The bank examiner and the cashier were down early to breakfast.
Starr had slept well and was vigorously alert. Vaniman was haggard and visibly worried. Both of them were reticent.
Vaniman felt that he had nothing to say, as matters stood.
Starr was thinking, rather than talking. He snapped up Files when the landlord meekly inquired whether there were any clews. Files retreated in a panic.
“Vaniman,” said the examiner, when they pulled on their coats under the alligator's gaping espionage, “this is going to be my busy day and I hope you feel like pitching into this thing with me, helping to your utmost.”
“You can depend on me, Mr. Starr.”
“I don't intend to bother you with any questions at present except to ask about the routine business of the bank. So you can have your mind free on that point.”
They went to the bank and relieved Britt.
“Go get your breakfast and come back here as soon as you can,” Starr commanded, plunging into matters with the air of the sole captain of the craft. “And call a meeting of the directors.”
The examiner had brought a brief-case along with him from the tavern. He pulled out a card. Britt winced when he saw what was printed on the card.
THIS BANK CLOSED
pending examination of resources and liabilities and
auditing of accounts. Per order STATE BANK EXAMINERS.
Mr. Starr ordered Britt to tack that card on the outer door.
“Isn't there any other way but this?” asked the president.
“There's nothing else to be done—certainly not! I'm afraid the institution is in a bad way, Britt. You say you have been calling regular loans in order to build up a cash reserve—and your cash isn't in sight. I reckon it means that the stockholders will be assessed the full hundred per cent of liability.”
He bolted the bank door behind the president.
“Now, Vaniman, did you find out anything sensible about those books, as far as you got last evening?”
“Only that the accounts seem to have been willfully tangled up.”
“Then we'll let that part of the thing hang. Get out letters to depositors, calling in all pass books.”
After Vaniman had set himself down to that task, Starr went about his business briskly. He prepared telegrams and sent his charioteer to put them on the wire at Levant. Those messages were intended to set in operation the state police, a firm of licensed auditors, the security company which had bonded the bank's officials, the insurance corporation which guaranteed the Egypt Trust Company against loss by burglars. Then Starr proceeded with the usual routine of examination as conducted when banks are going concerns.
For the next few days Egypt was on the map.
Ike Jones was obliged to put extra pungs on to his stage line for the accommodation of visitors who included accountants, newspaper reporters, insurance men, and security representatives.
Finally, so far as Starr's concern was involved, the affairs of the Egypt Trust Company were shaken down into something like coherence. The apparent errors in the books, when they had been checked by pass books and notes and securities, were resolved into a mere wanton effort to mix things up.
Mr. Starr took occasion to reassure Miss Harnden in regard to those books; during the investigation the girl had been working with Vaniman in the usual double-hitch arrangement which had prevailed before the day of the disaster. The two plodded steadily, faithfully, silently, under the orders of the examiner.
“Now that I've seen you at work, Miss Harnden, I eliminate carelessness and stupidity as the reasons for the books being as they are. That's the way I'm going at this thing—by the process of elimination. I'm going to say more! I'm eliminating you as being consciously responsible for any of the wrongdoing in this bank. That's about as far as I've got in the matter of elimination.” He thumped his fist on a ledger. “It looks to me as if somebody had started to put something over by mixing these figures and had been tripped before finishing the job.”
Then Mr. Starr, as if to show his appreciation of a worthy young woman whom he had treated in rather cavalier fashion at their first meeting, made her clerk to the receiver; the receiver was Almon Waite, an amiable old professor of mathematics, retired, who had come back to Egypt to pass his last days with his son. Examiner Starr, having taken it upon himself to put the Egypt Trust case through, had found in Professor Waite a handy sort of a soft rubber stamp.
Every afternoon, day by day, Starr had remarked casually to Vaniman, “Seeing that we have so many things to talk over, you'd better lodge with me at the hotel to-night!” And daily Vaniman agreed without a flicker of an eyelid. In view of the fact that both of them kept sedulously off the bank business after hours, there was a perfect understanding between the examiner and the cashier as to what this espionage meant. And Vaniman knew perfectly well just why a chap named Bixby was in town!
Having a pretty good knowledge of Starr's general opinions and prejudices, the cashier had squared himself to meet things as they came along. Once or twice Starr gave the young man an opportunity to come across with explanations or defense. Vaniman kept silent.
The cashier explained his sentiments to Vona. “It's mighty little ammunition I've got, dear! All I can do now is to keep it dry, and wait till I can see the whites of the enemy's eyes.”
