“I wish to see a typical county prison,” said Leon. “What about Baxeter?”
“Baxeter,” said the other in surprise. “That’s rather a long way from London. It doesn’t differ very materially from Wandsworth, which is a few miles from this building, or Pentonville, which is our headquarters prison.”
“I prefer Baxeter,” said Leon. “The fact is I am going to the Devonshire coast, and I could fill in my time profitably with this inspection.”
The order was forthcoming on the next day. It was a printed note authorising the Governor of H.M. Prison, Baxeter, to allow the bearer to visit the prison between the hours of ten and twelve in the morning, and two and four in the afternoon.
They broke their journey at Baxeter, and Leon drove up to the prison, a prettier building than most of its kind. He was received by the Deputy Governor and a tall, good-looking chief warder, an ex-Guardsman, who showed him round the three wings, and through the restricted grounds of the gaol.
Leon rejoined his companion on the railway station just in time to catch the Plymouth express which would carry them to Newton Abbot.
“A thoroughly satisfactory visit,” said Leon. “In fact, it is the most amazingly convenient prison I have ever been in.”
“Convenient to get into or convenient to get away from?” asked Manfred.
“Both,” said Leon.
They had not engaged rooms at either of the hotels. Leon had decided, if it was possible, to get lodgings near to the scene of the tragedy, and in this he was successful. Three houses removed from the corner house where Doctor Twenden was in residence he discovered furnished lodgings were to let.
A kindly rosy-faced Devonshire woman was the landlady, and they were the only tenants, her husband being a gunner on one of His Majesty’s ships, and he was at sea. She showed them a bright sitting-room and two bedrooms on the same floor. Manfred ordered tea, and when the door closed on the woman, he turned to behold Leon standing by the window gazing intently at the palm of his left hand, which was enclosed, as was the other, in a grey silk glove.
Manfred laughed.
“I don’t usually make comments on our attire, my dear Leon,” he said, “and remembering your Continental origin, it is remarkable that you commit so few errors in dress—from an Englishman’s point of view,” he added.
“It’s queer, isn’t it,” said Leon, still looking at his palm.
“But I’ve never seen you wearing silk gloves before,” Manfred went on curiously. “In Spain it is not unusual to wear cotton gloves, or even silk—”
“The finest silk,” murmured Leon, “and I cannot bend my hand in it.”
“Is that why you’ve been carrying it in your pocket,” said Manfred in surprise, and Gonsalez nodded.
“I cannot bend my hand in it,” he said, “because in the palm of my hand is a stiff copperplate and on that plate is half an inch thickness of plastic clay of a peculiarly fine texture.”
“I see,” said Manfred slowly.
“I love Baxeter prison,” said Leon, “and the Deputy Governor is a dear young man: his joy in my surprise and interest when he showed me the cells was delightful to see. He even let me examine the master key of the prison, which naturally he carried, and if, catching and holding his eye, I pressed the business end of the key against the palm of my gloved hand, why it was done in a second, my dear George, and there was nothing left on the key to show him the unfair advantage I had taken.”
He had taken a pair of folding scissors from his pocket and dexterously had opened them and was soon cutting away the silk palm of the glove.
“ ‘How wonderful,’ said I, ‘and that is the master key!’ and so we went on to see the punishment cell and the garden and the little unkempt graves where the dead men lie who have broken the law, and all the time I had to keep my hand in my pocket, for fear I’d knock against something and spoil the impression. Here it is.”
The underside of the palm had evidently been specially prepared for the silk came off easily, leaving a thin grey slab of slate-coloured clay in the centre of which was clearly the impression of a key.
“The little hole at the side is where you dug the point of the key to get the diameter?” said Manfred, and Leon nodded.
“This is the master key of Baxeter Gaol, my dear Manfred,” he said with a smile, as he laid it upon the table. “With this I could walk in—no, I couldn’t.” He stopped suddenly and bit his lip.
“You are colossal,” said Manfred admiringly.
“Aren’t I,” said Leon with a wry face. “Do you know there is one door we can’t open?”
“What is that?”
“The big gates outside. They can only be opened from the inside. H’m.”
He laid his hat carefully over the clay mould when the landlady came in with the tray.
Leon sipped his tea, staring vacantly at the lurid wallpaper, and Manfred did nor interrupt his thoughts.
Leon Gonsalez had ever been the schemer of the Four Just Men, and he had developed each particular of his plan as though it were a story he was telling himself. His extraordinary imagination enabled him to foresee every contingency. Manfred had often said that the making of the plan gave Leon as much pleasure as its successful consummation.
“What a stupid idiot I am,” he said at last. “I didn’t realise that there was no keyhole in the main gate of a prison—except of course Dartmoor.”
Again he relapsed into silent contemplation of the wall, a silence broken by cryptic mutterings.
“I send the wire … It must come, of course, from London … They would send down if the wire was strong enough. It must be five men—no five could go into a taxi—six … If the door of the van is locked, but it won’t be … If it fails then I could try the next night.”
“What on
