THE PRISONER OF WINDSOR—THE TRAGEDY OF A NIGHT.
“Stanley, I have good news for you.”
“All news is alike to me, sir.”
Warden Chase of the Vermont state prison regards the young man before
him with a kindly eye.
“Your sentence of three years has been shortened by a year, as the
governor has granted you an unconditional pardon,” he announces.
“His excellency is kind,” replied the young man in a voice that
expresses no gratitude and may contain a faint shade of irony.
He is a striking-looking young fellow, even in his prison garb, his dark
hair cropped close and his eyes cast down in the passive manner enjoined
by the prison regulations. His height is about five feet ten inches and
his figure is rather slender and graceful. His face is singularly
handsome. His eyes are dark brown, almost black, and the two long years
of prison life have dimmed but little of the fire that flashes from
their depths. A square jaw bespeaks a strong will. The rather hard lines
about the firm mouth were not there two years before. He has suffered
mentally since then. There are too many gray hairs for a man of 28.
Warden Chase touches a bell. “Get Stanley’s things,” he orders the
attendant, who responds.
“Sit down, Stanley.” The young man obeys and the warden wheels about to
his desk.
“I am authorized to purchase you a railroad ticket to any station you
may designate—within reason, of course,” amends Mr. Chase. “Which shall
it be?” A bitter smile flits across Stanley’s face and he remains
silent.
“North, east, south or west?” questions Mr. Chase, poising his pen in
air.
“I have no home to go to,” finally responds Stanley, lifting his eyes
for the first time since his entrance to the room.
“No home?” repeats the warden, sympathetically. “But surely you must
want to go somewhere. You can’t stay in Windsor.”
Stanley is thoughtful. “Perhaps you had better make the station
Raymond,” he decides, and he meets squarely the surprised and
questioning look of the warden.
“But that is the place you were sent from.”
“Yes.”
“It is not your home? No; I believe you just stated that you had no
home.”
“I have none.”
“And you wish to revisit the scene of your—your trouble?”
Stanley’s gaze wanders to the open window and across the valley.
“Well, it’s your own affair,” says the warden, turning to his desk. “The
fare to Raymond is $2.50. I am also authorized to give you $5 cash, to
which I have added $10. You have assisted me about the books of the
institution and have been in every respect a model prisoner. In fact,”
supplements Mr. Chase, with a smile, “under different circumstances I
should be sorry to part with you.”
“Thank you,” acknowledges Stanley, in the same impassive tones.
“And now, my boy,” counsels the warden, laying one hand kindly on the
young man’s shoulder, “try to make your future life such that you will
never be compelled to see the inside of another house of this kind. I am
something of a judge of character. I am confident that you have the
making of a man in you. Here are your things,” as the attendant arrives
with Stanley’s effects.
Mr. Chase resumes his writing and Stanley withdraws. Once within the
familiar cell, which is soon to know him no more, his whole mood
changes.
“Free!” he breathes, exultingly, raising his clasped hands to heaven.
“What matter it if my freedom be of a few days only, of a few hours? It
will be enough for my purpose. Heavens! Two years in this hole, caged
like a wild beast, the companion of worse than beasts—a life wrecked at
28. But I’ll be revenged! As surely as there is a heaven above me, I’ll
be repaid for my months of misery. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth!”
He throws his prison suit from him with loathing. Then he sinks back
into his apathy and the simple toilet is completed in silence.
A suit of light gray, of stylish cut, a pair of well-made boots, a
negligee shirt and a straw hat, make considerable change in his
appearance. He smiles faintly as he dons them.
He ties his personal effects in a small package. They are few—half a
dozen letters, all with long-ago post-marks, a couple of photographs,
and a small volume of Shakespeare given him by the warden, who is an
admirer of Avon’s bard.
“Off?” asks Mr. Chase, as he shakes hands. “Well, you look about the
same as when I received you. A little older, perhaps”—surveying him
critically—“and minus what I remember to have been a handsome mustache.
Good-by, my boy, and good luck. And, I say,” as Stanley strides toward
the door, “take my advice and the afternoon train for New York. Get some
honest employment and make a name for yourself. You’ve got the right
stuff in you. By the way, do you know what day it is?”
“I have not followed the calendar with reference to any particular
days.”
“The 30th day of May—Memorial day,” says Mr. Chase.
“It will be a memorial day for me,” responds Stanley. “Good-by, Mr.
Chase, and thank you for your many kindnesses.”
“I’m rather sorry to have him go,” soliloquizes the warden, as his late
charge walks slowly away from the institution. “Bright fellow, but
peculiar—very peculiar.”
Stanley proceeds leisurely along the road leading to the station. His
eyes are bent down, and he seemingly takes no note of the glories of the
May day, of the throbbings of the busy life about him. A procession of
Grand Army men, headed by a brass band that makes music more mournful
than the occasion seems to call for, passes by on the dusty highway.
“Homage for the dead; contumely for the living,” he murmurs, bitterly.