He refrained from any comment on the identity of the enemy. He did not need to name names to Vona. The attitude of Tasper Britt, who kept by himself in his own office; who offered not one word of suggestion or explanation or consolation; who surveyed Vaniman, when the two met at the tavern, with the reproachful stare of the benefactor who had been betrayed—Britt's attitude was sufficiently significant. Vaniman was waiting to see what Britt would do in the crisis that was approaching. “At any rate, I must keep silent until I'm directly accused, Vona. Starr is regularly talking with Britt. If I begin now to defend myself by telling about Britt's operations, I'll merely be handing weapons to the enemy. They can't surprise me by any charge they may bring! I have got myself stiffened up to that point. You must make up your mind that it's coming. Pile up courage beforehand!”
It was a valiant little speech. But he was obliged to strive heroically to make his countenance fit his words of courage. In facing the situation squarely he had been trying to make an estimate of the state of mind in Egypt. He bitterly decided that the folks were lining up against the outlander. As hateful as Britt had made himself, he was Egyptian, born and bred. Vaniman knew what the wreck of the little bank signified in that town, which was already staggering under its debt burden. How that bank had been wrecked was not clear to Vaniman, even when he gave the thing profound consideration. He did not dare to declare to himself all that he suspected of the president. Nor did he dare to believe that Britt would dump the whole burden on the cashier. However, if Britt undertook such a play of perfidy, the outlander knew that the native would have the advantage in the exchange of accusation.
Vaniman perceived the existing state of affairs in the demeanor of the men whom he met on the street, going to and from the tavern. He heard some of their remarks. He strove to keep a calm face while his soul burned!
Then, at last, Examiner Starr acted. He employed peculiar methods to fit a peculiar case.
One afternoon Starr sat and stared for some time at Vaniman. They were alone in the bank. Receiver Waite and Vona had gone away.
“Would you relish a little show?” inquired the examiner.
Vaniman had nerved himself against all kinds of surprise, he thought, but he was not prepared for this proffer of entertainment. He frankly declared that he did not understand.
“Seeing that you are doubtful, we'll have the show, anyway, and you can tell me later whether or not you relish it.” He opened the door and called. Bixby came in. It was evident that Bixby had been waiting.
“All ready!” said Starr.
“All right!” said Bixby.
“I'll say that Bixby, here, is an operator from a detective agency, in case you don't know it,” explained the examiner.
“I do know it, sir!”
Bixby pulled off his overcoat. Under it he wore a mohair office coat. He yanked off that garment, ripped the sleeves, tore the back breadth, and threw the coat under a stool. Then he secured a dustcloth from a hook, produced a small vial of chloroform, and poured some of the liquid on the cloth. He poured more of the chloroform on his hair and his vest. Then he laid down the cloth and got a roll of tape out of a drawer. He cut off a length and made a noose, slipped it over his wrists, bent down and laid the end of the tape on the floor, stood on it, and pulled taut the noose until the flesh was ridged. He stooped again and picked up two metal disks which Starr tossed on the floor; the detective did this easily, although his writs were noosed.
“Not the exact program, perhaps, but near enough,” Starr commented.
With equal ease Bixby laid the disks carefully on the flange of the sill of the vault. Then he took the cloth from the desk, went to the vault, stooped and thumped his head up against the projecting lever. He went into the vault and carefully pulled the door shut after him, both hands on the main bolt.
Starr was silent for some moments, exchanging looks with the cashier.
“Any comments?” inquired the manager of the show.
“None, sir.”
“I'll simply say that the chloroform cloth can be put to the nose as occasion calls for. Bixby isn't doing that. I told Bixby that for the purposes of demonstration he might count one hundred slow and then figure that he had used up the oxygen in the vault, and then, if nobody came to open the door, he could—well, he isn't in there to commit suicide, but only to create an impression. I ask again—any comments?”
Vaniman shook his head.
Then the door swung open. Bixby was on his back, his heels in the air. He had pushed the door with his feet, his shoulders against the inner door. He rose and came out. Starr cut the tape with the office shears.
“That's all!” said the manager.
Bixby, not troubling about the torn office jacket, put on his overcoat and departed.
Starr took a lot of time in lighting a cigar and getting a good clinch on the weed with his teeth. He spoke between those teeth. “It's your move, Vaniman.”
“I haven't agreed to sit in at that kind of a game,” stated the young man, firmly.
“But you'll have to admit that I'm playing mighty fair,” insisted the examiner. “When we talked in Britt's office, you and I agreed that it wasn't likely that a chap would run risks or commit suicide by shutting himself up in a bank vault with a time lock on. That's about the only point we did agree on. I'm showing you that I don't agree with you now, even on that point. That being the case, you've got to—showme.” Starr emphasized the last two words by stabbing at his breast with the cigar.
