“You’re bluffing, Johnny Gray. We’ve got a fellow here who was in boob with you, and he says you’re the biggest bluffer that ever lived. You don’t know anything.”
“I know almost everything,” said Johnny immodestly. “For instance, I know you’ve got a young lady in the cell below. How’s she doing?”
The man was taken aback for a moment.
“Who told you?” he asked suspiciously. “Nobody else has been here, have they?”
“Nobody at all. It is part of my general knowledge. Now listen, Bill. How are you treating that lady? And your life hangs on your answer – don’t forget it.”
“She’s all right,” said Bill casually. “They’ve given her the condemned cell, with a bathroom and all, and a proper bed – not like yours. And you can’t scare me, Gray.”
“I’ll bet I can’t,” said Johnny. “Bring me some water.”
But the water was not forthcoming, and it was dark before the man made his reappearance. Johnny listened at the door; he was coming alone. Johnny pulled up the leg of his trousers and showed those suspenders which were Parker’s pride. But they were not ordinary suspenders. Strapped to the inside of the calf was a small holster. The automatic it carried was less than four inches in length, but its little blunt-nosed bullets were man-stoppers of a peculiarly deadly kind.
The door swung open, and Bill stepped in.
“Jeff’s back—” he began, and then: “Step in, and step lively,” said Johnny.
His arm had shot out, and the pistol hand of the jailer was pinned to his side.
“This gun may look pretty paltry, but it would blow a square inch out of your heart, and that’s enough to seriously inconvenience you for the remainder of your short life.” With a turn of his wrist he wrenched the revolver from the man’s grasp. “Sit over there,” he said. “Is anybody in the hall?”
“For God’s sake, don’t let Jeff see you. He’ll kill me,” pleaded the agitated prisoner.
“I’d hate for him to do that,” said Johnny. He peeped out into the hall: it was empty, and he went back to his prisoner. “Stand against the wall. I’m going to give you the twice-over.”
His hands searched quickly but effectively. The key he was putting in his pocket when he noticed the design of the ward. “Passkey, I fancy. Now, don’t make a fuss. Bill, because you’ll be let out first thing in the morning, and maybe I’ll have a good word to say for you at the Oxford Assizes. There’s something about you that I like. Give me the simple criminal, and the Lord knows you’re simple enough!”
He stepped out of the cell, snapped the lock of the door, and, keeping in the shadow, walked swiftly along the gallery until he came to the open stairway on to the floor below.
The hall was untenanted. Apparently Bill was the only jailer. He had reached the floor when the door at the end of the hall opened and somebody came in. He flattened himself in one of the recessed cell doorways. Two men entered, and one, he guessed, was Jeff. One, two, three, four – the fourth door from the end. That was Marney’s door, immediately under his own. He saw Jeffrey stop, heard the too-familiar grind of the lock, and his enemy disappeared, leaving the second man on guard outside.
If Jeffrey had made an attempt to close the door behind him, Johnny would have shot down the guard and taken the consequences. But the man was absent for only a few minutes. When he came out, he was shouting incoherently threats that made the hair rise on Johnny Gray’s neck. But they were only threats.
The hall door closed on Jeffrey Legge and Johnny moved swiftly to No. 4. As the door opened, the girl shrank back against the wall.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried.
“Marney!”
At the sound of his voice she stood, rooted to the spot. The next second she was laughing and weeping in his arms.
“But, Johnny, how did you get here?… where were you?… you won’t leave me?”
He soothed her and quietened her as only Johnny Gray could. “I’ll stay… I think this fellow will come back. If he does, he will wish he hadn’t!” And Jeffrey came. As the grip of strong hands closed on his throat, and the hateful voice of his enemy came to his ears, Johnny’s prophecy was justified.
Chapter XXXII
For a second Legge was paralysed with rage and fear. Then, in the wildness of his despair, he kicked at the man, who had slipped from the bed and was holding him. He heard an exclamation, felt for a second the fingers relax; and, slipping like an eel from the grasp, flew to the door and closed it. He stood, breathless and panting by the doorway, until he heard the sound of steel against the inner keyhole, and in a flash realised that Johnny had secured the passkey. Quick as lightning, he slipped his own key back into the lock and turned it slightly, so that it could not be pushed out from the other side.
Johnny Gray! How had he got there? He fled up the stairs and hammered on the door of the cell where he thought his prisoner was held safe. A surly voice replied to him.
“You swine!” he howled. “You let him go! You twister! You can stay there and starve, damn you!”
“I didn’t let him go. He held me up. Look out, Jeff, he’s got a gun.”
The news staggered the man. The search of Johnny’s clothing had been of a perfunctory nature, but he had thought that it was impossible that any kind of weapon could have been concealed.
“Let me out, guv’nor,” pleaded the prisoner. “You’ve got a key.”
There was a third key in his house, Jeffrey remembered. Perhaps this man might be of use to him. He was still weak from his wound, and would need assistance.
“All right, I’ll get the key. But if you shopped me—”
“I didn’t shop you, I tell you. He held me up—”
Legge went back to his room, found the key, and, taking another stiff dose of whisky, returned and released his man.
“He’s got my gun, too,” explained Bill. “Where are all the fellows? We’ll soon settle with him.”
“They’ve gone,” said Jeffrey.
What a fool he had been! If he had had the sense to keep the gang together only for a few hours – But he was safe, unless Johnny found a means of getting through the window.
“In my room you’ll find a pistol; it is in the top right-hand corner of my desk,” he said quickly. “Take it and get outside Johnny’s cell – on the yard side. If he tries to escape that way, shoot. Because, if he escapes, you’re going a long journey, my friend.”
Inside the cell, a chagrined Johnny Gray sat down on the girl’s bed to consider the possibilities of the position.
“My dear, there’s going to be serious trouble here, and I don’t want you to think otherwise,” he said. “I should imagine there were quite a number of men in this prison, in which case, though I shall probably get two or three of them, they’ll certainly get me in the end.”
She sat by his side, holding his hand, and the pressure of her fingers was eloquent of the faith she had in him.
“Johnny, dear, does it matter very much what happens now? They can’t come in, and we can’t get out. How long will it take to starve us to death?”
Johnny had already considered that problem.