“He’s cheerful, sir,” replied the gaunt death house guard. “Full of spirit.”
When the door had closed on Keeper Naylor, Mark Telfair spoke. “I’ll tell Martin Smythe the governor’s decision. Herrington’s entitled to have his counsel know what’s going on. Where is Smythe?”
The warden picked up his hand phone. “Get me Martin P. H. Smythe’s house — Ossining exchange,” he directed.
“Isn’t Smythe here?” Mark Telfair asked in surprise. “He wasn’t making any last minute efforts in New York, where the governor conferred with the D. A.”
For the first time a note of cynicism entered the mild voice of the warden. “I am compelled to deduce from the failing interest of Mr. Smythe that Herrington has not confided in him,” he said. “Certainly Smythe doesn’t seem to hope that he’ll, ever learn the location of that fortune. Mr. Smythe is a resident of Ossining — he has a big place here — so he can get down in five minutes.”
The telephone tinkled and Warden Crawford conversed quietly for a minute.
“Mr. Smythe will be here as soon as possible, although he was not pleased at my request,” Crawford reported. “He said his client seemed defiantly determined to die; he saw no way in which he could be of further service.”
Mark Telfair nodded. “Smythe put up an infernally good show at the trial,” he said with reluctant praise. “Glad he knows when he is licked.”
He dragged his stiffening body to his feet and glanced at the clock on the warden’s desk. Ten thirty-nine! Fifty-one minutes remained. “Now if I may do a spot of washing and repair work to my face—” he suggested.
Crawford reached for a glistening silver vacuum bottle which stood upon a tray.
“Let me give you some hot coffee to fortify you for the ordeal,” he suggested. A glass clinked in his unsteady hand against the bottle as he poured out the steaming liquid. When Mark refused it the deputy warden gulped it down eagerly himself.
“An idea of Warden Grant’s,” he explained, as he set down the empty glass. “There are moments in this prison when a man needs a stimulant. I don’t know what I’d do without it — tonight.”
“I’ll have some later — if Herrington leaves us without a word,” Telfair replied grimly. “I’ll need it then.”
When Telfair returned from the lavatory a few moments later he found Naylor, the death house keeper, entering the warden’s office.
Naylor’s lined, unlovely face was a mask of apprehension and perplexity. He shook his head in sombre doubt before he spoke to Telfair.
“Sorry, sir,” he muttered. “I told Herrington — gave him your name, sir. He stopped pacing and he laughed in my face.
“ ‘Telfair, hey?’ he says. ‘Well, Naylor, you say to Mr. Telfair that I’m not at home. Not at home! Tell him that.’ And then he laughs in my face again.”
Warden Crawford snapped to his feet. His hands thumped down on his desk as he bent forward. His eyes blazed at the keeper. Mark Telfair stood still.
“Snow?” the warden demanded curtly. “Did you notice the pupils of his eyes?”
“No, sir,” said the keeper doggedly. “No snow. And the doctor’ll tell you the same. He don’t take it and he couldn’t get it if he wanted it. He’s no junky.”
“Bravado, perhaps,” the warden muttered.
“That’s not it, sir,” Naylor ventured. “Bravado — I know it. Some of ’em — mighty few — even carries it right to the chair. But this is different. He’s been talking to me today — melting, though I didn’t try to rope him. He’s happy, sir.”
“Happy? You mean reconciled to his fate?”
“Happy’s the word I mean,” Naylor asserted stubbornly.
“Remember any of this talk?” Mark Telfair inquired.
“Only this evening he laughs at me when I asks if he wants anything special for supper. ‘Don’t pull that old one on me, Naylor, you fool,’ he says. ‘I’m not checking out of this hotel tonight. You’ll be bringing me breakfast. And when I leave this place some day soon the door I go through won’t be green. Is that clear?’
“And then he clenches his hands and raises one fist and shakes it. ‘ I’ve got ’em licked, Naylor, so quit pulling that glum face at me. But maybe you don’t know anything about what’s going on up above.’
“I’m used to queer talk, but that made me sort of creepy. ‘Up above what?’ I asked him, and he grins and shakes his head. ‘No; I’m not talking about heaven,’ he says. ‘And I’m not figuring on escape, either, so don’t get alarmed. It’ll all be perfectly legal and natural. But just shut up about this, will you?’ ”
Warden Crawford shook his graying head. “ ‘Hope springs eternal—’ ” he murmured unhappily. “How horrible these executions—”
His voice faded.
Naylor waited; glanced from one to the other; then quietly withdrew.
“What do you make of it?” Crawford demanded suddenly.
“Nothing whatsoever,” Mark Telfair replied. He sat down and, pulling out the broken metal rod from his pocket, fingered it absently, staring at the clock. “There isn’t much time to save that five million. I’m going to take a turn outside the gate. Your establishment does not seem to be conducive of thought.”
“Perhaps lack of thinking is just as well here,” the warden replied slowly. “I’ll wait for you.”
Out on the sidewalk a few hundred feet from that unobtrusive entrance Telfair encountered a small squad of reporters hurrying, though without relish, up the slope toward the prison gate. He knew several of them but escaped recognition easily enough, for they were immersed in unpleasant anticipation.
Mark Telfair paused when they had passed and looked up at the dark hills above him. In some secret place not many miles from here was concealed a fortune. Its whereabouts was known only to the man in the condemned cell. Within an hour now that man would be beyond earthly reward or punishment. And if he died without a word a host of unfortunate depositors would get no more good of that money — their money — than he had gotten. They would stand penniless, many of them, in the midst of a merciless depression.
Mark Telfair turned and walked toward the penitentiary gate. As he approached a glossy black limousine drew up before it. A small, round-shouldered fat man with a glowing cigar in his fingers alighted and hurriedly entered the prison. Martin P. H. Smythe, the learned counsel for the man about to die, had arrived. Telfair quickened his step.
As he reached the waiting car Mark Telfair glanced at it. The light over the portal was reflected from its polished surface as from a mirror.
“Counsellor Smythe does himself well,” he muttered.
Suddenly his gaze switched briefly to the chauffeur. The flat, round face of the man, almost yellow in that light, was turned almost away from him. But the man’s narrowed eyes, slightly aslant, was covertly regarding him and his torn trouser leg.
Telfair’s own gaze returned to his feet. As if absently he pulled out of his pocket the broken fender guide rod and fingered it.
The flat-faced man standing by the car froze, with fingers glued to the doorhandle. His eyes focussed with intensity upon the broken bit of metal in Telfair’s hands.
Chapter III
The Enigma
For an imperceptible moment the chauffeur remained rigid, staring. Then his eyes raised and flinched under Telfair’s casual glance. He moved again; closed the door of the car, and climbed stolidly to his seat.
Mark Telfair entered the prison. The first man he saw beyond the guard at the gate was the keeper from the death house, Naylor.