“Since Naylor was more friendly with Herrington than the other keepers I’ve let him off this job,” the warden muttered in Mark Telfair’s ear. “Sent him downtown to get me some aspirin — I want to sleep tonight.”
He passed a hand over his forehead. Telfair nodded. His eyes were fixed upon the door in the wall — the portal to eternity for a murderer who was an enigma to him.
The door in the wall opened. Several men entered slowly, as if walking were an unendurable exertion. For an instant Charles Herrington was inconspicuous among them. Then, of a sudden, the eyes in the death chamber picked him out. They raked him from his wooden face to the bottom of his trouser legs, slit to make the fastening of the electrodes more rapid and sure.
Like a well rehearsed actor, Herrington walked toward the chair. But his head turned; his hot, gleaming eyes searched the chamber. Men nervously avoided those eyes that hunted for something — for someone.
Herrington sat down in the chair. With visible haste straps were buckled, the copper instruments fitted to his legs. The keepers stepped back. An inconspicuous sign was made.
Suddenly Charles Herrington sat bolt upright; eyes terribly alive, face no longer wooden. He strained against the straps.
“This has gone far enough!” he snapped. “I warn you—”
Suddenly his body was flung against the bonds about him with a convulsive strength that was far beyond human power. A dynamo was whining near by. The hiss and audible flash of high tension current — the blue snake that strikes with blasting, deathly power — crackled in the chamber.
Chapter V
Telfair Goes for a Ride
While flinching men were still listening for Herrington’s words the man uttering them was a corpse.
Charles Herrington was dead — with his lips still parted. There was more to be gone through — another shock to be given — but that was mere precaution.
Mark Telfair and the warden left the chamber; sought the open air.
“Perhaps if the signal had not been given he might have spoken,” Warden Crawford muttered.
“The governor’s orders were explicit,” Mark Telfair replied bitterly. “Once he left his cell — but I still hoped, Warden. Horrible as that scene was, it is nothing compared to what the people he robbed will go through, some perhaps for the rest of their lives. Three suicides so far. And he might have saved them with a few words about the hiding place.”
“They’ll say anything at that last moment — when hope flickers out — when they feel the chill of death,” Crawford replied solemnly. “But he waited too long. You heard him try to stop us.”
He quoted solemnly:
“ ‘This has gone far enough. I warn you—’ Do you suppose he thought we were bluffing, Telfair? Did he feel that we would never execute him while he held the secret of his huge booty?”
“That’s one of the things I’m going to find out,” Mark Telfair replied doggedly. “Herrington’s finished — but I’m not!”
Warden Crawford glanced obliquely at the tall young man.
“You sense a mystery,” he said. “So do I. If I can help—”
“I’d like a look at the things in his cell.”
“I’ll arrange it as soon as—”
“I understand,” said Mark Telfair. “Meanwhile, we have news for Smythe.”
The dead man’s attorney was slumped in a chair in the warden’s office. He had a cigar in his mouth; the tip just glowing. He did not speak as they entered.
“It’s all over,” said the warden.
Smythe’s fat right hand took the cigar from his mouth. “I’m glad it’s all over!” he muttered with a gusty sigh.
“Over!” repeated Telfair sharply. “Where’s the five million?”
Neither man answered.
Approaching the desk, Crawford motioned toward the vacuum bottle. No one moved. The warden searched among the papers lying on the desk top.
“Didn’t Naylor leave a packet here for me?” he asked petulantly. “I sent him for some aspirin — and I do need it!”
“Nobody’s come in while I’ve been here,” Martin P. H. Smythe answered slowly. He heaved himself up out of the chair. “I’m going home. I hope you gentlemen on the state’s side are now satisfied.”
“He should be back by this time,” the warden muttered, ignoring the remark. “Naylor’s a reliable man. I hope he hasn’t gone off on a drunk. They do sometimes.”
He looked up at the lawyer. “Has your chauffeur reported his return?” he inquired. “I took the liberty of asking him to drive Naylor to town — I wanted that stuff rather badly, you see.”
“Mitchell should be outside,” Smythe replied. “I’m going now. Come out and ask him about Naylor if you wish.”
In the corridor a small group of silent newspaper men were being passed out of the prison. They vanished as they had come, hurriedly, in the direction of the town.
The three men approached the grille and the keeper swung the door open.
Smythe’s limousine was just drawing up at the curb. Chink Mitchell sprang out, saluting the warden rather than his master. His flat face was expressionless.
“Didn’t you bring Naylor back?” Warden Crawford asked.
“No, sir; he said he’d hoof — walk back,” the ex-convict replied. “And he lammed before I could give him an argument. I hung around — I waited for him all this time, sir — but I didn’t see him.”
“Huh!” muttered Crawford. “Did he say anything about wanting a drink?”
Mitchell’s eyes blinked.
“He didn’t talk to me, sir — except to say he was walking back,” he replied with dogged emphasis. “I dropped him at a drug store he pointed out.”
Warden Crawford turned away. “I’ll get some aspirin from the doctor, though I dislike to bother him,” he said irritably. “It’s extraordinary that a man like Naylor should take advantage of my decency in letting him off that job tonight. Good night, Mr. Smythe. Coming inside, Telfair?”
Mark’s eyes were upon the hand of the chauffeur, which held open the car door. There was a smudge of black paint upon one finger.
Mark searched for his cigarette case. “I’ll join you in a few moments, Warden,” he replied, and then added in a lower voice: “And I’ll be much obliged if in the meantime you’ll arrange that I may see all Herrington’s effects.”
“I’ll have them ready for you,” Crawford promised, and with a nod to the lawyer turned in at the gate.
“ ’Night!” muttered Martin P. H. Smythe. The springs of the limousine creaked as he stepped on the running board. Chink Mitchell closed the door on him, saluted Mark Telfair meticulously, and mounted his seat. The motor leaped into action.
Mark Telfair stood at the curb, cigarette case in hand, near the rear fender of the car. And then, as the car moved, he swung his pain-racked body into swift action. With a thrust of his hands he gripped the big spare tire in its holder at the back of the car. The machine lunged ahead. In another instant his feet were planted solidly on the projecting fuel tank and he was crouching below the level of the rear window.
The car hummed up the grade, accelerating in second speed. Mark Telfair turned his head to stare backward at the prison entrance. There was no one in sight behind him.
It was, as Warden Crawford had said, no more than five minutes’ run from the mass misery of the penitentiary to the quiet luxury of the estate of Martin P. H. Smythe. To Mark Telfair, riding the gas tank, it seemed longer. Every instant he expected a car to come up behind the limousine and with blazing headlights expose him. But Chink Mitchell kept the glossy black machine flying, and no car appeared, even in the distance.