A PERSISTENT BELIEF
Vaniman was indicted; he was tried; he was convicted; he was sentenced
to serve seven years in the state prison. He refused to allow Squire
Hexter to appeal the case. He had no taste for further struggle
against the circumstantial evidence that was reinforced by perjury.
His consciousness of protesting innocence was subjugated by the morose
determination to accept the unjust punishment.
The general opinion was that he was a very refractory young man because
he would not disclose the hiding place of the gold.
Even the warden of the prison had some remarks to make on that subject.
The chaplain urged Vaniman to clear his conscience and do what he could
to aid the distressed inhabitants of a bankrupt town. This conspiracy of
persistent belief in his guilt put a raw edge on his mental suffering.
His only source of solace was the weekly letter from Vona. Her fortitude
seemed to be unaffected; her loyalty heartened him. And after a time
hope intervened and comforted him; although Vaniman had only a few
friends on the job for him in Egypt, he reflected that Tasper Britt
had plenty of enemies who would operate constantly and for the indirect
benefit of Britt's especial victim. The young man felt that accident
might disclose the truth at any time. But every little while he went
through a period of acute torture; he had a wild desire to break out of
his prison, to be on the ground in Egypt, to go at the job of unmasking
Britt as only a man vitally interested in the task could go at it!
Sometimes his frenzy reached such a height that it resembled the
affliction that pathologists call claustrophobia. He stamped to and fro
in his cell, after the bolts had been driven for the night; he lamented
and he cursed, muffling his tones. And a man named Bartley Wagg, having
taken it upon himself to keep close tabs on Vaniman's state of mind,
noted the prisoner's rebellious restlessness with deepening interest and
coupled a lot of steady pondering with his furtive espionage.
Wagg was a prison guard.
After Vaniman was committed, Wagg complained of rheumatism and asked the
warden to transfer him from the wall where he had been doing sentry-go
with a rifle and give him an inside job as night warder. And the warden
humored Wagg, who was a trusted veteran.
Wagg made regular trips along the cell tiers during the night. He padded
as noiselessly as a cat, for he had soles of felt on his shoes. Many
times, keeping vigil when his emotions would not allow him to sleep,
Vaniman saw Wagg halt and peer through the bars of the cell. The
corridor light showed his face. But Wagg did not accost the prisoner.
The guard acted like a man who, whatever might be his particular
interest in Vaniman, proposed to take plenty of time in getting
acquainted.
Once, after midnight, Wagg found the prisoner pacing; Vaniman dared to
relieve his feelings by groans, for the chorus of snores served as a
sound-screen.
“Sick?” inquired the guard, whispering.
“No.”
“If you ever are, don't be afraid to call on me when I pass. I've got a
good heart.”
“Thank you!”
“I've really got too good a heart to be tied up to a prison job,”
volunteered Wagg. “I hate to see sorrow.”
“Sorrow is about all you have a chance to see in this place.”
“Yes,” admitted the guard, sliding away.
The warden had given Vaniman a bookkeeper's job. But the prison office
was a gloomy place and the windows were hatefully barred Through the
bars he could see convict toilers wheeling barrows of dirt. They were
filling up a lime-quarry pit within the walls. In the old days convicts
had quarried lime rocks. But in the newer days of shops the quarry was
abandoned and had been gradually filled with stagnant water. When the
prison commissioners decided that the pool was a menace to health, a
crew was set at work filling the pit. Vaniman envied the men who could
work in the sunshine. He was everlastingly behind bars; the office was
not much better than his cell. The bars shut him away from opportunity
to make a man's fight for himself. Every time he looked at a window he
was reminded of his helplessness. It seemed to him that if he could get
out into the sunshine and toil till his muscles ached he would be able
to endure better the night of confinement in the cell.
He blurted out that much of confession to Wagg when the guard discovered
him pacing in the narrow space a few nights later.
“I sympathize!” whispered Wagg. “I know all about your case!” Then Wagg
passed on.
The next night he halted long enough to say that, knowing all about
the case from what the newspapers printed, he realized just why Vaniman
found it so tough to be locked up.
Then Wagg refrained from saying anything for several nights. The
prisoner was quite sure that the guard had something on his mind outside
of a mere notion of being polite; in the case of Wagg, so hardened a
veteran, politeness to a prisoner would have been heresy. Wondering just
what Wagg was driving at, Vaniman found the guard's leisurely methods
tantalizing in the extreme. One night the prisoner ventured to take the
initiative; he stuck out his hand to signal the guard.
