Part 1

Chapter 13,623 wordsPublic domain

Transcriber’s Note

Obvious typos and punctuation errors corrected. Variations in spelling and hyphenation retained.

A small floral decoration appears in most page headers in the original. This decoration has been preserved in the html and ebook versions at the end of chapters. It has not been preserved in the text version.

An illustration in the front matter of a prison door with bars surrounding the book title has been replicated in the text with ascii art.

Italic text is represented by underscores surrounding the _italic text_.

Small capitals in the original have been converted to ALL CAPS in the text.

_The Room with the Little Door_

_By_

_Roland Burnham Molineux_

_G. W. Dillingham Company_

_Publishers_ _New York_

_All Rights Reserved_

_Entered at Stationers Hall_

ISSUED JANUARY, 1903

_The Room with the Little Door_

_To My Father General Edward Leslie Molineux With Reverence_

_CONTENTS_

CHAPTER PAGE

_Introduction_ _17_

_I._ _The Room with the Little Door_ _19_

_II._ _The Little Dead Mouse_ _26_

_III._ _A Forbidden Song_ _30_

_IV._ _The Murderers’ Home Journal_ _34_

_V._ _Fads_ _54_

_VI._ _The Mayor of the Death-Chamber_ _62_

_VII._ _A Psychological Experiment_ _67_

_VIII._ _Me and Mike_ _79_

_IX._ _Old John_ _82_

_X._ _Her Friend_ _94_

_XI._ _Life_ _97_

_XII._ _My Friend the Major_ _99_

_XIII._ _A Dissertation on the Third Degree_ _108_

_XIV._ _It’s Just Like Her_ _145_

_XV._ _Shorty_ _158_

_XVI._ _An Opinion on Expert Opinion_ _180_

_XVII._ _Prologue to a Little Comedy_ _195_

_XVIII._ _Impressions: The Last Night and The _197_ Next Morning_

_XIX._ _Impressions: Dawn in the Death-Chamber_ _208_

_XX._ _Impressions: While the Jury is Out_ _211_

_XXI._ _Impressions: The Friendship of _234_ Imagination_

_XXII._ _The Last Story_ _241_

_XXIII._ _The Story of the Ring, by Vance _243_ Thompson_

_Introduction_

Most of the following is true, or founded on truth. A few are waifs—products of my imagination; little stories that came into my mind from time to time. Some of them are from letters written home while I was confined in the Tombs Prison in New York City, and in the Death-Chamber at Sing Sing.

In them I have not inflicted myself to any great extent upon the reader. Herein is chiefly what I saw when trying to look upon the bright side. There are also glimpses of the side which cannot be made bright, look at it as one may.

But if anything in these pages leads some one to think of what must be endured in either place, let me say, that no suffering was ever willingly caused by the officials with whom I came in contact during my “banishment,” and I take this opportunity to thank them all, without exception, for their consideration, sympathy, and unvarying kindness to me and mine.

_The Room with the Little Door_

_CHAPTER I_

_The Room with the Little Door_

There are few who can describe life in the Death-Chamber at Sing Sing. The officials can, but will not. Visitors there are few; and most of us who know it so well, come and go like our predecessors, saying nothing afterwards about our experiences, for an excellent reason.

The corridor in the Death-Chamber is not large. Ten cells for the condemned men face it, most of them on one side. Their inmates are not supposed to see much of each other. When one of our number walks in the corridor for exercise, curtains are drawn down in front of all the cells, and we see upon them what our fellow-inmate often resembles—a shadow. A shadow, and a voice which calls to us, that is his identity. There are no windows in these cells; three sides are solid wall; their fronts face the corridor, and are barred like cages. In them one can easily imagine himself a bear in a menagerie, even to the sore head that animal is afflicted with more or less occasionally. In front of the bars and curtains are wire nettings to keep our visitors from coming too near us. There are no hand-clasps, no kisses. The corridor and cells constitute the Death-Chamber. It has two doors; an entrance—few of the condemned ever use that door for any other purpose; and an exit—a final one—leading into the Execution Room and to the “Chair.”