“The idea is, Mr. Starr, you believe that I framed a fake robbery, or something that looked like a robbery, in order to cover myself.” Frank stood up and spoke hotly.
Mr. Starr jumped up and was just as heated in his retort. “Yes!”
“But the whole thing—the muddling of the bank's books—the disks—a man shoving himself into the vault—I'd have to be a lunatic to perform in that fashion!”
“They say there's nothing new under the sun! There is, just the same! Some crook is thinking up a new scheme every day!”
“By the gods, you shall not call me a crook!”
“You, yourself, are drawing that inference. But I don't propose to deal in inferences—”
“Starting in the first day you struck this town, hounding me on account of matters I had no knowledge of, Mr. Starr, was drawing a damnable inference.”
“It has been backed up by some mighty good evidence!”
“What is your evidence?”
The examiner blew a cloud of smoke, then he fanned the screen away and squinted at Vaniman. “If you ever hear of me giving away the state's case in any matter where I'm concerned you'll next hear of me committing suicide by locking myself into a bank vault. Calm down, Mr. Cashier!”
Starr walked close to Vaniman and tapped a stubby forefinger against the young man's heaving breast. “I'm going to give you a chance, young fellow! I staged that little play a few moments ago so that you'd see what a fool house of cards you're living in! I hope you noted carefully that we did not need to go off the premises for any of our props. I, myself, had noted in your case that everything that was used came from the premises. Real robbers usually bring their own stuff. Even that chloroform—”
“I know nothing about the chloroform, sir.”
“Well, the vial was here that night, anyway! It's a small thing to waste time on! I don't profess to be at the bottom of the affair, Vaniman. I'll admit that it looks as if there's a lot behind this thing—plenty that is interesting. I've got my full share of human curiosity. I'd like to be let in on this thing, first hand. Now come across clean! The whole story! Tell me where the coin is! It's certainly a queer case, and there must be some twist in it where I can do you a good turn. I've giving you your chance, I say!”
“I have no more idea where that coin is than you have, Mr. Starr. I never touched it. I have already told the whole truth, so far as I know facts.”
“Now listen, Vaniman! This town is alreadydown! If that gold isn't recovered this bank failure will put the townout! The folks are ugly. They're talking. Britt says they believe you have hidden the money!”
“He does say it!” Vaniman fairly barked the words. “No doubt he has been telling 'em so!”
Starr proceeded remorselessly. “I have heard all the gossip about the trouble between you and Britt. But that gossip doesn't belong in this thing right now. Vaniman, you know what a country town is when it turns against an outsider! If you go before a jury on this case—and that money isn't in sight—you don't stand the show of a wooden latch on the back door of hell's kitchen! They'll all come to court with what they can grub up in the way of brickbats—facts, if they can get 'em, lies, anyway! Come, come, now! Dig up the coin!”
Starr's bland persistency in taking for granted the fact that Vaniman was hiding the money snapped the overstrained leash of the cashier's self-restraint. In default of a general audience of the hateful Egyptian vilifiers, he used Starr as the object of his frenzied vituperation.
Mr. Starr listened without reply.
As soon as it was apparent to the bank examiner that the cashier did not intend to take advantage of the chance that had been offered, Starr marched to the door, opened it, and called. The corridor, it seemed, was serving as repository for various properties required in the drama which Mr. Starr had staged that day. The man who entered wore a gold badge—and a gold badge marks the high sheriff of a county. Starr handed a paper to the officer. “Serve it,” he commanded, curtly.
The sheriff walked to Vaniman and tapped him on the shoulder. “You're under arrest.”
“Charged with what?”
“I'm making it fairly easy for you,” explained, Starr, dryly, appearing to be better acquainted with the nature of the warrant than the sheriff was. “Burglary, with or without accomplices, might have been charged—seeing that the coin has been removed—in the nighttime, of course! But we're simply making the charge embezzlement!”
Squire Hexter arranged for Vaniman's bail, volunteering for that service, frankly admitting that he “had seen it coming all along”! But the Squire was not as ready to serve as Frank's counsel and withstood that young man's urging for some time. The Squire's solicitude in behalf of the accused was the reason for this reluctance. “You ought to have the smartest city lawyer you can hire. I'm only an old country codger, son!”
“Squire Hexter, I propose to let the other side have a monopoly of the tricks. I'm depending on my innocence, and I want your honesty back of it.”