The train for the north leaves at 4:30. Stanley spends the time between
in making some small purchases at the village.
“At what hour do we arrive at Raymond?” he asks the conductor, as the
train pulls out.
“Seven forty-five, if we are on time.”
“Thank you,” returns the young man. He draws his hat over his eyes, and
turns his face to the window.
* * * * *
At 7:45 o’clock in the evening Sarah, the pretty housemaid at the
residence of Cyrus Felton, answers a sharp ring at the door bell. In the
semi-darkness of the vine-shaded porch she distinguishes only the
outlines of a man who stands well back from the door. The gas has not
yet been lighted in the hall.
“Is Mr. Felton at home?” inquires the visitor.
“The young or the old Mr. Felton?”
“The young or the old?” repeats the man to himself.
Sarah twists the door-knob impatiently. “Well?” she says.
“I beg your pardon; I was not aware that there were two Mr. Feltons. I
believe the elder is the person I wish to see.”
“He is not at home.”
“He is in town?”
“Oh, yes. He went down-street about 7 o’clock, but we expect him back
before long.”
“Would he be likely to be at his office?”
Sarah does not know. Mr. Felton rarely goes to the office evenings.
Still, he may be there.
“And the office is where?”
“In the bank block.” Sarah peers out at her questioner, but, with a
“thank you,” he has already stepped from the porch. As he strides away
in the dusk and the house door slams behind him, a second figure leaves
the shadow of the trellis, moves across the lawn and pauses at the gate.
“In the bank building,” he muses. “One visitor ahead of me. Well, there
is no need of my hurrying,” and he saunters toward the village, the
electric lamps of which have begun to flash.
At 8:05, as Sarah afterwards remembers, Cyrus Felton arrives home. Sarah
comes into the hall to receive him.
“A gentleman called to see you, sir, about ten minutes ago. Did you meet
him on your way?”
“Probably not. I have been over to Mr. Goodenough’s. Did he leave any
name?”
“No, sir. Oh, and here is a letter that a boy brought a little while
ago.” Sarah produces a note from the hall table and disappears upstairs.
Mr. Felton opens the note, glances at its contents and utters an
exclamation of impatience. He crumples the paper in his hand, seizes his
hat and hurries from the house and down the street.
In the brightly lighted room of Prof. George Black, directly over the
quarters of the Raymond National Bank, a party of young men are whiling
away a few pleasant hours. The professor is lounging in an easy-chair,
his feet in another, and is lost in a “meditation” for violin, to which
Ed Knapp is furnishing a piano accompaniment. Suddenly the professor
rests his violin across his knees.
“Hark!” he exclaims and bends his head toward the open window. “Wasn’t
that a shot downstairs?”
“Probably,” assents one of the group. “The boys in the bank have been
plugging water rats in the river all the afternoon.”
“But it’s too dark to shoot rats.”
“Oh, one can aim pretty straight by electric light. Go ahead with your
fiddling, George. Get away from that piano, Knapp, and let the professor
give us the cavatina. That’s my favorite, and your accompaniment would
ruin it. Let ’er go, professor.”
As the strains of the Raff cavatina die away, a man comes out of the
entrance of the Raymond National Bank. He glances swiftly up, then down
the street. Then he crosses the road in the shadow of a tall building
and hurries toward the station.
“There is no train, north or south, before 11:50,” says the telegraph
operator, in response to a query at the window. He is clicking off a
message and does not turn his head. His questioner vanishes.
* * * * *
“Jim, Mr. Felton wants to see you,” the clerk of the Raymond Hotel
informs the sheriff of Mansfield County, who is playing cards in a room
off the office. Sheriff Wilson is a man with a game leg, a war record,
and a wild mania for the diversion of sancho pedro. When he sits in for
an evening of that fascinating pastime he dislikes to be disturbed.
“What’s he want?” he asks absent-mindedly, for he has only two more
points to make to win the game.
“Dunno. He seems to be worked up about something.”
“High, low, pede!” announces the sheriff triumphantly. “Gentlemen, make
mine a cigar.” He throws his cards down and goes out into the office.
Cyrus Felton is pacing up and down excitedly. He grasps the officer by
the arm and half drags him from the hotel. When they are out of hearing
of the loungers he exclaims, in a voice that trembles with every
syllable:
“Mr. Wilson, a fearful crime has been committed. Mr. Hathaway has been
murdered!”
“Murdered!” The sheriff’s excitement transcends that of his companion,
who is making a desperate effort to regain his composure.
“He is at the bank. I discovered him only a few moments ago. Come, see
for yourself.”
They soon reach the bank, which is only a stone’s throw from the hotel.
After passing the threshold of the cashier’s office in the rear of the
banking-room the two men stop and look silently upon the grewsome sight
before them.
Lying upon the floor, one arm extended toward and almost touching the
wide-open doors of the vault, is the body of Cashier Roger Hathaway. His
life has ebbed in the crimson pool that stains the polished floor.
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