Wagg, it was manifest, was not so much a master of facial control that
he could suppress all signs of satisfaction. He looked pleased--like a
man who had employed tactics that were working according to plans and
hopes.
“Sick?”
“Yes--heart and soul! Body, too! Isn't there any way of my getting a job
wheeling that dirt?”
Wagg made his noiseless getaway. He departed suddenly, without a word.
Until the next night Vaniman was left to wonder to what extent he had
offended the official.
But Wagg showed no signs of unfriendliness when he halted, after
midnight, at the cell door. “Feel any better?”
“No!”
“I reckon I understand. Of course I understand! Most of 'em that's in
here haven't anything special to look forward to when they get out. Your
case is different. Everything to look forward to! No wonder you walk the
cell.”
On he slid, silently.
Vaniman had read the _Arabian Nights_ tales, as they were divided in
the literal translation. He reflected whimsically on the methods of
the story-teller who, “having said her permitted say,” was wont to stop
right in the middle of a sentence for the sake of piquing interest in
what was to follow.
The next night the prisoner's interest was heightened into real
amazement. Wagg stuck his hand through the bars and waggled it
invitingly.
“Take it!” he urged, sibilantly.
For a dizzy instant Vaniman was moved by the expansive hope that his
plight had appealed to this man; he hastened to take what Wagg offered.
It was a small cube of something.
“Eat it!” said the guard.
Holding it close to his face, to make an inspection in the dim light,
the young man caught the scent of the cube. It was a piece of soap. He
made sure by putting it to his nose.
“Just a little at a time--what you can stomach,” Wagg urged. He passed
on.
But Vaniman did not obey; he was unable to comprehend what this sort of
fodder signified; he broke the cube into bits, thinking that a saw might
be hidden. It was only soap--common soap. He put the bits away in the
portfolio he was allow to have in his cell.
Wagg was a bit testy the next night when Vaniman confessed that he had
not eaten any of the soap.
“You've got to show absolute confidence in me--do what I tell you to
do,” insisted the guard.
“I can't eat that soap. It will make me sick!”
“You've said it! But eat that soap--a little at a time--and see what the
prison doctor says. It isn't easy to fool prison doctors--but I've been
on this job long enough to know how.”
That was Wagg's longest speech to date. His earnestness impressed the
young man. He managed to eat a bit of the soap after the guard had
departed. He ate more in the morning before his release from the cell.
He put some crumbs of the soap in his pockets and choked down the
hateful substance when he found an opportunity during the day.
That night Wagg had a few more words to say on the subject. “One of the
biggest birds they ever caged at Atlanta fooled the doctors and got his
pardon so that he could die outside the pen. Did he die? Bah-bah! Soap!
Just soap!”
“So you think the pardon plan can be worked in my case, do you?”
“Pardon your eyes!” scoffed Wagg. “That isn't the idea at all!”
He fed the soap to the prisoner for many nights, but he did not give any
information. However, Wagg had the air of a man who knew well what he
was about, and Vaniman was desperate enough to continue the horrible
diet, having found that Mr. Wagg was a very touchy person when his
policies were doubted or his good faith questioned.
Then, one day the prison doctor, who had been observing Vaniman for some
time, took the bookkeeper into his office and examined him thoroughly;
he gravely informed the warden that the young man had symptoms of
incipient kidney trouble and ought to be less closely confined.
When Vaniman found himself out in the sunshine, intrusted with the
sinecure of checking up barrow-loads of dirt which convicts wheeled past
him where he sat in an armchair provided by the warden from his office,
the prisoner perceived that the Wagg policies were effective in getting
results.
Having added respect for Mr. Wagg's ability in general, Vaniman was not
surprised to find the guard following the favored prisoner into the new
field of operations. The young man was quite sure that the guard had not
opened up on his principal plan.
One morning Wagg came with a stool and a rifle and located himself close
beside the armchair; he sat on the stool and rested the rifle across
his knees and smoked a corncob pipe placidly. And there was plenty of
opportunity for talk, though Wagg obtrusively kept his face turned from
Vaniman's and talked through the corner of his mouth.
