INTRODUCES CAPTAIN AMBROSE GREY
“You’re for the governor, 634,” said the warder.
“You surprise me, my warder,” said Amber ironically.
“Less of your lip,” said the man shortly, “you’ve lost enough marks in
this month without askin’ for any further trouble.”
Amber said nothing. He stepped out from his cell and marched ahead of
the warder down the steel stairway that led to the ground floor of the
prison hall.
Captain Cardeen sat behind his table and greeted Amber unpleasantly.
Exactly why he should take so vindictive an interest in his charge,
could be explained.
“634,” said the governor, “you’ve been reported again for impertinence
to an officer of the prison.”
Amber made no reply.
“Because you spend half your life in prison I suppose you’ve an idea
that you’ve got a sort of proprietorial right, eh?”
Still Amber made no reply.
“I have tamed a few men in my time,” the governor went on, “and I don’t
doubt but that I shall tame you.”
Amber was looking at him critically.
“Sir,” said he, “I also am something of a tamer.”
The governor’s face went purple, for there was an indefinable insolence
in the prisoner’s tone.
“You scoundrel,” he began, but Amber interrupted him.
“I am tired of prison life, my governor,” he said brusquely, “and I’ll
take a thousand to thirty you do not know what I mean: I am tired of
this prison, which is Hell with the lid off.”
“Take him back to his cell,” roared the governor, on his feet and
incoherent with rage. “I’ll teach you, my man--I’ll have you flogged
before I’m through with you.”
Two warders, truncheons in hand, hustled Amber through the door. They
flung rather than pushed him into the cell. A quarter of an hour later
a key turned in the door and two warders came in, the foremost dangling
a pair of bright steel handcuffs.
Amber was prepared: he turned about obediently as they snapped the
irons about his wrist, fastening his hands behind him. It was a
favourite punishment of Captain Cardeen.
The door clanged to, and he was left alone with his thoughts, and for
Amber, remembering his equable temperament, they were very unpleasant
thoughts indeed.
“I’ll teach him something,” said the governor to his chief warder. “I
know something about this man--I had a letter some time ago from a
fellow-member of the Whistlers--one of my clubs, Mr. Rice--who gave me
his history.”
“If anybody can break him, you can, sir,” said his admiring satellite.
“I think so,” said the governor complacently.
A warder interrupted any further exchange of views. He handed a letter
to the chief warder with a salute, and that official glanced at the
address and passed it on to his superior.
The latter slipped his finger through the flap of the envelope and
opened it.
The sheet of blue foolscap it contained required a great deal of
understanding, for he read it three times.
“The bearer of this, Miss Cynthia Sutton, has permission to interview
No. 634 /c.c./ John Amber. The interview shall be a private one: no
warder is to be present.”
It was signed with the neat signature of the Home Secretary and bore
the Home Office stamp.
The governor looked up with bewilderment written in his face.
“What on earth is the meaning of that?” he demanded, and passed the
paper to the chief warder.
The latter read it and pushed back his head.
“It’s against all regulations----” he began, but the governor broke in
impatiently.
“Don’t talk nonsense about regulations,” he snapped. “Here is an order
from the Home Office: you can’t get behind that. Is anybody with her?”
He addressed the question to the waiting warder.
“Yes, sir, a gentleman from Scotland Yard--I gave you his card.”
The card had fallen on to the floor and the governor picked it up.
“Chief Inspector Fells,” he read, “let us have him in first.”
A few seconds later Fells came into the room, and smiled a cheerful
greeting to the governor.
“Perhaps you can explain the meaning of this, Mr. Fells,” said the
governor, holding the paper in his hand.
Fells shook his head.
“I never explain anything,” he said. “It’s the worst waste of energy
to attempt to explain the actions of your superiors--I’ve got an order
too.”
“To see the prisoner?”
“Yes, sir.”
He groped in the depths of an under pocket and produced an official
envelope.
“I have spoken to the young lady,” he said, “and she has no objection
to my seeing Mr. Amber first.”
There was something about that “Mr.” which annoyed the governor.
“I can understand many things,” he said irritably, “but I really cannot
understand the process of mind which induces you to refer to a convict
as ‘Mr. Amber’--a man with your experience of criminals, Inspector.”
“Habit, sir, habit,” said Fells easily, “a slip of the tongue.”
The governor was reading the new order, which was couched in similar
terms to that which he had already read.
“You had better see him first,” and made a sign to the chief warder.
“The beggar has been grossly impertinent and is now undergoing a little
mild punishment.”
“M--m--yes,” hesitated the detective; “pardon my asking, but isn’t this
the gaol where the man Gallers died?”
“It is,” said the governor coldly; “he had a fit or a something.”
“He was undergoing some punishment,” said Fells, in the reflective tone
of one striving to recollect a circumstance.
