CHAPTER III.

THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOUR OF THE PRISON OFFICIALS.

Although Mankell was ushered in by the chief warder, he was in actual charge of Warder Slater. The apartment into which he was shown was not that in which prisoners ordinarily interviewed the governor. There a cord, stretched from wall to wall, divided the room nearly in half. On one side stood the prisoner, with the officer in charge of him; on the other sat the governor. Here there was no cord. The room--which was a small one--contained a single table. At one end sat Mr. Paley, on his right sat Major Hardinge, the chaplain stood at his left, and just behind the Major sat Dr. Livermore. Mankell was told to stand at the end which faced the governor. A momentary pause followed his entrance--all four pairs of eyes were examining his countenance. He for his part bore himself quite easily, his eyes being fixed upon the governor, and about the corners of his lips hovered what was certainly more than the suspicion of a smile.

"I have sent for you," Mr. Paley began, "because I wish to ask you a question. You understand that I make no charge against you, but--do you know who has been tampering with the locks of the cells?"

The smile was unmistakable now. It lighted up his saturnine visage, suggesting that here was a man who had an eye--possibly almost too keen an eye--for the ridiculous. But he gave no answer.

"Do you hear my question, Mankell? Do you know who has been tampering with the locks of the cells?"

Mankell extended his hands with a little graceful gesture which smacked of more southern climes.

"How shall I tell you?"

"Tell the truth, sir, and don't treat us to any of your high faluting."

This remark came from the Major--not in too amiable a tone of voice.

"But in this land it would seem that truth is a thing that wise men shun. It is for telling the truth that I am here."

"We don't want any of your insolence, my man! Answer the governor's question if you don't want to be severely punished. Do you know who has been playing hanky-panky with the cells?"

"Spirits of the air."

As he said this Mankell inclined his head and looked at the Major with laughter in his eyes.

"Spirits of the air! What the devil do you mean by spirits of the air?"

"Ah! what do I mean? To tell _you_ that," laying a stress upon the pronoun, "would take a year."

"The fellow's an insolent scoundrel," spluttered the Major.

"Come, Mankell, that won't do," struck in Mr. Paley. "Do I understand you to say that you do know something about the matter?"

"Know!" The man drew himself up, laying the index finger of his right hand upon the table with a curiously impressive air. "What is there that I do not know?"

"I see. You still pretend, then, to the possession of magic powers?"

"Pretend!" Mankell laughed. He stretched out his hands in front of him with what seemed to be his favourite gesture, and laughed--in the face of the authorities.

"Suppose you give us an example of your powers?"

The suggestion came from the doctor. The Major exploded.

"Don't talk stuff and nonsense! Give the man three days' bread and water. That is what he wants."

"You do not believe in magic, then?" Mankell turned to the Major with his laughing eyes.

"What's it matter to you what I believe? You may take my word for it that I don't believe in impudent mountebanks like you."

The only reply Mankell gave was to raise his hand--if that might be called a reply--in the way we sometimes do when we call for silence, and there was silence in the room. All eyes were fixed upon the prisoner. He looked each in turn steadily in the face. Then, still serenely smiling, he gently murmured, "If you please."

There still was silence, but only for a moment. It was broken by Warder Slater. That usually decorous officer tilted his cap to the back of his head, and thrust his hands into his breeches pockets--hardly the regulation attitude in the presence of superiors.

"I should blooming well like to know what this means! 'Ere have I been in this 'ere jail eleven years, and I've never been accused before of letting men out of their night-cells, let alone their beds and bedding, and I don't like it, so I tell you straight."

The chief warder turned with automatic suddenness towards the unexpectedly and unusually plain-spoken officer.

"Slater, you're a fool!"

"I'm not the only one in the place! There's more fools here besides me, and some of them bigger ones as well!"

While these compliments were being exchanged, the higher officials sat mutely looking on. When the chief warder seemed at a loss for an answer, the chaplain volunteered a remark. He addressed himself to Warder Slater.

