Day shook Folger’s hand and introduced himself. The little man clutched a sheaf of file folders. “The prisoners,” he said. “The ones who’ve gone missing.”
“Four of them?”
“Perhaps.”
“But there’s an irregularity, correct?”
“There is.”
“What sort?”
“Well.” Folger was warming up now, his expression grim, but his body animated. “I can account for four men. The four we know about. Or at least tell you who they are, what to look for.” He was clearly anxious to help and, Day was sure, anxious to avoid as much personal embarrassment as possible.
“But there’s something unusual about one of them?”
“No,” Folger said. “I mean, yes. But not one of the four. It’s just that I think there was a fifth man.”
“So you’ve indicated to my commissioner.”
“See here now,” the warden said. “I’ve already explained it to you, Folger. You’ve made a mistake. There’s no reason to go about-”
“Please,” Day said. “Perhaps it’s a mistake, perhaps not, but I’d like to hear what he has to say, if you don’t mind.”
“Well, sir, there’s one empty cell in the next wing that confuses me.”
“How so?”
“There’s evidence of habitation.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t properly cleaned after the last prisoner there left it,” the head warder said. “As I said, we do have shirkers among the men.”
“Quite so,” Day said. “But if there was someone in that cell last night, that prisoner is also missing. In addition to these in here, that would make five men gone, not four.”
“It might appear so,” Munt said. “But my thinking is that the cell was probably always empty.”
“You and Mr Folger seem to disagree on the facts. I’d like to hear more from him.”
The warden threw up his arms and walked several steps away down the corridor toward where the doctor was huddled over the dead warder. But Day noted that he had remained just close enough to be able to hear anything Folger told them.
“Go on, sir,” Day said.
“Right,” Folger said. He glanced at his employer. “Yes. Well. A fifth man. I think there was one, in that cell. But I don’t know who he was. That’s the irregularity, you see?”
“You’ve lost the missing man’s file?”
“No. I never had his file.”
Day shook his head, confused, not sure what question to ask next. Behind him, he could hear the low murmur of words as the warden talked to Dr Bickford-Buckley. Short snatches of their conversation drifted to him. “. . it’s a shame. . overzealous, is all. .” Day narrowed his eyes as if that might help him eavesdrop, but Folger mistook his expression for irritation and held up his free hand.
“The fifth man wasn’t a prisoner here,” he said. “Or, rather, we don’t know if he was a. . We don’t know who he was, that’s all.”
“Are you saying that someone broke in to the prison right before the others broke out of it? And then left again with the escapees?”
“Well, I know that doesn’t make any sense at all, but I can’t think of another explanation.”
“Why are you so sure there was anyone in that empty cell?”
“I have records indicating that meals were taken there. Regular meals over the course of the past two days.”
“Is it possible one of the warders was stealing food?”
“Well, I suppose it’s possible. But I don’t know why he would. The warders are fed much better meals than the prisoners are. It’s not as if they’re starving, you know.”
Day took a moment to consider. An extra meal or two delivered to an empty cell was a curious thing, but it was hardly proof that a mystery man had invaded the prison.
“We know for a certainty that there are four men who escaped,” he said. “That is correct?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me anything about them?”
“Oh, a great deal.” Folger seemed relieved to have something definitive and constructive to offer. He cleared his throat and opened the topmost folder in the little stack he was carrying. “Let’s see, over here, we had a man named Hoffmann.” He pointed at one of the empty cells. “Quite deviant. Seems he fell in love with his cousin and murdered her young gentleman friend to get him out of the way.”
“Is that all?” Hammersmith said. “That’s obviously deviant enough, of course, but we’ve seen men-”
“Oh, but he didn’t stop at that. He blinded the poor girl and tried to pose as the fiancé he had murdered, somehow thinking she wouldn’t know the difference.”
“Ah,” Hammersmith said. “Yes, that is strange.”
“I would imagine he’d go back to try to reconcile with the girl now,” Folger said. “He was completely obsessed with her. Talked of nothing else.”
Day and Hammersmith gave each other a look. Hammersmith drew his pad of paper and pen from his jacket pocket and made a note. The clerk had given them a solid lead in finding one of the missing men.
“And here,” Folger went on, pointing to a cell on the other side of the corridor. “Well, that’s a dead man in there, so we can close his file. But then next to him”-he pointed at the next cell in the row-“next to him we had Napper. Nasty little fellow. Followed a man from the Strand at the end of a workday, entered his home right behind him, and immediately killed him. Then he spent days with the man’s wife, alone in the house, before finally being caught.”
“What did he do to her?” Day said.
“Why, he ate her,” Folger said. He moved on to the next empty cell and so failed to see the expression on Day’s face. “And on the other side again, these two cells side by side, we had a bit of a John Doe.”
“You don’t have a name for him?”
“No. Never did. But he’s been in and out of institutions like this nearly his entire life. Family all killed when he was a child, and the boy was found living with their bodies, completely unaware that they were dead. Isn’t that odd?”
“Um, yes,” Day said.
“After that he started sneaking into people’s attics and hiding until they were asleep. He’d creep out at night, kill them. The whole family, I mean, kill them all and live in the house. He was found serving food to a family of rotting corpses the last time and eventually brought here.”
“But you don’t know his name?”
“He’s never spoken. Completely mute.”
“You must have called him something.”
“Well, some of the warders and the other inmates called him by a buggy sort of name. Some insect. Let me see here.” Folger looked through his file, then looked up at Day and smiled. “Oh, yes. Well, it makes perfect sense. They called him the Harvest Man after the species of spider. You know, it lives in attics. Quite an appropriate moniker, I suppose.”
“Yes,” Day said. “And what about this cell?” He indicated the last empty cell in the row.
“That one was. . let me see. Ah, his name is Cinderhouse.” Folger looked up from his stack of files at Day. “Oh, it seems you’re familiar with his history.”
“We’ve met.”
“You arrested him.”
“After he went to my home and threatened my wife.”
“And after he abducted a child,” Hammersmith said.
“And after he killed several other children and two good policemen,” Day said.
“Well, it looks like you’ll have to arrest him all over again,” Folger said. “I remember interviewing him. I didn’t think he seemed particularly dangerous.”
“He was dangerous enough,” Hammersmith said. “He just wasn’t very smart.”
10
Jack heard footsteps coming in the dark, wet shoes slapping the ground, someone moving quickly. It wasn’t the doctor; the doctor hadn’t visited him in days. And it wasn’t the policeman. This was someone new, a gait he didn’t recognize. Whoever it was, he was alone. Jack kept his muscles loose, his breath hot and steady under the canvas hood, and he listened. The footsteps slowed and then stopped as the stranger neared the opening of Jack’s cell.
“Isn’t this exciting?” Jack raised his voice so that the stranger would hear him. “I haven’t had a new visitor in quite some time.”