It is very light indeed in the Death-Chamber. Glass skylights by day, and gas and electric light by night, throw their beams into every corner of our cages of steel and stone. There is no privacy. The guards pace up and down night and day, always watching. There is no sound while they do this, as their shoes, like ours, are soled with felt. It is like living, eating, sleeping, and bathing in a search-light. It is like being alive, yet buried in a glass coffin. We enter the front door; exist for a year or so, and then go out through the “little door,” as we call it, some morning to a very welcome release. From the moment we arrive the monotony begins, and continues always, broken now and then by such excitement as a half hour’s exercise in the corridor, the weekly bath and shave, and, best of all, a visit, which must be from some member of our immediate family. We see our guest through those miserable bars and netting which divide us. A keeper must hear everything we say. These things are all that ever happen in that chamber of death, except greeting new arrivals, and saying good-by now and then to a fellow we have suffered with. No newspapers come to us, but books from the excellent library, as many as one wants, are supplied. We receive our mail after it has been opened and read, provided it is thought proper for us to have it. If the letter contains the news we are all awaiting—the final news—it is improper. That information is kept from one as long as possible. All the tobacco is provided. It is called “State.” It puts you in a “state” when you first attempt to smoke it. No clock ticks in that room, and none is needed, because the value of time and its relation to affairs is eliminated. Enough for us in there that it is either day or night. What do we care about the hour? To us time is just an endless waiting without expectancy. Imagine it for yourself. Each second seems an hour long—and we are kept in there for years.

This is the life we lead, and who would care to speak or write of such an existence? Is there anything to tell about this living death—this sort of noiseless purgatory in which, as the months go by, past experiences, the hopes and fears and happinesses which were, grow fainter and fainter, till, like the future, they inspire us with nothing but indifference, leaving only the present to be endured?

Yet there is one thing here which interests us intensely; which is before us all the time, and which some day will close behind us. On one side is life—such as it is—on the other instant death.

To pass through will be an experience surely. It is seldom opened; I have observed it so just seven times; but when it is ajar—things happen. Whenever we look out of our cages we see it; we close our eyes—we still see it. When exercising in the corridor one passes and repasses it; though we walk away, we know we are going towards it. Thinking by day and dreaming by night, it is always with us, and irresistible is its fascination. All else here is insignificant; and to us the Death-Chamber is but “The Room with the Little Door.”

_CHAPTER II_

_“The Little Dead Mouse”_

It would seem impossible for any one to escape from the Death-Chamber. But there is a story of one man who refused to stay, and who, under the very eyes of his keepers, without any privacy or apparatus, manufactured the poison with which he ended his life; for that is almost the only way you can end your stay in the Death-Chamber.

The man’s crime, his history, does not affect this story, but his personality does. He was the quietest man of all; and men who are waiting death are usually quiet men. A German by nationality, very gentle, almost affectionate one would think, from the fact that he caught and tamed a small mouse to which he seemed devoted. Now a mouse is a rare thing within the precinct of which I speak, for stone and steel do not offer it the crevices it affects. But the German—he was called “Professor” because he wore glasses—had asked when he arrived if any mice had been tamed. “You can teach them tricks,” he said. He used to sleep all day, and at night very patiently lay and watched the bread crumbs he scattered on the floor. He did this for months; and at last the great event occurred. Can you guess what he used for a trap? His stocking. He did teach the mouse tricks. He taught it to eat meat out of his hand, which was not difficult, and to come when he called, which was. It slept with him. This took patience. Remember, he had no string with which to tie it, and had to keep it under his drinking cup at first to prevent its running away.

Time went by. Winter changed to summer, and with that season came a letter to the “Professor” and a death warrant to the warden. This was for the “Professor” also; that is, it was to be read to him, and—was it sympathy, or what? Death came to the little mouse at that time. I suppose that every man would confess that it is disturbing to receive the news that he must go through the “little door” in the Death-Chamber into the beyond, and so it affected the “Professor,” philosopher though he undoubtedly was. Perhaps it was not the news, but the loss of his little friend; perhaps it was both; at any rate the “Professor” took to his bed. The prison doctor came, winked at the keeper, and said, “Fright; let him alone.” So they let the “Professor” alone, and the “Professor” died; but when they went into the cell, they found the cause of his illness had not been fright at all. It was erysipelas. Over his breast were long scratches, deep as little teeth could make them (we have no pins in the Death-Chamber), and flattened down on them and tightly bound lay the putrid remains of “the little dead mouse.”

_CHAPTER III_

_A Forbidden Song_

Sometimes in the evenings, the Death-Chamber seemed quite a different place, and we all forgot our _ennui_ because some one started a song. I have heard good singing there, and some of us understood music. So when “Eddy,” with his really good tenor, would start up something we all knew, books would close and pipes go out, and we all would join in and sing ourselves out of the blues.