"It's my opinion that the governor's a bigger fool than you are, and that the inspector's a still bigger fool than he is."

"And it's my belief, Mr. Hewett," observed the doctor, "that you're the biggest fool of all."

"It would serve him right," remarked the governor, quietly, "if somebody were to knock him down."

"Knock him down! I should think it would--and kick him too!"

As he said this the Major glared at the chaplain with threatening eyes.

There was silence again, broken by Warder Slater taking off his cap and then his tunic, which he folded up carefully and placed upon the floor, and turning his shirt-sleeves up above his elbows, revealing as he did so a pair of really gigantic arms.

"If any man says I let them men out of the cells, I'm ready to fight that man, either for a gallon of beer or nothing. I don't care if it's the inspector, or who it is."

"I suspect," declared the chaplain, "that the inspector's too great a coward to take you on, but if he does I'm willing to back Slater for half-a-crown. I am even prepared to second him."

Putting his hands under his coat-tails, the chaplain looked up at the ceiling with a resolute air.

"If you do fight Slater, Hardinge, I should certainly commence by giving the chaplain a punch in the eye."

So saying, the governor leaned back in his chair, and began drumming on the table with the tips of his fingers. The doctor rose from his seat. He gave the inspector a hearty slap on the back.

"Give him beans!" he cried. "You ought to be able to knock an over-fed animal like Slater into the middle of next week before he's counted five."

"I've no quarrel with Slater," the inspector growled, "and I've no intention of fighting him; but as the chaplain seems to be so anxious for a row, I'll fight him with the greatest pleasure."

"If there's goin' to be any fighting," interposed the chief warder, "don't you think I'd better get a couple of sponges and a pail of water?"

"I don't know about the sponges," said the governor; "I don't fancy you will find any just at hand. But you might get a pail of water, I think."

The chief warder left the room.

"I'm not a fighting man," the chaplain announced; "and in any case, I should decline to soil my hands by touching such an ill-mannered ruffian as Major Hardinge."

"I say," exclaimed the doctor, "Hardinge, you're not going to stand that?"

The Major sprang from his seat, tore off his coat, and flung it on to the ground with considerably less care than Warder Slater had done. He strode up to the chaplain.

"Beg my pardon, or take a licking!"

The Major clenched his fists. He assumed an attitude which, if not exactly reminiscent of the pets of the fancy, was at least intended to be pugilistic. The chaplain did not flinch.

"You dare to lay a finger on me, you bullying blackguard."

The Major did dare. He struck out, if not with considerable science, at any rate with considerable execution. The chaplain went down like a log. At that moment the chief warder entered the room. He had a pail of water in his hand. For some reason, which was not altogether plain, he threw its contents upon the chaplain as he lay upon the floor.

While these--considering the persons engaged--somewhat irregular proceedings had been taking place, Mankell remained motionless, his hand upraised--still with that smile upon his face. Now he lowered his hand.

"Thank you very much," he said.

There was silence again--a tolerably prolonged silence. While it lasted, a change seemed to be passing over the chief actors in the scene. They seemed to be awaking, with more or less rapidity, to the fact that a certain incongruity characterised their actions and their language. There stood Warder Slater, apparently surprised and overwhelmed at the discovery that his hat and coat were off, and his shirtsleeves tucked up above his elbows. The chief warder, with the empty pail in his hand, presented a really ludicrous picture of amazement. He seemed quite unable to realise the fact that he had thrown the contents over the chaplain. The inspector's surprise appeared to be no less on finding that, in his pugilistic ardour, he had torn off his coat and knocked the chaplain down. The doctor, supporting him in the rear, seemed to be taken a little aback. The governor, smoothing his hair with his hand, seemed to be in a hopeless mist. It was the chaplain, who rose from the floor with his handkerchief to his nose, who brought it home to them that the scene which had just transpired had not been the grotesque imaginings of some waking dream.

