Gurn was walking nervously up and down in his cell after this interview,
when the door was pushed open and the cheery face of the warder Nibet
looked in.
"Evening, Gurn," he said; "it's six o'clock, and the restaurant-keeper
opposite wants to know if he is to send your dinner in to you."
"No," Gurn growled. "I'll have the prison ordinary."
"Oh--ho!" said the warder; "funds low, eh? Of course, it's not for you
to despise our dietary, but still, Government beans----" He came further
into the cell, ignoring Gurn's impatient preference for his room to his
company, and said in a low tone: "There, take that," and thrust a
bank-note into the hand of the dumbfounded prisoner. "And if you want
any more, they will be forthcoming," he added. He made a sign to Gurn to
say nothing, and went to the door. "I'll be back in a few minutes: I'll
just go and order a decent dinner for you."
Gurn felt as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from him; the cell
seemed larger, the prison walls less high; he had an intuition that Lady
Beltham was not deserting him. He had never doubted the sincerity of her
feelings for him, but he quite realised how a woman in her delicate
position might feel embarrassed in trying to intervene in favour of any
prisoner, and much more so in the case of the one whom the entire world
believed to be the single-handed murderer of her husband. But now Lady
Beltham had intervened. She had succeeded in communicating with him
through the medium of this warder. And almost certainly she would do
much more yet.
* * * * *
The door opened again, and the warder entered, carrying a long rush
basket containing several dishes and a bottle of wine.
"Well, Gurn, that's a more agreeable sort of dinner, eh?"
"'Gad, I wanted it after all," said the murderer with a smile. "It was a
good idea of yours, M. Nibet, to insist on my getting my dinner sent in
from outside."
Nibet winked; he appreciated his prisoner's tact; obviously he was not
one to make untimely allusions to the warder's breach of discipline in
conveying money to him so simply, but so very irregularly.
As he ate Gurn chatted with Nibet.
"I suppose it is you who will get Siegenthal's place?"
"Yes," said Nibet, sipping the wine Gurn had offered him. "I have asked
for the berth no end of times, but it never came; I was always told to
wait because the place was not free, and another berth must be found
first for Siegenthal, who was my senior. But the old beast would never
make any application. However, three days ago, I was sent for to the
Ministry, and one of the staff told me that some one in the Embassy, or
the Government, or somewhere, was taking an interest in me, and they
asked me a lot of questions and I told them all about it. And then, all
of a sudden, Siegenthal was promoted to Poissy and I was given his
billet here."
Gurn nodded: he saw light.
"And what about the money?"
"That's stranger still, but I understood all the same. A lady met me in
the street the other night and spoke to me by name. We had a chat there
on the pavement, for the street was empty, and she shoved some
bank-notes in my hand--not just one or two, but a great bunch----, and
she told me that she was interested in me--in you----, and that if
things turned out as she wished there were plenty more bank-notes where
those came from."
While the warder was talking Gurn watched him carefully. The murderer
was an experienced reader of character in faces, and he speedily
realised that his lady's choice had fallen on an excellent object. Thick
lips, a narrow forehead, and prominent cheek-bones suggested a material
nature that would hesitate at nothing which would satisfy his carnal
appetites, so Gurn decided that further circumlocution was so much waste
of time, and that he might safely come to the point. He laid his hand
familiarly on the warder's shoulder.
"I'm getting sick of being here," he remarked.
"I dare say," the warder answered uneasily; "but you must be guided by
reason; time is going on, and things arrange themselves."
"They do when you help them," Gurn said peremptorily; "and you and I are
going to help them."
"That remains to be seen," said the warder.
"Of course, everything has got to be paid for," Gurn went on. "One can't
expect a warder to risk his situation merely to help a prisoner to
escape." He smiled as the warder made an exclamation of nervous warning.
"Don't be frightened, Nibet. We're not going to play any fool games, but
let us talk seriously. Of course you have another appointment with the
worthy lady who gave you that money?"
"I am to meet her to-night at eleven, in the boulevard Arago," Nibet
said, after a moment's hesitation.
"Good," said Gurn. "Well, you are to tell her that I must have ten
thousand francs."
"What?" exclaimed the man, in utter astonishment, but his eyes shone
with greed.
