It had come upon him suddenly as he left the house. He had never, in all his life, known anything like it before. Perhaps the mournful words of the American woman had been the cause. Her deep contralto voice tolled in his ears still. Some white cell in the brain was affected, the nerves of his body were in revolt. The depression grew deeper and deeper. A nameless malady of the soul was upon him, he had a sick horror of his task. The hands in his fur gloves grew wet and there was a salt taste in his mouth.
The car left ways that were familiar. Presently it turned into a street of long houses. The street rose steeply before, and was outlined by a long, double row of gas-lamps, stretching away to a point. It was quite silent, and the note of the car's engine sank a full tone as the ascent began.
Through the window in front, and to the left of the chauffeur, the doctor could see the lamps running past him, and suddenly he became aware of a vast blackness, darker than the houses, deeper than the sky, coming to meet him. Incredibly huge and sinister, a precipice, a mountain of stone, a nightmare castle whose grim towers were lost in night, closed the long road and barred all progress onward.
It was the North London Prison, hideous by day, frightful by night, the frontier citadel of a land of Death and gloom and shadows.
The doctor left his car and told the man to return in an hour and wait for him.
He stood before a high arched gateway. In this gateway was a door studded with sexagonal bosses of iron. Above the door was a gas-lamp. Hanging to the side of this door was an iron rod terminating in a handle of brass. This was the bell.
A sombre silence hung over everything. The roar of London seemed like a sound heard in a vision. A thin night wind sighed like a ghost in the doctor's ear as he stood before the ultimate reality of life, a reality surpassing the reality of dreams.
He stretched out his arm and pulled the bell.
The smooth and sudden noise of oiled steel bars sliding in their grooves was heard, and then a gentle "thud" as they came to rest. A small wicket door in the great ones opened. A huge sombre figure filled it and there was a little musical jingle of keys.
The visitor's voice was muffled as he spoke. In his own ears it sounded strange.
"I am Dr. Morton Sims," he said. "I have a special permit from the Home Secretary for an interview with the convict Hancock."
The figure moved aside. The doctor stepped in through the narrow doorway. There was a sharp click, a jingle of keys, the thud of the steel bars as they went home and a final snap, three times repeated – snap – snap – snap.
A huge, bull-necked man in a dark uniform and a peaked cap, stood close to the doctor – strangely close, he thought with a vague feeling of discomfort. From an open doorway set in a stone wall, orange-coloured light was pouring from a lit interior. Framed in the light were two other dark figures in uniform.
Morton Sims stood immediately under the gate tower of the prison. A lamp hung from the high groined roof. Beyond was another iron-studded door, and on either side of this entrance hall were lit windows.
"You are expected, sir," said the giant with the keys. "Step this way if you please."
Sims followed the janitor into a bare room, brilliantly illuminated by gas. At the end near the door a fire of coke and coal was glowing. A couple of warders, youngish military-looking men, with bristling moustaches, were sitting on wooden chairs by the fire and reading papers. They rose and saluted as the doctor came in.
At the other end of the room, an elderly man, clean shaved save for short side whiskers which were turning grey, was sitting at a table on which were writing materials and some books which looked like ledgers.
"Good-evening, sir," he said, deferentially, as Doctor Sims was taken up to him. "You have your letter I suppose?"
Sims handed it to him, and pulling on a pair of spectacles the man read it carefully. "I shall have to keep this, sir," he said, putting it under a paper-weight. "My orders are to send you to the Medical Officer at once. He will take you to the condemned cell and do all that is necessary. The Governor sends his compliments and if you should wish to see him after your interview he will be at your service."
"I don't think I shall want to trouble Colonel Wilde, thank you," said the doctor.
"Very good, sir. Of course you can change your mind if you wish, afterwards. But the Governor's time is certainly very much taken up. It always is on the night before an execution. Jones, take this gentleman to the Medical Officer."
Again the cold air, as Morton Sims left the room with one of the warders. Again the sound of sliding bars and jingling keys, the soft closing of heavy doors. Then a bare, whitewashed hall, with a long counter like that of a cloak-room at a railway station, a weighing machine, gaunt anthropometrical instruments standing against the walls, and iron doors on every side – all seen under the dim light of gas-jets half turned down.
"The reception room, sir," said the warder, in a quiet voice, unlocking one of the doors, and showing a long corridor, much better lighted, stretching away for a considerable distance. The man stepped through with the noiseless footfall of a cat. The doctor followed him, and as he did so his boots echoed upon the stone floor. The noise was startling in this place of silence, and for the first time Sims realised that his guide was wearing shoes soled with felt.
They went down the corridor, the warder's feet making a soft padding sound, the steel chain that hung in a loop from his belt of black leather shining in the gas light. Almost at the end of the passage they came to a door – an ordinary varnished door with a brass handle – at which the man rapped.
"Come in," cried a voice.
The warder held the door open. "The gentleman to see Hancock, sir," he said.
The chief prison doctor, a youngish-looking, clean-shaved man, rose from his chair. "Wait in the passage till I call you," he said. "How-do-you-do, Dr. Morton Sims. We had your telephone message some time ago. You are very punctual! Do sit down for a minute."
Sims sank into an armchair, with a little involuntary sigh of relief. The room in which he found himself was comfortable and ordinary. A carpet was on the floor, a bright fire burned upon the hearth, there was a leather-covered writing table with books and a stethoscope upon it. The place was normal.
"My name is Marriott, of 'Barts'," said the medical officer. "Do take off your coat, sir, that fur must be frightfully hot in here and you won't need it until you leave the prison again."
"Thank you, I will," Sims answered, and already his voice had regained its usual calmness, his eyes their steady glow. Anticipation was over, the deep depression was passing away. There was work to be done and his nerves responded to the call upon them. "There is no hitch, I suppose?"
"None whatever. Hancock is waiting for you, and anxious to see you."
"It will be very painful," Sims answered in a thoughtful voice, looking at the fire. "I knew the man in his younger days, poor, wretched creature. Is he resigned?"
"I think so. We've done all we could for him; we always do. As far as I can judge, and I have been present at nine executions, he will die quite calmly. 'I shall be glad when it's over,' he said to me this morning."
"And his physical condition?"
"Just beginning to improve. If I had him here for six months under the second class regulations – I should not certify him for hard labour – I could turn him out in fair average health. He's a confirmed alcoholic subject, of course. It's been a case of ammonium bromide and milk diet ever since his condemnation. For the first two days I feared delirium tremens from the shock. But we tided over that. He'll be able to talk to you all right, sir. He's extremely intelligent, and I should say that the interview should prove of great value."
"He has absolutely refused to see the Chaplain? I read so in to-night's paper."
"Yes. Some of them do you know. The religious sense isn't developed at all in him. It will be all the easier for him to-morrow."
"How