What did we sing? Everything, from “America,” with special gusto at the “Sweet land of liberty” part, to the last popular song whose strains had been wafted to our “desert island.” How we sang! When we could not remember or did not know the words we sang on just the same. Hours have actually speeded that way, when we happened to be in the mood, and we were all the better for it. Did I say we sang everything? No, not everything. There were strong men there, determined men, who had done and would do desperate things. But there was one song ever in our minds and in our hearts that never came to our lips, and which not one of us would have dared even to hum. Not a voice could have trembled through had it started. Every one thought of it; no one ever suggested it. You know the one I mean.

One night when we were through an especially good concert (I had sung a solo) some one shouted out “Police!” Now, of course, not one of us wanted to have anything further to do with that department. It was only our way of calling for a “light.” We have no matches in the Death-Chamber; there is phosphorus in them, and you might—. So when George, our keeper, had come to my cage with the burning paper spill, and when my pipe was going cheerfully, I said: “George, music certainly does affect the emotions, but under some circumstances, I imagine, it could make one quite blue. Did you ever notice that?”

“I should say so,” was the reply. “I remember once starting a song here that was never finished for that same reason.”

“What was it?” said I, turning away, for I knew the answer before it came.

“It was ---- ---- ----.”

“Damn this tobacco! the smoke gets into my eyes.”

_CHAPTER IV_

_The Murderers’ Home Journal_

No newspapers were allowed in the Death-Chamber, therefore the longing for them among its inmates may be imagined. But the law that supply always follows demand, was operative even within the walls of the “dead house,” and properly so; for had we not all become intimately acquainted with Law? Therefore we had a newspaper of our own.

Let me tell you of the happy days (happily past) when I was editor-in-chief and proprietor of “The Murderers’ Home Journal,” sometimes lovingly referred to as “The Dead House Squealer.” The public will never turn over a file of its pages, but they may read here some extracts from its columns. As to the paper itself, it was as artistic as black and blue pencils could make it. We all contributed what and when we pleased. It appeared when convenient, and as nothing was charged for advertisements or subscriptions, no wonder it prospered. Every one in our community read it and read no other. It contained real poetry, jokes—what jokes!—essays on our neighbors’ behavior, and news—_local_ news, together with advertisements which simply compelled attention. The letters therein to the editor-in-chief left nothing to the imagination. And the leaders—ah, I wrote them! How proudly I referred to myself as “we”! Sometimes I used a pencil almost as blue as myself, never a pen—a vein can be opened with a pen.

Every proprietor admires and praises his own publication, and I shall proceed to “Munsey” mine. I can say without egotism, since it is but imperfectly expressed justice, that there has never been another newspaper “approaching” it. “Old Sol” does not affect the Death-Chamber; no sun shone on it, so of course we could not “see it in the ‘Sun’”; but we were as up to date in our own affairs as the “Times” permitted, as sensational in local matters as all the “yellows” combined; nothing in the “World” got ahead of our “Journal” in this respect. Having no “News” we invented it, just as do the newspapers for which you pay, but we never had to take anything back. The “Tribune” from which it issued was my cage, and I, the editor-in-chief, remained as deaf as a “Post” to all abuse (I am used to it). As for a “Press,” we had none. It was printed by my tired fingers. The illustrations were alluring, and though we received neither “Telegram” nor “Mail and Express,” yet we never forgot a text to “Herald” our first column. It was always the same one—“Damn the Jury.” Its politics were “sound.” (All politics are that.) We opposed the government with a capital O, and that institution responded with the only practical solution for restraining the license of modern journalism—it killed the editors. I can truthfully say that it cost me a great deal of money to escape even as far as the “Tombs.” Many of my unfortunate associates have also “passed away” to similar places, and I wish some reporters I know of could be assigned to interview them.

I pass over all the local news which appeared in the “Murderers’ Home Journal.” Such announcements as “John, the Greek, has come back for nineteen years—foolish John!” “Bill Newfeldt caught a mouse in his sock last night—poor thing!” Such as the above, and the chronicled fact that Doctor Sam’s office hours in the morning were from twelve A.M. to twelve P.M., and in the afternoon from twelve P.M. to twelve A.M. (in spite of this he had no “patients”), or a brilliantly worded “ad” advising the reader to take “Molineux’s Bromo-Seltzer”; all these were replete with absorbing interest to us, but not to you.

