Johnny Gray smiled.
“You won’t see me here!” he emphasised the word. “As to Jeff Legge, I know little about him, though I’ve done some fairly fluent guessing and I’ve heard a lot.”
The chaplain shook his head thoughtfully.
“I have heard a little; he’s the man they call the Big Printer, isn’t he? Of course, I know all about the flooding of Europe with spurious notes, and that the police had failed to catch the man who was putting them into circulation. Is that Jeff Legge?”
Johnny did not answer, and the chaplain smiled a little sadly. “Thou shalt not squeak – the eleventh commandment, isn’t it?” he asked good-humouredly. “I am afraid I have been indiscreet. When does your sentence end?”
“In six months,” replied Johnny, “and I’ll not be sorry.”
“What are you going to do? Have you any money?”
The convict’s lips twitched.
“Yes, I have three thousand a year,” he said quietly. “That is a fact which did not come out at the trial, for certain reasons. No, padre, money isn’t my difficulty. I suppose I shall travel. I certainly shall not attempt to live down my grisly past.”
“That means you’re not going to change your name,” said the chaplain with a twinkle in his eye. “Well, with three thousand a year, I can’t see you coming here again.” Suddenly he remembered. Putting his hand in his pocket, he took out a letter. “The Deputy gave me this, and I’d nearly forgotten. It arrived this morning.”
The letter was opened, as were all letters that came to convicts, and Johnny glanced carelessly at the envelope. It was not, as he had expected, a letter from his lawyer. The bold handwriting was Peter Kane’s – the first letter he had written for six months. He waited until the door had closed upon the visitor, and then he took the letter from the envelope. There were only a few lines of writing.
‘Dear Johnny, I hope you are not going to be very much upset by the news I am telling you. Marney is marrying Major Floyd, of Toronto, and I know that you’re big enough and fine enough to wish her luck. The man she is marrying is a real good fellow who will make her happy.
Johnny put down the letter on to the ledge, and for ten minutes paced the narrow length of his cell, his hands clasped behind him. Marney to be married! His face was white, tense, his eyes dark with gloom. He stopped and poured out a mugful of water with a hand that shook, then raised the glass to the barred window that looked eastward.
“Good luck to you, Marney!” he said huskily, and drank the mug empty.
Chapter II
Two days later, Johnny Gray was summoned to the Governor’s office and heard the momentous news.
“Gray, I have good news for you. You are to be released immediately. I have just had the authority.”
Johnny inclined his head.
“Thank you, sir,” he said.
A warder took him to a bathroom, where he stripped, and, with a blanket about him, came out to a cubicle, where his civilian clothes were waiting. He dressed with a queer air of unfamiliarity, and went back to his cell. The warder brought him a looking-glass and a safety-razor, and he completed his toilet.
The rest of the day was his own. He was a privileged man, and could wander about the prison in his strangely-feeling attire, the envy of men whom he had come to know and to loathe; the half madmen who for a year had been whispering their futilities into his ear.
As he stood there in the hall at a loose end, the door was flung open violently, and a group of men staggered in. In the midst of them was a howling, shrieking thing that was neither man nor beast, his face bloody, his wild arms gripped by struggling warders.
He watched the tragic group as it made its way to the punishment cells.
“Fenner,” said somebody under his breath. “He coshed a screw, but they can’t give him another bashing.”
“Isn’t Fenner that twelve-year man, that’s doing his full time?” asked Johnny, remembering the convict. “And he’s going out tomorrow, too!”
“That’s him,” said his informant, one of the hall sweepers. “He’d have got out with nine, but old Legge reported him. Game to the last, eh? They can’t bash him after tomorrow, and the visiting justices won’t be here for a week.”
Johnny remembered the case. Legge had been witness to a brutal assault on the man by one of the warders, who had since been discharged from the service. In desperation the unfortunate Fenner had hit back, and had been tried. Legge’s evidence might have saved him from the flogging which followed, but Legge was too good a friend of the warders – or they were too good friends of his – to betray a “screw.” So Fenner had gone to the triangle, as he would not go again.
He could not sleep the last night in the cell. His mind was on Marney. He did not reproach her for a second. Nor did he feel bitter toward her father. It was only right and proper that Peter Kane should do what was best for his girl. The old man’s ever-present fear for his daughter’s future was almost an obsession. Johnny guessed that when this presentable Canadian had come along, Peter had done all in his power to further the match.
Johnny Gray walked up the steep slope for the last time. A key turned in the big lock, and he stood outside the gates, a free man. The red-bearded head warder put out his hand.
“Good luck to you,” he said gruffly. “Don’t you come over the Alps again.”
“I’ve given up mountain climbing,” said Johnny.
He had taken his farewell of the Governor, and now the only thing to remind him of his association with the grim prison he had left was the warder who walked by his side to the station. He had some time to wait, and Johnny tried to get some information from another angle.
“No, I don’t know Jeff Legge,” said the warder, shaking his head. “I knew the old man: he was here until twelve months ago – you were here, too, weren’t you, Gray?”
Johnny nodded.
“Mr. Jeff Legge has never been over the Alps, then?” he asked sardonically.
“No, not in this prison, and he wasn’t in Parkhurst or Portland, so far as I can remember. I’ve been at both places. I’ve heard the men talking about him. They say he’s clever, which means that he’ll be putting out his tins one morning. Goodbye, Gray, and be good!”
Johnny gripped the outstretched hand of the man, and, when he was in the carriage, took out his silk handkerchief and wiped his hand of the last prison contact.
His servant was waiting for him at Paddington when he arrived that afternoon, and with him, straining at a leash, a small, lop-eared fox terrier, who howled his greeting long before Johnny had seen the group. In another second the dog was struggling in his arms, licking his face, his ears and his hair, and whining his joy at the reunion. There were tears in Johnny’s eyes when he put the dog down on the platform.
“There are a number of letters for you, sir. Will you dine at home?”
The excellent Parker might have been welcoming his master from a short sojourn at Monte Carlo, so very unemotional was he.
“Yes, I’ll dine at home,” said Johnny. He stepped into the taxicab that Parker had hired, and Spot leapt after him.
“There is no baggage, sir?” asked Parker gravely through the open window.
“There is no baggage,” said