Shortly after lunch (a very spare one, by the way, for Polton appeared to include me in the scheme of reduced diet) my expectant ear caught the tinkle of a hansom approaching down Crown Office Row.
“Here comes your fair companion,” said Thorndyke, whom I had acquainted with my arrangements, “Tell Hornby, from me, to keep up his courage, and, for yourself, bear my warning in mind. I should be sorry indeed if you ever had cause to regret that you had rendered me the very valuable services for which I am now indebted to you. Goodbye; don’t keep her waiting.”
I ran down the stairs and came out of the entry just as the cabman had pulled up and flung open the doors.
“Holloway Prison—main entrance,” I said, as I stepped up on to the footboard.
“There ain’t no back door there, sir,” the man responded, with a grin; and I was glad that neither the answer nor the grin was conveyed to my fellow-passenger.
“You are very punctual, Miss Gibson,” I said. “It is not half-past one yet.”
“Yes; I thought I should like to get there by two, so as to have as long a time with him as is possible without shortening your interview.”
I looked at my companion critically. She was dressed with rather more than her usual care, and looked, in fact, a very fine lady indeed. This circumstance, which I noted at first with surprise and then with decided approbation, caused me some inward discomfort, for I had in my mind a very distinct and highly disagreeable picture of the visiting arrangements at a local prison in one of the provinces, at which I had acted temporarily as medical officer.
“I suppose,” I said at length, “it is of no use for me to reopen the question of the advisability of this visit on your part?”
“Not the least,” she replied resolutely, “though I understand and appreciate your motive in wishing to do so.”
“Then,” said I, “if you are really decided, it will be as well for me to prepare you for the ordeal. I am afraid it will give you a terrible shock.”
“Indeed?” said she. “Is it so bad? Tell me what it will be like.”
“In the first place,” I replied, “you must keep in your mind the purpose of a prison like Holloway. We are going to see an innocent man—a cultivated and honourable gentleman. But the ordinary inmates of Holloway are not innocent men; for the most part, the remand cases on the male side are professional criminals, while the women are either petty offenders or chronic inebriates. Most of them are regular customers at the prison—such is the idiotic state of the law—who come into the reception-room like travellers entering a familiar hostelry, address the prison officers by name and demand the usual privileges and extra comforts—the ‘drunks,’ for instance, generally ask for a dose of bromide to steady their nerves and a light in the cell to keep away the horrors. And such being the character of the inmates, their friends who visit them are naturally of the same type—the lowest outpourings of the slums; and it is not surprising to find that the arrangements of the prison are made to fit its ordinary inmates. The innocent man is a negligible quantity, and no arrangements are made for him or his visitors.”
“But shall we not be taken to Reuben’s cell?” asked Miss Gibson.
“Bless you! no,” I answered; and, determined to give her every inducement to change her mind, I continued: “I will describe the procedure as I have seen it—and a very dreadful and shocking sight I found it, I can tell you. It was while I was acting as a prison doctor in the Midlands that I had this experience. I was going my round one morning when, passing along a passage, I became aware of a strange, muffled roar from the other side of the wall.
“ ‘What is that noise?’ I asked the warder who was with me.
“ ‘Prisoners seeing their friends,’ he answered. ‘Like to have a look at them, sir?’
“He unlocked a small door and, as he threw it open, the distant, muffled sound swelled into a deafening roar. I passed through the door and found myself in a narrow alley at one end of which a warder was sitting. The sides of the alley were formed by two immense cages with stout wire bars, one for the prisoners and the other for the visitors; and each cage was lined with faces and hands, all in incessant movement, the faces mouthing and grimacing, and the hands clawing restlessly at the bars. The uproar was so terrific that no single voice could be distinguished, though everyone present was shouting his loudest to make himself heard above the universal din. The result was a very strange and horrid illusion, for it seemed as if no one was speaking at all, but that the noise came from outside, and that each one of the faces—low, vicious faces, mostly—was silently grimacing and gibbering, snapping its jaws and glaring furiously at the occupants of the opposite cage. It was a frightful spectacle. I could think of nothing but the monkey-house at the Zoo. It seemed as if one ought to walk up the alley and offer nuts and pieces of paper to be torn to pieces.”
“Horrible!” exclaimed Miss Gibson. “And do you mean to say that we shall be turned loose into one of these cages with a herd of other visitors?”
“No. You are not turned loose anywhere in a prison. The arrangement is this: each cage is divided by partitions into a