It was when the “divine afflatus” came upon us, as had the influenza the month previous—we all had it—that you might be interested. Many and varied were the verses that deluged the editorial sanctum; jingles, triolets, lyrics, epigrams, and of course the very first offered was—there, you have guessed it—“Spring.” I give it just as it came to me, leaving it for you to decide whether it be humorous or pitiful.

SPRING IN THE DEATH-CHAMBER.

Sweet Spring is here, and we all know it too, But not, alas, as outside poets do. Here are no birds, or flowers, or murmuring stream, Our Spring arrives—when they turn off the steam.

This is a touching song by some true lover of dumb animals, written upon an occasion when one of them insisted upon sharing his couch:

MY RAT.

I love my rat so tenderly, He is so gentle, don’t you see? He guards my slumbers every night, To keep me from the slightest fright. No lions or ferocious bears Can steal upon me unawares, For there is such a noise in here ’Twould fill their cruel hearts with fear. I love my rat, if he should die Great tears of anguish I would cry.

Here is a particularly admired effort. It appealed to every member of our community on account of its spirited and militant sentiment. They say I wrote it. Undoubtedly it will appear in evidence against me in case of a new trial—hearsay evidence is “great stuff”:

DAWN.

When morning comes, and Joe pounds on the bar, Calling me back from happy dreamland far; Although “they say” that two were killed by me, How I regret I cannot make it _three_!

The following admirable pastoral was written by a gentleman with a longing for the delights of rural life—or life of any other kind:

MY ONION.

I love to see my onion grow And send its shoots up in the air. It is a homely plant, I know, But yet its stalks are green and fair.

They say the rose would smell as If called by any other name, And so to make my joy complete; A rose and onion are the same.

For you may call it what you like, By any name that’s long or small, And though you smell all day and night, The onion has no smell at all.

This is wilful peevishness: the protest of some professional kicker:

MY SOCKS.

My feet are number seven, but the law says I must wear A pair of socks that are five sizes small; That’s why I cry aloud and dance and at the keepers swear, And on the State the wrath of Heaven call.

I wish the Sheriff, Governor, the Judge and President And the Jury were all here behind the locks; And that ministers of justice would their living long prevent, For my toes are packed like sardines in a box.

From one of those detestable individuals who wants everything:

THE BARBER.

The barber with his little chair comes every Saturday, And after he has shaved us all, he vanishes away. And once a month he cuts our hair; oh, what an hour of pride! He cuts so much and well that we all want to go outside. But when I asked the keeper kind (My, I was awful bold!), “No, no,” he said, “just see your head, I fear you would catch cold.”

SULKY ROLIE.

I go to Sing Sing public school, Where naughty boys are sometimes sent, Receiving as a general rule A goodly share of punishment.

I try so hard to do what’s right, I study long and never play; Why then have I this wretched plight That they should “keep me in” all day?

It is natural for a man to strive for perpetual success; but we, who are to lose our lives, should bear lesser misfortunes with greater fortitude than is expressed by this poet. The editor is not in sympathy with his contributor:

CHESS.

When I play chess with other boys, It’s one of all my dearest joys To hear them rant and storm and tear, If by my skilfulness and care They should the losers be. Sometimes I am not feeling well, Since I the “honest truth” must tell, And though you would not think they’d dare, I’m walloped well. Gosh! how I swear! If they should checkmate me.

In an early issue a gem of an epigram appeared, and straightway epigrams became the mode—we all affected them. The vogue was hard while it lasted. A dozen times a day I was assured over the wireless telephone (Nature’s) that Bill or Mike or another had a “bird” for the next issue. Here are some of them.

This one was the “first offence.” If you like it, it is mine; but of course if any one is going to get mad about it, then another fellow, one of the dead ones, was its author. Is not its sentiment exquisite?

AN EPITAPH WHICH CANNOT BE USED TOO SOON.

Here lies a judge, whose last words I indite: “I’ll go to Heaven—I’ll go this very night.” He died as with himself he yet conversed; _As usual_—his decision was reversed.

Another of great beauty and singularly apt. I have a shrewd suspicion that it refers to the same person:

TO A VERY LEARNED JUDGE.

His Honor is wrong, in error, unwise. He blunders in every case that he tries; With “Wisdom” he will not compromise. So I asked him the reason why. The judge replied, after due reflection, “To ‘Wisdom’ I have a good objection: She had nothing to do with my election.” “I agree with you,” said I.