“Well, Mr. Falmouth,” he said lightly, “we enter upon the second and more serious act of the drama.”
“I don’t know whether I’m glad or sorry,” said Falmouth bluntly.
“You ought to be glad,” said Manfred with his quizzical smile. “For you’ve vindicated—”
“Yes, I know all about that,” said Falmouth dryly, “but it’s the other part I hate.”
“You mean—?”
Manfred did not complete the question.
“I do—it’s a hanging job, Mr. Manfred, and that is the hateful business after the wonderful work you’ve done for the country.”
Manfred threw back his head, and laughed in unrestrained amusement.
“Oh, it’s nothing to laugh about,” said the plainspoken detective, “you are against a bad proposition—the Home Secretary is a cousin of Ramon’s, and he hates the very name of the Four Just Men.”
“Yet I may laugh,” said Manfred calmly, “for I shall escape.”
There was no boastfulness in the speech, but a quiet assurance that had the effect of nettling the other.
“Oh, you will, will you?” he said grimly. “Well, we shall see.”
There was no escape for Manfred in the dozen yards or so between his cell door and the prison van. He was manacled to two warders, and a double line of policemen formed an avenue through which he was marched. Not from the van itself that moved in a solid phalanx of mounted men with drawn swords. Nor from the gloomy portals of Wandsworth Gaol where silent, uniformed men closed round him and took him to the triple-locked cell.
Once in the night, as he slept, he was awakened by the sound of the changing guard, and this amused him.
If one had the space to write, one could compile a whole book concerning Manfred’s life during the weeks he lay in gaol awaiting trial. He had his visitors. Unusual laxity was allowed in this respect. Falmouth hoped to find the other two men. He generously confessed his hope to Manfred.
“You may make your mind easy on that point,” said Manfred; “they will not come.”
Falmouth believed him.
“If you were an ordinary criminal, Mr. Manfred,” he said smilingly, “I should hint the possibilities of King’s evidence, but I won’t insult you.”
Manfred’s reply staggered him.
“Of course not,” he said with an air of innocence; “if they were arrested, who on earth would arrange my escape?”
The Woman of Gratz did not come to see him, and he was glad.
He had his daily visits from the governor, and found him charmingly agreeable. They talked of countries known to both, of people whom each knew equally well, and tacitly avoided forbidden subjects. Only—
“I hear you are going to escape?” said the governor, as he concluded one of these visits. He was a largely built man, sometime Major of Marine Artillery, and he took life seriously. Therefore he did not share Falmouth’s view of the projected escape as being an ill-timed jest.
“Yes,” replied Manfred.
“From here?”
Manfred shook his head solemnly.
“The details have not yet been arranged,” he said with admirable gravity. The governor frowned.
“I don’t believe you’re trying to pull my leg—it’s too devilishly serious a matter to joke about—but it would be an awkward thing for me if you got away.” He was of the prisoner’s own caste and he had supreme faith in the word of the man who discussed prison-breaking so lightheartedly.
“That I realize,” said Manfred with a little show of deference, “and I shall accordingly arrange my plans, so that the blame shall be equally distributed.”
The governor, still frowning thoughtfully, left the cell. He came back in a few minutes.
“By the way, Manfred,” he said, “I forgot to tell you that you’ll get a visit from the chaplain. He’s a very decent young fellow, and I know I needn’t ask you to let him down lightly.”
With this subtle assumption of mutual paganism, he left finally.
“That is a worthy gentleman,” thought Manfred.
The chaplain was nervously anxious to secure an opening, and sought amidst the trivialities that led out of the conventional exchange of greetings a fissure for the insertion of a tactful inquiry.
Manfred, seeing his embarrassment, gave him the chance, and listened respectfully while the young man talked, earnestly, sincerely, manfully.
“N—no,” said the prisoner after a while, “I don’t think, Mr. Summers, that you and I hold very different opinions, if they were all reduced to questions of faith and appreciation of God’s goodness—but I have got to a stage where I shrink from labelling my inmost beliefs with this or that creed, or circumscribing the boundless limits of my faith with words. I know you will forgive me and believe that I do not say this from any desire to hurt you, but I have reached, too, a phase of conviction where I am adamant to outside influence. For good or ill, I must stand by the conceptions that I have built out of my own life and its teachings.
“There is another, and a more practical reason,” he added, “why I should not do you or any other chaplain the disservice of taking up your time—I have no intention of dying.”
With this, the young minister was forced to be content. He met Manfred frequently, talking of books and people and of strange religions.
To the warders and those about him, Manfred was a source of constant wonder. He never wearied them with the recital of his coming attempt. Yet all that he said and did seemed founded on that one basic article of faith: I shall escape.
The governor took every precaution to guard against rescue. He applied for and secured reinforcements of warders, and Manfred, one morning at exercise seeing strange faces amongst his guards, bantered him with over-nervousness.
“Yes,” said the Major, “I’ve doubled the staff. I’m taking you at your word, that is all—one must cling tight to the last lingering shreds of faith one has in mankind. You say that you’re going to escape, and I believe you.” He thought a moment, “I’ve studied you,” he added.
“Indeed?”
“Not here,” said the governor, comprehending the prison in a sweep of his hand, “but outside—read about you and thought about you and a little