In the hope that the folks of Egypt would recognize innocence when they saw it, Vaniman daily walked the streets of the village. The pride of innocence was soon wounded; he learned that his action in “showing himself under the folks's noses” was considered as bravado. The light of day showed him so many sour looks that he stayed in the house with Xoa or in the Squire's office until night. Then he discovered that when he walked abroad under cover of the darkness he was persistently trailed; it was evident that the belief that he had hidden the coin of the Egypt Trust Company was sticking firmly in the noodles of the public.
The bank, of course, was now forbidden ground for him. The affairs of that unhappy institution were being wound up. Considering the fact that the stockholders had been assessed dollar for dollar of their holdings, and that, even with this assessment added to the assets, the depositors would get back only a fraction of their money, Vaniman could scarcely marvel at the hard looks and the muttered words he met up with on the street.
Furthermore, the insurance company took the stand that the bank had not been burglarized. On the other hand, the security company behind Vaniman's bond refused to settle, claiming that some kind of a theft had been committed by outsiders. Only after expensive litigation could Receiver Waite hope to add insurance and bond money to the assets. The prospects of getting anything were clouded by the revelations concerning President Britt's private entrance to the bank vault. But Britt was not accused of anything except of presuming on too many liberties in running a one-man bank. Under some circumstances Britt would have been called to an accounting, without question. But all the venom of suspicion was wholly engaged with Frank Vaniman, the son of an embezzler.
Squire Hexter, armed with authority and information given him by the young man, had repeatedly waited on Tasper Britt and had asked what attitude the president proposed to take at the trial. Britt had said that he should tell the truth, and that was all any witness could be expected to do or to promise, furthermore, so he told the Squire, he had been enjoined by his counsel to make no talk to anybody.
Vaniman was not sure of his self-restraint during that period of waiting. There were days when he felt like slapping the faces that glowered when he looked at them. He avoided any meeting with Britt. That was easy, because Britt swung with pendulum regularity between house and tavern, tavern and office.
There were days when Vaniman was so thoroughly disheartened that he pleaded with Vona to make a show of breaking off their friendship. She had insisted on displaying herself as his champion; obeying her, he walked in her company to and from the bank with more or less regularity. His spirit of chivalry made the snubs harder to endure when she was obliged to share them in his company.
But Vona staunchly refused to be a party to such deception. She borrowed some figures of speech suggested by the work she was doing in the bank and declared that her loyalty was not insolvent and that she would not make any composition with her conscience.
In her zeal to be of service, one day she even volunteered to interview Tasper Britt on the subject of what had happened to the Egypt Trust Company. On that fresh April morning they had walked up the slope of Burkett Hill, where the sward was showing its first green. He had come to her house earlier than usual so that she might have time for the little excursion. They hunted for mayflowers and found enough to make a bit of a bouquet for her desk in the office.
“One just has to feel hopeful in the spring, Frank,” she insisted, brushing the blossoms gently against his cheek. From the slope they could look down into the length of Egypt's main street. “Why, there goes Tasper Britt toward his office and he actually waved his hand to a man—honest! The spring does soften folks. If he does know something about the inside of the dreadful puzzle, as you and I have talked so many times, I do believe I can coax him to tell me.”
“I don't want you to coax him, dear. Squire Hexter has put the thing up to Britt, man to man, and I think it better to let it stand that way.”
“But if we could get only a little hint to work from!”
“I'm afraid you'll find him as stingy with hints as he is with everything else. He does know—something! I would not put him above arranging that frame-up that put me where I was found that night,” he declared, with bitterness.
“No, Frank, I tell you again that I don't believe he knew it was going to happen. When I stood there outside the curtain that night I was looking straight at him, and at nobody else. I don't remember another face. Tasper Britt is not actor enough to make up the expression that I saw. It was simple, absolute, flabbergasted fright!”
They started down the slope and walked in silence.
“He's considerable of a coward,” Vaniman admitted, after his pondering. “I'm depending on that fact, more or less. I don't believe he'll dare to stand up as a witness in court and perjure himself. Squire Hexter has a line of questions that he and I have prepared very carefully. Britt will have to testify that I did not have sole opportunity. In considering crimes, it's proving sole opportunity that sends folks to prison!”
She turned away her face and set her teeth upon her lower lip, controlling her agitation.
“I'm trying to face the thing just as bravely as I can, Vona. On the face of it I'm in bad! When I remember how Britt maneuvered with me, I feel like running to him and twisting his head off his neck.”
When they arrived in front of Britt Block, Vaniman scowled at the stone effigy in its niche. Then, when his eyes came down from that complacent countenance, they beheld the face of Tasper Britt framed in his office window. The Britt in the bank was distinctly in an ugly mood. And there was a challenge in his demeanor, a sneer in the twist of his features.