“It was stated so by irresponsible people,” said the governor roughly.
He took down his hat from a peg and put it on. “It was said he was
being punished in the same manner that Amber is--that he became ill and
was unable to ring the bell--but it was a lie.”
“Of course,” said the polite detective.
The governor led the way through the spotless corridors up the steel
stairs to the landing whereon Amber’s cell was situated. He turned
the key and entered, followed by the detective. Amber was sitting on
a wooden stool when the cell door opened. He did not trouble to rise
until he saw Fells. Then he got up with difficulty.
“Now, Mr. Fells, if you have anything to say to this man, you had
better say it,” said the governor.
“I think,” Fells spoke hesitatingly, deferentially, but none the less
emphatically, “I think I may have this interview alone--yes?”
The governor stiffened.
“If you would prefer it, of course,” he said grudgingly, and turned to
go.
“Excuse me,” Fells laid his hand on the official’s arm. “I would rather
the irons were off this man.”
“Attend to your business and allow me to attend to mine, Mr.
Inspector,” said the governor. “The code allows me the right to award
punishment.”
“Very good, sir,” replied Fells. He waited until the door clanged and
then turned to Amber.
“Mr. Amber,” he said, “I have been sent down from the Home Office on a
curious mission--I understand you are tired of prison?”
“My Fells,” said Amber wearily, “I have never found prison so dull as I
do at present.”
Fells smiled. From his pocket he produced a sheet of foolscap paper
closely covered with entries.
“I’ve discovered your guilty secret.” He shook the paper before the
prisoner’s eyes.
“A list of your convictions, my Amber,” he mocked, but Amber said
nothing.
“Never, so far as I can trace, have you appeared before a judge and
jury.” He looked up, but the man in front of him was silent, and his
face was expressionless.
“And yet,” the detective went on, “to my knowledge, you have been
committed to seventeen gaols, on seventeen distinct and separate
orders, each signed by a judge and countersigned by the Home Office....”
He waited, but Amber offered no comment.
“In 1901, you were committed to Chengford Gaol on an order signed at
Devizes. I can find no record of your having been brought before a
court of any description at Devizes.”
Still Amber did not speak, and the inspector went on slowly and
deliberately.
“At the time of your committal to Chengford, there had been all sorts
of stories current about the state of affairs in the gaol. There had
been a mutiny of prisoners, and allegations of cruelty against the
governor and the warders.”
“I remember something about it,” said Amber carelessly.
“You were admitted on May 10. On August 1 you were released on an order
from the Home Office. On August 3 the governor, the assistant governor
and the chief warder were summarily suspended from their duties and
were eventually dismissed from the prison service.”
He looked at Amber again.
“You surprise me,” said Amber.
“Although you were released in August, and was apparently a free
man, you arrived in the custody of warders at the Preston Convict
Establishment on September 9. There had been some trouble at Preston, I
believe.”
“I believe there was,” said Amber gravely.
“This time,” the detective continued, “it was on an order from the Home
Office ‘to complete sentence.’ You were six months in Preston Prison,
and after you left, three warders were suspended for carrying messages
to prisoners.”
He ran his fingers down the paper.
“You weren’t exactly a mascot to these gaols, Mr. Amber,” he said
ironically, “you left behind you a trail of casualties--and nobody
seems to have connected your presence with gaps in the ranks.”
A slow smile dawned on Amber’s face.
“And has my chief inspector come amblin’ all the way from London to
make these startlin’ and mysterious communications?”
The detective dropped his banter.
“Not exactly, Mr. Amber,” he said, and the note of respect came to his
voice which had so unaccountably irritated the governor. “The fact is,
you’ve been lent.”
“Lent?” Amber’s eyebrows rose.
“You’ve been lent,” repeated the detective. “The Home Office has lent
you to the Colonial Office, and I am here to effect the transfer.”
Amber twiddled his manacled hands restlessly.
“I don’t want to go out of England just now,” he began.
“Oh yes, you do, Mr. Amber; there’s a River of Stars somewhere in the
world, and a cargo of roguery on its way to locate it.”
“So they’ve gone, have they?”
He was disappointed and did not attempt to disguise the fact.
“I hoped that I should be out in time to stop ’em, but that racket has
nothing to do with the Colonial Office.”
“Hasn’t it?”
Fells went to the wall where the prisoner’s bell was, and pushed it.
Two minutes later the door swung open.
“There’s another visitor, who will explain,” he said, and left the
exasperated Amber muttering rude things about government departments in
general and the Home Office in particular.
In ten minutes the door opened again.
Amber was not prepared for his visitor, and as he sprang awkwardly
to his feet, he went alternately red and white. The girl herself was
pale, and she did not speak until the door closed behind the warders.