"I call you to witness that Major Hardinge has struck me to the ground, and the chief warder has thrown on me a pail of water. What conduct may be expected from ignorant criminals when such is the behaviour of those who are in charge of them, must be left for others to judge."

They looked at one another. Their feelings were momentarily too deep for words.

"I think," suggested the governor, with quavering intonation, "I think--that this man--had better--be taken away."

Warder Slater picked up his hat and coat, and left the room, Mankell walking quietly beside him. Mr. Murray followed after, seeming particularly anxious to conceal the presence of the pail. Mr. Hewett, still stanching the blood which flowed from his nose, fixed his eyes on the inspector.

"Major Hardinge, if, twenty-four hours after this, you are still an Inspector of Prisons, all England shall ring with your shame. Behind bureaucracy--above it--is the English press." The chaplain moved towards the door. On the threshold he paused. "As for the chief warder, I shall commence by indicting him for assault." He took another step, and paused again. "Nor shall I forget that the governor aided and abetted the inspector, and that the doctor egged him on."

Then the chaplain disappeared. His disappearance was followed by what might be described as an abject silence. The governor eyed his colleagues furtively. At last he stammered out a question.

"Well, Major, what do you think of this?"

The Major sank into a chair, expressing his thoughts by a gasp. Mr. Paley turned his attention to the doctor.

"What do you say, doctor?"

"I say?--I say nothing."

"I suppose," murmured the Major, in what seemed to be the ghost of his natural voice, "that I did knock him down?"

The doctor seemed to have something to say on that point, at any rate.

"Knock him down!--I should think you did! Like a log of wood!"

The Major glanced at the governor. Mr. Paley shook his head. The Major groaned. The governor began to be a little agitated.

"Something must be done. It is out of the question that such a scandal should be allowed to go out into the world. I do not hesitate to say that if the chaplain sends in to the commissioners the report which he threatens to send, the situation will be to the last degree unpleasant for all of us."

"The point is," observed the doctor--"are we, collectively and individually, subject to periodical attacks of temporary insanity?"

"Speaking for myself, I should say certainly not."

Dr. Livermore turned on the governor.

"Then perhaps you will suggest a hypothesis which will reasonably account for what has just occurred." The governor was silent. "Unless you are prepared to seek for a cause in the regions of phenomena."

"Supposing," murmured the Major, "there is such a thing as witchcraft after all?"

"We should have the Psychical Research Society down on us, if we had nobody else, if we appended our names to a confession of faith." The doctor thrust his thumbs into his waistcoat arm-holes. "And I should lose every patient I have."

There was a tapping at the door. In response to the governor's invitation, the chief warder entered. In general there was in Mr. Murray's bearing a not distant suggestion of an inflated bantam-cock or pouter-pigeon. It was curious to observe how anything in the shape of inflation was absent now. He touched his hat to the governor--his honest, rubicund, somewhat pugnacious face, eloquent of the weight that was on his mind.

"Excuse me, sir. I said he was a witch."

"Your saying that he was a witch--or wizard," remarked the governor, dryly, "will not, I fear, be sufficient excuse, in the eyes of the commissioners, for your throwing a pail of water over the chaplain."

"But a man's not answerable for what he does when he's bewitched," persisted the chief warder, with characteristic sturdiness.

"It is exactly that reflection which has constrained me to return."

They looked up. There was the chaplain standing in the doorway--still with his handkerchief to his nose.

"Mr. Murray, you threw a pail of water over me. If you assert that you did it under the influence of witchcraft, I, who have myself been under a spell, am willing to excuse you."

"Mr. Hewett, sir, you yourself know I was bewitched."

"I do; as I believe it of myself. Murray, give me your hand." The chaplain and the chief warder solemnly shook hands. "There is an end of the matter as it concerns us two. Major Hardinge, do I understand you to assert that you too were under the influence of witchcraft?"