“Vona, I'm going in there,” Vaniman declared. “There's got to be a showdown, but it's no job for you!”
She offered neither protest nor advice. At that moment the young man was manifestly in a state of mind which sudden resolution had inflamed with something like desperation. When he strode in through the front door Britt disappeared from the window.
Vona, following her lover, put her hand on his arm when he arrived in front of the office door. “Don't you need me with you in there?” She could not hide her apprehensiveness.
“I'm going to hold myself in, dear! Don't be worried. But it's best for me to see him alone.”
He waited until she had gone into the bank office.
He did not bother to knock on Britt's door. When he twisted the handle he found that the door was locked. He called, but Britt did not reply. He put his mouth close to the door. “Mr. Britt, I have some business to talk over with you. Please let me in!”
He waited. The man inside did not move or speak. “I'm coming in there, Britt, even if I have to kick this door down.”
But the threat did not produce any results. Vaniman stepped back and drove his foot against the panel, but not with enough force to break the lock. His kick was in the way of admonition. After a few moments Britt opened the door; he had an iron poker in his hand. Vaniman marched in. “You don't need any weapon, sir.”
“I think I do, judging from the way you came rushing into this building. Vaniman, I protest. I have said my say to your attorney. I have nothing more to add.”
“I'm not here to try the case, Mr. Britt. I'll confess that I did not intend to waste my breath in talking with you. But I could not resist the feeling that came over me a few moments ago.” He was standing just inside the door. He closed it. “You informed Squire Hexter that you intend to tell the truth at the trial. That's all right! I hope so. I have no criticism to offer on that point. But there's a matter of man's business between us two, and it belongs here rather than in a courtroom. Do you intend to tell the truth about how you framed me?”
“I don't understand what you mean,” returned Britt, stiffly.
“I'll put it so that you can't help understanding, sir. You rigged a plan to have me sleep in the bank nights.”
“That was your own suggestion. You asked to be allowed to sleep here.”
“You intend to say that in your testimony, do you?”
Britt took a firm hold on the poker. “I most certainly do.”
“You cooked up an excuse to send me off on a wild-goose chase in the night.”
“I know nothing about your going anywhere in the night—except that Files's hostler is saying that you hired a hitch for some purpose.”
Vaniman knew that appeal and protest would be futile—realizing the full extent of Britt's effrontery. However, in his amazement he began to rail at the president.
Britt broke in on the anathema. “I was not nigh the bank that night. I was asleep in my own house. You'd better not try any such ridiculous story in court—it will spoil any defense Hexter may manage to put up for you. Vaniman, it's plain enough why you hired that hitch! Why don't you tell where you hauled that money?”
“I'm not going to do to you what I ought to do, Britt. I'm into the hole deep enough as it is! But let me ask you if any jury is going to believe that I was lunatic enough to hire a livery hitch, if I was hauling away loot?”
“It's my idea, Vaniman, that you were trying to work a hold-up game on the bank, knowing that you were done here,” stated Britt, coolly. “But something went wrong before you had a chance to offer a compromise. Naturally, you thought we'd do 'most anything to keep our little bank from failing.”
The young man beat his fist upon his breast. “Have you the damnation cheek, Britt, to use me, the victim, to rehearse your lies on?”
“I'm giving you a little glimpse of the evidence. If the hint is of any use to you, you're welcome.”
“Britt, have you turned into a demon?” Vaniman demanded. He stared at the usurer with honest incredulity.
“I've had enough setbacks, in recent days, to craze 'most any man, I'll admit. But I'm keeping along in my usual course, doing the right thing as I see it.”
“Britt, I have never done you an injury. Are you going to ruin me because a good girl loves me?”
“I have too much respect for that young lady to allow her name to be dragged into a mess of this sort,” stated the amazing Britt. “And I think that she'll wake up after she has come to a realizing sense of what a narrow escape she has had.”
Vaniman stood there, his hands closing and unclosing, his palms itching to feel the contact of Britt's cheeks. There was venom in Britt's eyes. This outrageous baiting was satisfying the older man's rancor—the ugly grudge that clawed and tore his soul when he sat alone in his chamber and gazed on the girl's pictured beauty. Every night, after he puffed out his light, he muttered the same speech—it had become the talisman of his ponderings. “Whilst I'm staying alone here he'll be alone in a cell in state prison.”
Vaniman understood.
He turned on his heel and walked out of Britt's office.