That brief space of time gave Amber the opportunity to recover his
self-possession.
“I fear that I cannot offer you the courtesies that are due to you,” he
said. “For the moment my freedom of movement is somewhat restricted.”
She thought he referred to his presence in prison, and half smiled
at the politeness of a speech so out of all harmony with the grim
surroundings.
“You are probably surprised to see me, Mr. Amber,” she said. “It was
in desperation that I went to the Home Office to endeavour to secure an
interview with you--there is no one else in the world knows so much of
this expedition and the men who have formed it.”
“Did you find any difficulty in obtaining permission?” There was an odd
twinkle in Amber’s eye which she did not observe.
“None--or almost none,” she said. “It was very wonderful.”
“Not so wonderful, my lady,” said Amber. “I’m an old client: anything
to oblige a regular customer.”
She was looking at him with pain in her eyes.
“Please--please don’t talk like that,” she said in a low voice. “You
rather hurt me: I want to feel that you are not beyond--help, and when
you talk so flippantly and make so light of your--trouble, it does
hurt, you know.”
He dropped his eyes and, for the matter of that, so did she.
“I am sorry,” he said in a quieter tone, “if I have bothered you: any
worry on your part has been unnecessary, not,” he added with a touch of
the old Amber, “that I have not been worth worrying about, but you have
not quite understood the circumstances. Now please tell me why you wish
to see me; there is a stool--it is not very comfortable, but it is the
best I can offer you.”
She declined the seat with a smile and began her story.
Her brother had sailed, so also had Lambaire and Whitey, taking with
them a copy of the chart.
“I have not worried very much about the expedition,” she said, “because
I thought that my father’s map was sufficiently accurate to lead them
to this fabulous river. The Colonial Office officials, whom my brother
saw, took this view also.”
“Why did he see them?” demanded Amber.
“To get the necessary permission to prospect in British territory--it
is a Crown possession, you know. After my brother had arrived in
Africa, and I had received a cable to that effect, I had an urgent
message from the Colonial Office, asking me to take the chart to
Downing Street. I did so, and they made a careful examination of it,
measuring distances and comparing them on another map.”
“Well?”
“Well,” she shrugged her shoulders, “the expedition is futile: if the
River of Stars is not in Portuguese territory, it has no existence at
all.”
“Isn’t it in British territory?”
“No, it is well over the border-line that marks the boundary between
British and Portuguese West Africa.”
Amber was puzzled.
“What can I do?” he asked.
“Wait,” she went on rapidly, “I have not told you all, for if my
father’s map is true, the River of Stars is a fable, for they
definitely located the spot indicated in his map, and there is neither
forest nor river there, only a great dry plateau.”
“You told them about the false compass?”
“Lambaire was very frank to me before Francis sailed. He showed me the
false and the true and I saw for myself the exact deflection; what is
more, I took careful notice of the difference, and it was on this that
the Colonial Office worked out its calculations. A cable has been sent
to stop my brother, but he has already left the coast with the two men
and is beyond the reach of the telegraph.”
“Have you got the map with you?”
She took the soiled chart from her bag and offered it to him. He did
not take it, for his hands were still behind him, and suddenly she
understood why and flushed.
“Open it and let me see, please.”
He studied it carefully: then he said, “By the way, who told the
Colonial Office that I knew all about this business--oh, of course, you
did.”
She nodded.
“I did not know what to do--I have lost my father in that country--for
the first time I begin to fear for my brother--I have nobody to whom I
can appeal for advice....”
She checked herself quickly, being in a sudden terror lest this thief
with his shaven head and his steel-clamped wrists should discover how
big a place he held in her thoughts.
“There is something wrong, some mystery that has not been unravelled:
my father was a careful man and could not have made a mistake: all
along we knew that the river was in British territory.”
“The boundary may have been altered,” suggested Amber. But she shook
her head.
“No, I asked that question: it was demarcated in 1875, and has not been
altered.”
Amber looked again at the map, then at the girl.
“I will see you to-morrow,” he said.
“But----” She looked at him in astonishment.
“I may not be able to get permission to-morrow.”
A key turned in the lock and the heavy door opened slowly. Outside was
the governor with a face as black as thunder, the chief warder and
Fells.
“Time’s up,” said the governor gruffly. Amber looked at the detective
and nodded; then called authoritatively to the prison chief.
“Take these handcuffs off, Cardeen,” he said.
“What----!”
“Give him the order, Fells,” said Amber, and the detective obediently
handed a paper to the bewildered man.
“You are suspended from duty,” said Amber shortly, “pending an inquiry
into your management of this gaol. I am Captain Ambrose Grey, one of
His Majesty’s inspectors of prisons.”
The chief warder’s hands were shaking horribly as he turned the key
that opened the hinged bar of the handcuffs.