asked Normanstowe of himself. “I certainly remember his face. Suppose, now, that he remembers mine.”

But then he comforted himself by his shorn-off moustache. Oh, no, not even Wrigge nor Chisholm would know him now, attired as he was. For at that moment he was wearing no more than a shirt, and the obligatory bath was literally at the end of his toes.

“In with you!” commanded the voice of authority.

That particular voice happened to be the voice of the warder whom Normanstowe was sure he had seen somewhere, and who was just then in charge of the ablutions. He was about to make some further remarks or orders when they were suddenly arrested. And, if Normanstowe had looked around he would have seen the warder’s eyes fixed, as if they were fascinated, upon a certain mark which showed distinct and conspicuous upon the prisoner’s left shoulder. But Normanstowe was just then engaged in a punctilious discharge of the duty required of him, and if he had thought to spare it was in the direction of thankfulness that the water was fresh and clean. He obeyed the prison regulations with scrupulous fidelity. When he had accomplished them in that instance he glanced at the warder of the somewhat familiar face, and became aware that he was looking at his prisoner with puzzled eyes.

“I hope to goodness that chap doesn’t think he recognizes me as somebody he’s known!” thought Normanstowe. “It may be awkward if he gets ideas of that kind into his head.”

It fell to the lot of that particular warder to march Normanstowe to his cell, and to instruct him as to rules and routine. All the time that he talked, the warder was staring at the prisoner in disconcerting fashion; and it required much self control on Normanstowe’s part to refrain from requesting him to look elsewhere.

When the man had departed, Normanstowe sat down on his stool and considered matters. Supposing he was recognized! It would be unpleasant. It might lead to complications which would result in his losing his bet. But renewed confidence came to him.

“No, he can’t know me,” he decided. “It’s impossible. All the same, I’m sure I’ve seen that chap before somewhere. In which case, he may have seen me.”

During the next two or three days Normanstowe caught that warder looking at him narrowly. He looked at him as a man looks at something which puzzles him very much. Sometimes he looked at him when Normanstowe was on his way to and from the prison chapel; sometimes when he was taking the air in the exercise yard; sometimes when he visited his cell. Normanstowe began to feel as a highly sensitive insect may feel which is kept in a glass-covered receptacle by an inquisitive scientist who takes uncertain and speculative glances at it from time to time, wondering what it really is. He grew a little uneasy under these searching looks, and he got to be afraid of meeting the warder’s eyes.

And on the fourth day, at a quiet hour of the afternoon, Normanstowe being busily engaged in sewing stout sacks together, the warder stole gently into the cell, and closed the door behind him. Normanstowe bent his head over his work; the warder coughed lightly.

“Er—my lord!” he whispered. “My—er—lord!”

Normanstowe looked up. The warder was winking mysteriously, and his right hand held out to the prisoner a scrap of paper. Once more his lips shaped themselves to emit another tremulous whisper.

“Your—er—lordship!”