In the street the young man met Prophet Elias, who was adventuring abroad under his big umbrella. Vaniman was in a mood to poke ruthless facts against his aches. “Prophet, you ought to know whether any of the folks in this town believe that I'm innocent. Are there any?”
Elias, ever since he had flung to the cashier the sage advice about keeping his eye peeled, had used texts rarely in his infrequent talks with Vaniman.
“Oh yes, there are a few,” he said, with matter-of-fact indifference. “But they didn't lose money by the bank failure.”
“What do you think about me?”
The Prophet cocked his eyebrow. “'Can a man take fire into his bosom, and his clothing not be burned?' Britt, the bank, the girl! Three hot torches, young sir! Very hot torches!” He walked on. Then he turned and came back and patted Vaniman's arm. “You didn't keep your eye peeled! The young are thoughtless. But four good old eyes will be serving you while you're—away! Mine and Brother Usial's.”
“Thank you!” said the young man, and he went on his way. He was reflecting on that text the Prophet had enunciated.
Might it not apply as well to Tasper Britt?
Vaniman was indicted; he was tried; he was convicted; he was sentenced to serve seven years in the state prison. He refused to allow Squire Hexter to appeal the case. He had no taste for further struggle against the circumstantial evidence that was reinforced by perjury. His consciousness of protesting innocence was subjugated by the morose determination to accept the unjust punishment.
The general opinion was that he was a very refractory young man because he would not disclose the hiding place of the gold.
Even the warden of the prison had some remarks to make on that subject. The chaplain urged Vaniman to clear his conscience and do what he could to aid the distressed inhabitants of a bankrupt town. This conspiracy of persistent belief in his guilt put a raw edge on his mental suffering.
His only source of solace was the weekly letter from Vona. Her fortitude seemed to be unaffected; her loyalty heartened him. And after a time hope intervened and comforted him; although Vaniman had only a few friends on the job for him in Egypt, he reflected that Tasper Britt had plenty of enemies who would operate constantly and for the indirect benefit of Britt's especial victim. The young man felt that accident might disclose the truth at any time. But every little while he went through a period of acute torture; he had a wild desire to break out of his prison, to be on the ground in Egypt, to go at the job of unmasking Britt as only a man vitally interested in the task could go at it!
Sometimes his frenzy reached such a height that it resembled the affliction that pathologists call claustrophobia. He stamped to and fro in his cell, after the bolts had been driven for the night; he lamented and he cursed, muffling his tones. And a man named Bartley Wagg, having taken it upon himself to keep close tabs on Vaniman's state of mind, noted the prisoner's rebellious restlessness with deepening interest and coupled a lot of steady pondering with his furtive espionage.
Wagg was a prison guard.
After Vaniman was committed, Wagg complained of rheumatism and asked the warden to transfer him from the wall where he had been doing sentry-go with a rifle and give him an inside job as night warder. And the warden humored Wagg, who was a trusted veteran.
Wagg made regular trips along the cell tiers during the night. He padded as noiselessly as a cat, for he had soles of felt on his shoes. Many times, keeping vigil when his emotions would not allow him to sleep, Vaniman saw Wagg halt and peer through the bars of the cell. The corridor light showed his face. But Wagg did not accost the prisoner. The guard acted like a man who, whatever might be his particular interest in Vaniman, proposed to take plenty of time in getting acquainted.
Once, after midnight, Wagg found the prisoner pacing; Vaniman dared to relieve his feelings by groans, for the chorus of snores served as a sound-screen.
“Sick?” inquired the guard, whispering.
“No.”
“If you ever are, don't be afraid to call on me when I pass. I've got a good heart.”
“Thank you!”
“I've really got too good a heart to be tied up to a prison job,” volunteered Wagg. “I hate to see sorrow.”
“Sorrow is about all you have a chance to see in this place.”
“Yes,” admitted the guard, sliding away.
The warden had given Vaniman a bookkeeper's job. But the prison office was a gloomy place and the windows were hatefully barred Through the bars he could see convict toilers wheeling barrows of dirt. They were filling up a lime-quarry pit within the walls. In the old days convicts had quarried lime rocks. But in the newer days of shops the quarry was abandoned and had been gradually filled with stagnant water. When the prison commissioners decided that the pool was a menace to health, a crew was set at work filling the pit. Vaniman envied the men who could work in the sunshine. He was everlastingly behind bars; the office was not much better than his cell. The bars shut him away from opportunity to make a man's fight for himself. Every time he looked at a window he was reminded of his helplessness. It seemed to him that if he could get out into the sunshine and toil till his muscles ached he would be able to endure better the night of confinement in the cell.