“Now you see, I hope! In a prison you've got to step light and go the
other way around to get to a thing. I'm favored here, and I'm supposed
to be nursing rheumatism.” He leaned forward to knock out his pipe
dottle and found an opportunity to give Vaniman a wink. “I arranged to
come off the wall--knowing all about your case. I could ask to come out
here, having found that night work didn't help me! Sunshine is good. But
you couldn't ask for sunshine. When a prisoner asks for a thing, they go
on the plan of doing exactly opposite to what he seems to want. From now
on, having seen how I can operate, I expect you to do just what I tell
you to do.”
Vaniman looked at the rifle. Wagg waved it, commanding a convict to
hurry past.
“Yes, sir! You've got to do just as I say!” insisted the guard when the
convict had gone out of earshot.
“How can I help myself?”
“Oh, I don't mean that I'm going to team you around with this rifle! I
want you to co-operate.”
“Don't you think I can co-operate better if you give me a line on what
all this means?” pleaded the prisoner.
“Sure and slow is my policy. I'm not just certain that I have you sized
up right, as yet. I'm of a suspicious nature. But I'm finding this
sunshine softening.” Mr. Wagg rambled on, squinting up at the sky.
“Seven years is a long while to wait for a good time to come. Figuring
that your time will be paid for at the rate of about ten thousand
dollars a year, while you're in here, helps to smooth the feelings
somewhat, of course. But now that you're in here you're counting
days instead of years--and every day seems a year when you're looking
forward. The newspapers said it was about seventy-five thousand dollars
in good, solid gold.”
Wagg bored Vaniman with a side glance that was prolonged until a toiling
convict had passed to a safe distance. The young man was eyeing
the guard with a demeanor which indicated that the tractable spirit
commended by Mr. Wagg was no longer under good control. However, Vaniman
did manage to control his tongue.
After the silence had continued for some time, the guard slipped down
from the stool and marched to and fro with his rifle in the hook of his
arm, affording a fine display of attention to duty.
After he had returned to his stool, Wagg gave the ex-cashier plenty of
time to take up the topic. “Considering my position in this place, I
reckon I've said about enough,” suggested the guard.
“I think you have said enough!” returned Vaniman, grimly.
“What have you to say?”
“I didn't take that money from the Egypt Trust Company. I don't know
where it is. I never knew where it went. And I'm getting infernally sick
of having it everlastingly thrown up at me.”
“I thought I had you sized up better--but I see I was wrong,” admitted
Wagg.
“Of course you're wrong! You and the chaplain and the warden and the
jury! I didn't take that money!”
“I didn't mean I was wrong on that point,” proceeded Wagg,
remorselessly. “But I had watched you bang around your cell and I
concluded that you was ready to make about a fifty-fifty split of
the swag with the chap who could get you out of here. If you're still
stuffy, you'll have to stay that way--and stay in here, too!”
He took another promenade, pursuing his regular policy of starting the
fire and letting the kettle come aboil on its own hook.
“What good would it do me to escape from this prison--to be hounded and
hunted from one end of the world to the other?” Vaniman demanded, when
Wagg had returned to the stool. “I do want to get out. But I want to get
out right! I have a job to do for myself when I'm out of here!” Mr. Wagg
nodded understandingly. “And that job is right in the same town where I
have been living.”
“Exactly!” agreed the guard. “And speaking of a job, you don't think for
one moment, do you, that I'd be earning a fifty-fifty split by boosting
you over that wall or smuggling you out of the gate to shift for
yourself? Small wonder that you got hot, thinking I meant it that way.
My plan will put you out right! My plan is a prime plan that can be
worked only once. Therefore, it's worth money.”
“Damn it, I haven't the money!” Vaniman, exasperated by this
pertinacity, was not able to control his feelings or his language.
“It's too bad you are still at the point where you _think_ you haven't
got it,” returned Mr. Wagg. “I'm a terrible good waiter. Reckon I have
showed that kind of a disposition already. When you get to the other
and sensible point where you want to be out of here, and out right,
with nobody chasing and hectoring you, you and I will do business on the
fifty-fifty basis. It may seem high,” he pursued. “But all prices are
high in these times. They're so blamed high that I'm in debt, simply
trying to give my family a decent living. The state won't raise my
wages. The state practically says, 'You'll have to do the best you can!'
The state owes me a living. So I'll grab on to the assets that the state
has hove into my reach, and will speculate as best I know now.”
“You think I'm your asset, eh?”
“You're not worth a cent to me or yourself until I operate. And when
you're ready to have me operate--fifty-fifty--give me the high sign. And
something will be done what was never done before!”
Then Wagg carried his stool to the lee of a shop wall, seeking
shade--too far away for further talk.