said. “Who is he?”
“Where have you hidden Philip Vinci?”
“You don’t suppose if I knew where he was I’d tell you, do you?” sneered Jones.
“If you know, you certainly will tell me,” answered Leon quietly, “but I fancy it is going to be a long job. Perhaps in thirty-six hours’ time? George, will you take the first watch? I’m going to sleep on that very comfortable bed, but first,” he groped at the back of the bath and found a strap and this he passed round the body of his prisoner, buckling it behind the chair, “to prevent you falling off,” he said pleasantly.
He lay down on the bed and in a few minutes was fast asleep. Leon had that gift of sleeping at will, which has ever been the property of great commanders.
Jones looked from the sleeper to the veiled man who lounged in an easy chair facing him. Two eyes were cut in the veil, and the watcher had a book on his knee and was reading.
“How long is this going on?” he demanded.
“For a day or two,” said Manfred calmly. “Are you very much bored? Would you like to read?”
Mr. Jones growled something unpleasant, and did not accept the offer. He could only think and speculate upon what their intentions were. He had expected violence, but apparently no violence was intended. They were merely keeping him prisoner till he spoke. But he would show them! He began to feel tired. Suddenly his head drooped forward, till his chin touched his breast.
“Wake up,” said Manfred shortly.
He awoke with a start.
“You’re not supposed to sleep,” explained Manfred.
“Ain’t I?” growled the prisoner. “Well, I’m going to sleep!” and he settled himself more easily in the chair.
He was beginning to doze when he experienced an acute discomfort and drew up his feet with a yell. The veiled man was directing a stream of ice-cold water upon his unprotected feet, and Mr. Jones was now thoroughly awake. An hour later he was nodding again, and again the tiny hosepipe was directed to his feet, and again Manfred produced a towel and dried them as carefully as though Mr. Jones were an invalid.
At six o’clock in the morning, red-eyed and glaring, he watched Manfred rouse the sleeping Leon and take his place on the bed.
Again and again nature drew the big man’s chin down to his chest, and again and again the icy stream played maddeningly upon him and he woke with a scream.
“Let me sleep, let me sleep!” he cried in helpless rage, tugging at the strap. He was half-mad with weariness, his eyes were like lead.
“Where is Philip Vinci?” demanded the inexorable Leon.
“This is torture, damn you—” screamed the man.
“No worse for you than for the boy locked up in a room with four days’ supply of food. No worse than slitting a man’s face with a penknife, my primitive friend. But perhaps you do not think it is a serious matter to terrify a little child.”
“I don’t know where he is, I tell you,” said Spaghetti hoarsely.
“Then we shall have to keep you awake till you remember,” replied Leon, and lit a cigarette.
Soon after he went downstairs and returned with coffee and biscuits for the man, and found him sleeping soundly.
His dreams ended in a wail of agony.
“Let me sleep, please let me sleep,” he begged with tears in his eyes. “I’ll give you anything if you’ll let me sleep!”
“You can sleep on that bed—and it’s a very comfortable bed too—” said Leon, “but first we shall learn where Philip Vinci is.”
“I’ll see you in hell before I’ll tell you,” screamed Spaghetti Jones.
“You will wear your eyes out looking for me,” answered Leon politely. “Wake up!”
At seven o’clock that evening a weeping, whimpering, broken man, moaned an address, and Manfred went off to verify this information.
“Now let me sleep!”
“You can keep awake till my friend comes back,” said Leon.
At nine o’clock George Manfred returned from Berkeley Square, having released a frightened little boy from a very unpleasant cellar in Notting Hill, and together they lifted the half-dead man from the bath and unlocked the handcuffs.
“Before you sleep, sit here,” said Manfred, “and sign this.”
“This” was a document which Mr. Jones could not have read even if he had been willing. He scrawled his signature, and crawling on to the bed was asleep before Manfred pulled the clothes over him. And he was still asleep when a man from Scotland Yard came into the room and shook him violently.
Spaghetti Jones knew nothing of what the detective said; had no recollection of being charged or of hearing his signed confession read over to him by the station sergeant. He remembered nothing until they woke him in his cell to appear before a magistrate for a preliminary hearing.
“It’s an extraordinary thing, sir,” said the gaoler to the divisional surgeon. “I can’t get this man to keep awake.”
“Perhaps he would like a cold bath,” said the surgeon helpfully.
The Man Who Was Acquitted
“Have you ever noticed,” said Leon Gonsalez, looking up from his book and taking off the horn-rimmed glasses he wore when he was reading, “that poisoners and baby-farmers are invariably mystics?”
“I haven’t noticed many baby-farmers—or poisoners for the matter of that,” said Manfred with a little yawn. “Do you mean by ‘mystic’ an ecstatic individual who believes he can communicate directly with the Divine Power?”
Leon nodded.
“I’ve never quite understood the association of a superficial but vivid form of religion with crime,” said Leon, knitting his forehead. “Religion, of course, does not develop the dormant criminality in a man’s ethical system; but it is a fact that certain criminals develop a queer form of religious exaltation. Ferri, who questioned 200 Italian murderers, found that they were all devout: Naples, which is the most religious city in Europe, is also the most criminal. Ten percent of those inmates of British prisons who are tattooed are marked with religious symbols.”
“Which only means that when a man of low intelligence submits to the