He blurted out that much of confession to Wagg when the guard discovered him pacing in the narrow space a few nights later.
“I sympathize!” whispered Wagg. “I know all about your case!” Then Wagg passed on.
The next night he halted long enough to say that, knowing all about the case from what the newspapers printed, he realized just why Vaniman found it so tough to be locked up.
Then Wagg refrained from saying anything for several nights. The prisoner was quite sure that the guard had something on his mind outside of a mere notion of being polite; in the case of Wagg, so hardened a veteran, politeness to a prisoner would have been heresy. Wondering just what Wagg was driving at, Vaniman found the guard's leisurely methods tantalizing in the extreme. One night the prisoner ventured to take the initiative; he stuck out his hand to signal the guard.
Wagg, it was manifest, was not so much a master of facial control that he could suppress all signs of satisfaction. He looked pleased—like a man who had employed tactics that were working according to plans and hopes.
“Sick?”
“Yes—heart and soul! Body, too! Isn't there any way of my getting a job wheeling that dirt?”
Wagg made his noiseless getaway. He departed suddenly, without a word. Until the next night Vaniman was left to wonder to what extent he had offended the official.
But Wagg showed no signs of unfriendliness when he halted, after midnight, at the cell door. “Feel any better?”
“No!”
“I reckon I understand. Of course I understand! Most of 'em that's in here haven't anything special to look forward to when they get out. Your case is different. Everything to look forward to! No wonder you walk the cell.”
On he slid, silently.
Vaniman had read theArabian Nightstales, as they were divided in the literal translation. He reflected whimsically on the methods of the story-teller who, “having said her permitted say,” was wont to stop right in the middle of a sentence for the sake of piquing interest in what was to follow.
The next night the prisoner's interest was heightened into real amazement. Wagg stuck his hand through the bars and waggled it invitingly.
“Take it!” he urged, sibilantly.
For a dizzy instant Vaniman was moved by the expansive hope that his plight had appealed to this man; he hastened to take what Wagg offered. It was a small cube of something.
“Eat it!” said the guard.
Holding it close to his face, to make an inspection in the dim light, the young man caught the scent of the cube. It was a piece of soap. He made sure by putting it to his nose.
“Just a little at a time—what you can stomach,” Wagg urged. He passed on.
But Vaniman did not obey; he was unable to comprehend what this sort of fodder signified; he broke the cube into bits, thinking that a saw might be hidden. It was only soap—common soap. He put the bits away in the portfolio he was allow to have in his cell.
Wagg was a bit testy the next night when Vaniman confessed that he had not eaten any of the soap.
“You've got to show absolute confidence in me—do what I tell you to do,” insisted the guard.
“I can't eat that soap. It will make me sick!”
“You've said it! But eat that soap—a little at a time—and see what the prison doctor says. It isn't easy to fool prison doctors—but I've been on this job long enough to know how.”
That was Wagg's longest speech to date. His earnestness impressed the young man. He managed to eat a bit of the soap after the guard had departed. He ate more in the morning before his release from the cell. He put some crumbs of the soap in his pockets and choked down the hateful substance when he found an opportunity during the day.
That night Wagg had a few more words to say on the subject. “One of the biggest birds they ever caged at Atlanta fooled the doctors and got his pardon so that he could die outside the pen. Did he die? Bah-bah! Soap! Just soap!”
“So you think the pardon plan can be worked in my case, do you?”
“Pardon your eyes!” scoffed Wagg. “That isn't the idea at all!”
He fed the soap to the prisoner for many nights, but he did not give any information. However, Wagg had the air of a man who knew well what he was about, and Vaniman was desperate enough to continue the horrible diet, having found that Mr. Wagg was a very touchy person when his policies were doubted or his good faith questioned.
Then, one day the prison doctor, who had been observing Vaniman for some time, took the bookkeeper into his office and examined him thoroughly; he gravely informed the warden that the young man had symptoms of incipient kidney trouble and ought to be less closely confined.
When Vaniman found himself out in the sunshine, intrusted with the sinecure of checking up barrow-loads of dirt which convicts wheeled past him where he sat in an armchair provided by the warden from his office, the prisoner perceived that the Wagg policies were effective in getting results.
Having added respect for Mr. Wagg's ability in general, Vaniman was not surprised to find the guard following the favored prisoner into the new field of operations. The young man was quite sure that the guard had not opened up on his principal plan.
One morning Wagg came with a stool and a rifle and located himself close beside the armchair; he sat on the stool and rested the rifle across his knees and smoked a corncob pipe placidly. And there was plenty of opportunity for talk, though Wagg obtrusively kept his face turned from Vaniman's and talked through the corner of his mouth.