This was rather a delicate inquiry to address to the Major. Apparently the Major seemed to find it so.

"I don't know about witchcraft," he growled; "but I am prepared to take my oath in any court in England that I had no more intention of striking you than I had of striking the moon."

"That is sufficient, Major Hardinge. I forgive you from my heart. Perhaps you too will take my hand."

The Major took it--rather awkwardly--much more awkwardly than the chief warder had done. When the chaplain relinquished it, he turned aside, and picking up his coat, began to put it on--scarcely with that air of dignity which is proper to a prison inspector.

"I presume," continued Mr. Hewett, "that we all allow that what has occurred has been owing to the malign influence of the man Oliver Mankell?"

There was silence. Apparently they did not all allow it even yet: it _was_ a pill to swallow.

"Hypnotism," muttered the doctor, half aside.

"Hypnotism! I believe that the word simply expresses some sort of mesmeric power--hardly a sufficient explanation in the present case."

"I would suggest, Major Hardinge," interposed the governor, "all theorising aside, that the man be transferred to another prison at the earliest possible moment."

"He shall be transferred to-morrow," affirmed the Major. "If there is anything in Mr. Hewett's suggestion, the fellow shall have a chance to prove it--in some other jail. Oh, good Lord! Don't! He's killing me! Help--p!"

"Hardinge!" exclaimed the doctor; "what's the matter now?"

There seemed to be something the matter. The Major had been delivering himself in his most pompously official manner. Suddenly he put his hands to the pit of his stomach, and began to cry out as if in an ecstacy of pain, his official manner altogether gone.

"He'll murder me! I know he will!"

"Murder you? Who?"

"Mankell."

"Oddly enough, I too was conscious of a very curious sensation."

As he said this, the governor wiped the cold dew of perspiration from his brow. He seemed unnaturally white. As he adjusted his spectacles, there was an odd, tremulous appearance about his eyes.

"It was because you spoke of transferring him to some other jail." The chaplain's tone was solemn. "He dislikes the idea of being trifled with."

The Major resented the suggestion.

"Trifled with? He seems uncommonly fond of trifling with other people. Confound the man! Oh--h!"

The Major sprang from the floor with an exclamation which amounted to a positive yell. They looked each other in the face. Each man seemed a little paler than his wont.

"Something must be done," the governor gasped.

The chaplain made a proposition.

"I propose that we summon him into our presence, and inquire of him what he wishes us to do."

The proposition was not received with acclamation. They probably felt that a certain amount of complication might be expected to ensue if such inquiries began to be addressed to prisoners.

"I think I'll go my rounds," observed the doctor. "This matter scarcely concerns me. I wish you gentlemen well out of it."

He reached out his hand to take his hat, which he had placed upon a chair. As he did so, the hat disappeared, and a small brown terrier dog appeared in its place. The dog barked viciously at the outstretched hand. The doctor started back just in time to escape its teeth. The dog disappeared--there was the hat again. The appearance was but momentary, but it was none the less suggestive on that account. The doctor seemed particularly affected.

"We must have all been drinking, if we are taking to seeing things," he cried.

"I think," suggested the chaplain, almost in a whisper, "that we had better inquire what it is he wishes us to do." There was silence. "We--we have all clear consciences. There--there is no reason why we should be afraid."

"We're--we're not afraid," gasped the governor. "I--I don't think you are entitled to infer such a thing."

The Major stammeringly supported him.

"Of--of course we--we're not afraid. The--the idea is preposterously absurd."

"Still," said the doctor, "a man doesn't care to have hanky-panky tricks played with his top hat."

There was a pause--of considerable duration. It was again broken by the chaplain.

"Don't you think, Mr. Paley, that we had better send for this man?" Apparently Mr. Paley did.

"Murray," he said, "go and see that he is sent here."

Mr. Murray went, not too willingly--still he went.