"Ten thousand francs," Gurn repeated calmly, "and by to-morrow morning.
Fifteen hundred of those are for you; I will go away to-morrow evening."
There was a tense silence; the warder seemed doubtful, and Gurn turned
the whole of his will power upon him to persuade him.
"Suppose they suspect me?" said Nibet.
"Idiot!" Gurn retorted; "all you will do will be to make a slip in your
duty: I don't want you to be an accomplice. Listen: there will be
another five thousand francs for you, and if things turn out awkwardly
for you, all you will have to do will be to go across to England, and
live there comfortably for the rest of your days."
The warder was obviously almost ready to comply.
"Who will guarantee me?" he asked.
"The lady, I tell you--the lady of the boulevard Arago. Here, give her
this," and he tore a leaf out of his pocket-book and, scribbling a few
words on it, handed it to Nibet.
"Well," said the warder hesitatingly: "I don't say 'no.'"
"You've got to say 'yes,'" Gurn retorted.
The two looked steadily in each other's eyes; then the warder blenched.
"Yes," he said.
Nibet was going away, and was already almost in the corridor when Gurn
calmly called him back.
"You will evolve a plan, and I will start to-morrow. Don't forget to
bring me a time-table; the Orleans Company time-table will do."
* * * * *
The murderer was not disappointed in his expectations. The next morning
Nibet appeared with a mysterious face and eager eyes. He took a small
bundle from underneath his jersey and gave it to Gurn.
"Hide that in your bed," he said, and Gurn obeyed.
The morning passed without further developments; numerous warders came
and went in the corridor, attending to the prisoners, and Gurn could get
no private talk with Nibet, who contrived, however, to come into his
cell several times on various pretexts and assure him with a nod or a
word that all was going well. But presently, when walking in the
exercise yard, the two men were able to have a conversation.
Nibet manifested an intelligence of which his outer appearance gave no
indication; but it seems to be an established fact that the inventive
faculties, even of men of inferior mental quality, are sharpened when
they are engaged in mischief.
"For the last three weeks," he said, "about a score of masons have been
working in the prison, repairing the roof and doing up some of the
cells. Cell number 129, the one next yours, is empty, and there are no
bars on the window; the masons go through that cell and that window to
get on to the roof. They knock off work soon after six o'clock. The
gate-keeper knows them all, but he does not always look closely at their
faces when they go by, and you might perhaps be able to go out with
them.
"In the bundle that I gave you there is a pair of workman's trousers,
and a waistcoat and a felt hat; put those on. At about a quarter to six,
the men who went up on to the roof through the cell, come down by way of
the skylights to the staircase that leads to the clerk's office, pass
the office, where they are asked no questions, cross the two yards and
go out by the main gate. I will open the door of your cell a few minutes
before six, and you must go into the empty cell next yours, slip up on
to the roof and take care to hide behind the chimney stacks until the
men have done work. Let them go down in front of you, and follow behind
with a pick or a shovel on your shoulder, and when you are passing the
clerk, or anywhere where you might be observed, mind you let the men go
a yard or two in front of you. When the gate is just being shut after
the last workman, call out quietly, but as naturally as you can, 'Hold
on, M. Morin; mind you don't lock me in; I'm not one of your lodgers;
let me out after my mates.' Make some joke of that sort, and when you
are once outside the gate, by George, my boy, you'll have to vamoose!"
Gurn listened attentively to the warder's instructions. Lady Beltham
must, indeed, have been generous and have made the man perfectly easy on
the score of his own future.
"In one of the pockets of the clothes," Nibet went on, "I have put ten
hundred-franc notes; you asked for more, but I could not raise it: we
can settle that some other time."
Gurn made no comment.
"When will my escape be discovered?" he asked.
"I am on night duty," the warder answered. "Arrange your clothes on your
bed to make it look as if you were in bed, and then they will think I
might have been deceived. I go off duty at five; the next round is at
eight. My mate will open the door of the cage, and by that time you will
be miles away."
Gurn nodded comprehension. Time did not permit of longer conversation.
The bell had rung some minutes ago, proclaiming that the exercise time
was over. The two men hurried upstairs to cell number 127 on the third
floor, and the prisoner was locked in alone, while Nibet went about his
duty as usual.