“Now you see, I hope! In a prison you've got to step light and go the other way around to get to a thing. I'm favored here, and I'm supposed to be nursing rheumatism.” He leaned forward to knock out his pipe dottle and found an opportunity to give Vaniman a wink. “I arranged to come off the wall—knowing all about your case. I could ask to come out here, having found that night work didn't help me! Sunshine is good. But you couldn't ask for sunshine. When a prisoner asks for a thing, they go on the plan of doing exactly opposite to what he seems to want. From now on, having seen how I can operate, I expect you to do just what I tell you to do.”
Vaniman looked at the rifle. Wagg waved it, commanding a convict to hurry past.
“Yes, sir! You've got to do just as I say!” insisted the guard when the convict had gone out of earshot.
“How can I help myself?”
“Oh, I don't mean that I'm going to team you around with this rifle! I want you to co-operate.”
“Don't you think I can co-operate better if you give me a line on what all this means?” pleaded the prisoner.
“Sure and slow is my policy. I'm not just certain that I have you sized up right, as yet. I'm of a suspicious nature. But I'm finding this sunshine softening.” Mr. Wagg rambled on, squinting up at the sky. “Seven years is a long while to wait for a good time to come. Figuring that your time will be paid for at the rate of about ten thousand dollars a year, while you're in here, helps to smooth the feelings somewhat, of course. But now that you're in here you're counting days instead of years—and every day seems a year when you're looking forward. The newspapers said it was about seventy-five thousand dollars in good, solid gold.”
Wagg bored Vaniman with a side glance that was prolonged until a toiling convict had passed to a safe distance. The young man was eyeing the guard with a demeanor which indicated that the tractable spirit commended by Mr. Wagg was no longer under good control. However, Vaniman did manage to control his tongue.
After the silence had continued for some time, the guard slipped down from the stool and marched to and fro with his rifle in the hook of his arm, affording a fine display of attention to duty.
After he had returned to his stool, Wagg gave the ex-cashier plenty of time to take up the topic. “Considering my position in this place, I reckon I've said about enough,” suggested the guard.
“I think you have said enough!” returned Vaniman, grimly.
“What have you to say?”
“I didn't take that money from the Egypt Trust Company. I don't know where it is. I never knew where it went. And I'm getting infernally sick of having it everlastingly thrown up at me.”
“I thought I had you sized up better—but I see I was wrong,” admitted Wagg.
“Of course you're wrong! You and the chaplain and the warden and the jury! I didn't take that money!”
“I didn't mean I was wrong on that point,” proceeded Wagg, remorselessly. “But I had watched you bang around your cell and I concluded that you was ready to make about a fifty-fifty split of the swag with the chap who could get you out of here. If you're still stuffy, you'll have to stay that way—and stay in here, too!”
He took another promenade, pursuing his regular policy of starting the fire and letting the kettle come aboil on its own hook.
“What good would it do me to escape from this prison—to be hounded and hunted from one end of the world to the other?” Vaniman demanded, when Wagg had returned to the stool. “I do want to get out. But I want to get out right! I have a job to do for myself when I'm out of here!” Mr. Wagg nodded understandingly. “And that job is right in the same town where I have been living.”
“Exactly!” agreed the guard. “And speaking of a job, you don't think for one moment, do you, that I'd be earning a fifty-fifty split by boosting you over that wall or smuggling you out of the gate to shift for yourself? Small wonder that you got hot, thinking I meant it that way. My plan will put you out right! My plan is a prime plan that can be worked only once. Therefore, it's worth money.”
“Damn it, I haven't the money!” Vaniman, exasperated by this pertinacity, was not able to control his feelings or his language.
“It's too bad you are still at the point where youthinkyou haven't got it,” returned Mr. Wagg. “I'm a terrible good waiter. Reckon I have showed that kind of a disposition already. When you get to the other and sensible point where you want to be out of here, and out right, with nobody chasing and hectoring you, you and I will do business on the fifty-fifty basis. It may seem high,” he pursued. “But all prices are high in these times. They're so blamed high that I'm in debt, simply trying to give my family a decent living. The state won't raise my wages. The state practically says, 'You'll have to do the best you can!' The state owes me a living. So I'll grab on to the assets that the state has hove into my reach, and will speculate as best I know now.”
“You think I'm your asset, eh?”
“You're not worth a cent to me or yourself until I operate. And when you're ready to have me operate—fifty-fifty—give me the high sign. And something will be done what was never done before!”
Then Wagg carried his stool to the lee of a shop wall, seeking shade—too far away for further talk.