“The fellows in Number 9 are all upset over that new man,” said Bill
Wiley, as he filled his pipe and prepared to settle himself to read
“Three Weeks,” a book that very much interested him.
“What new man?” asked John Hogan.
“A new man that the Colonel sent over. He’s a timekeeper, and is getting
only about $75 a month,” answered Bill.
“What’s the matter with him?” quickly asked Higgins.
“The fellers say that he’s been a jailbird, an’ they don’t want him in
the house. Some of ’em telephoned to the Colonel, but he did not give
’em any satisfaction, only said that he desired the man to stay in
Number 9; that he sent him to Balboa, and that if any of the men
complained about living with him they could get out themselves.”
“That’s just like the Colonel,” said Higgins. “What business is it of
that bunch of mutts if the poor devil has been in jail, if he’s behaving
himself now?”
“Schopenhauer says that all men are--” began Ikey.
“For the love of Mike, don’t spring him on us again,” said Wiley. “I
thought you had given up reading his book, anyway,” he continued.
“He says some darn good things,” said Ikey.
“But not about his fellow-creatures, an’ the person under discussion is
a man, an’ not a dawg,” said Hogan, tersely.
“Let’s hear more about this new man, Bill,” said Higgins.
“He’s a sickly-looking guy that drags one leg after him when he walks,
an’ he’s got a funny habit of looking over his shoulder whenever he goes
to speak about anything. He’s got a dry sort of cough that gives me the
creeps, and the boys say he’s always a prayin’ when he’s in his room.”
“Poor devil, he’s got all the marks of the jailbird about him. I wonder
what he was in for,” mused Hogan, more to himself than to the others.
“I’ll send ‘A. Kempis’ down to him; it might give him some consolation.”
“I don’t believe he’ll get a chance to read it,” said Bill, “because the
fellers say that there’s a gang goin’ in town to-night to get drunk, an’
they’re goin’ to put him out, bag and baggage, when they come back. In
the morning no one will know who done it, an’ the Colonel can’t fire
them all, for there’s about ninety of them in the house.”
There was silence now, but Hogan looked at Ikey, Ikey looked at Higgins,
and a glance full of meaning passed between the three men.
“What’s the man’s name?” asked Higgins, breaking the silence at last.
“I didn’t ask his name,” answered Bill. “I only know what the boys have
been telling me. I’m glad the mutt ain’t in this house.”
“Why?” asked Hogan. “What would a roughneck like you be afraid of?”
“Well, I have some good clothes an’ a fine gold watch, some few trinkets
an’ little things that I’d like to keep,” he replied.
“Who’d take ’em?” asked Hogan.
“Ignorance is an awful thing,” put in Ikey. “‘Twould do you good to read
Schopenhauer.”
“’Pon me soul, it would,” agreed Hogan, with spirit.
“I’m going out for a few minutes,” suddenly exclaimed Higgins, and he
glanced meaningly at Ikey.
“I’ll move that trunk out,” said Ikey, “and put up that other bedstead,
an’ then I’ll only have one mattress to sleep on, but that’s more than
many people have.”
“True enough,” said Hogan. “Why don’t the Colonel put a guy like that
off in a place by himself, and build a little house for him? It wouldn’t
cost the Commission much, an’ it would save the men a lot of trouble,”
put in Bill.
“If the Colonel was to build a house for all the jailbirds on the
Isthmus,” said Ikey, “it would cost the Commission more than the diggin’
of the canal.”
At this point in the conversation Higgins put on his hat and went out,
and Ikey went to his room. Hogan walked restlessly to and fro, while
Wiley, stretching himself luxuriously, once more picked up “Three Weeks”
and became deeply interested. More than an hour passed, during which
time not a word was spoken by the men on the veranda.
Finally Ikey came back and sat down, with the air of a man who has been
working, and in a few minutes Higgins came in, whistling. Accompanying
Higgins was a tall, gaunt man, who had wild, staring eyes, a pale,
refined face, and white hair.
“Mr. Frayer, meet Mr. Hogan, Mr. Wiley and Mr. Gillstein,” said Higgins,
leading the man forward.
Bill Wiley nodded his head coldly and grunted, but Hogan and Ikey
extended their hands, and then they pushed forward toward the stranger a
rocking-chair.
“Mr. Frayer is tired,” said Higgins, as he himself sat down. “He has
been on the Isthmus only two weeks, and he has had very little sleep
since he came.”
“I have the bed all ready for him,” said Ikey. “It’s got clean sheets on
it, and he can turn in whenever he likes.”
“Thank you,” said the man, quietly, “but I’d rather sit here and smoke a
little before turning in.”
“Help yourself,” said Hogan, pushing a box of tobacco toward him; “and
here’s matches.”
For some moments the men smoked in silence, Bill Wiley eyeing the
stranger meanwhile.
“You men are mighty civil to me,” suddenly spoke up the stranger. “I did
not think there was any one on the Isthmus that had any heart. I’ll take
that back, though, for there is one man who has been pretty nice to me.
He had trouble himself once, poor fellow.”
“They used you purty rough over in 9, didn’t they?” asked Bill Wiley,
speaking for the first time.
“They surely did. They didn’t let me sleep nights. My roommate would not
let me stay in the room nights with him. When I’d manage to doze off for
a few minutes he would throw things at me and wake me up.
“I’ve seen some rough men in the course of twenty-five years in Sing
Sing, but none of them could beat that crowd for viciousness and
general all-around cussedness.
“For a while I lived on the stuff I could get from the Chinese shops,
because they said that I would not be allowed to go into the mess hall,
but when my little hoard of money was used up I went hungry.”
“Poor devil,” muttered Hogan, under his breath.
“How did you happen to get into Sing Sing?” asked Bill Wiley,
suspiciously.
“I was convicted of killing a girl,” said the man from Number 9, with a
shudder.
“But you didn’t do it, I know,” said Ikey, who had been an interested
listener to the conversation which had gone on before.
“Since you men are so kind as to take me in, I will tell you about it if
you will listen,” said the new man, hesitatingly.
“Go ahead,” said Wiley. “I’m anxious to hear about it. I came near
killing a lady myself once.”
The men filled their pipes, drew their chairs close to the man from
Number 9, and waited expectantly.
“I was sentenced to be hanged twenty-five years ago for murdering a girl
who is to-day alive and happy,” he began. As he spoke, he dropped his
voice to a low, intense whisper, and looked over his shoulder in such a
horrified way as to make Higgins and Hogan each grasp one of his hands
and hold it firmly.
“Why didn’t they hang you?” asked Ikey, childishly.
“While I was in the death house,” went on the man, as though he had not
heard the question, but answering it, nevertheless, “some women got
interested in me, and they engaged one of the best criminal lawyers in
New York State to take up my case, and he finally had the sentence
commuted to life imprisonment.
“To go back,” he went on, “I was a printer by trade, and when my father
died he left me enough money to buy a little printing plant that would
have made me independently rich. It was in one of the biggest towns in
the western part of New York State, and I was making money.
“I had a fine saddle horse, and in summer I used to ride out about
twenty miles to a cottage that my father bought before he died. It was
in a very lonely place, with nothing about it but woods.
“About three miles away from the cottage was the summer home of some
people from New York City, and five miles away the Sheriff lived. My
habit was to ride out to the house, sleep there all night on a cot bed,
and ride back to town in the morning about sunrise.
“I used to meet a girl on horseback sometimes when riding in the early
mornings, and she would ride along with me to a branch road, where she
would turn and leave me.
“I met her every morning that was fine for about three months, and at
times she would chat and laugh pleasantly, but she never allowed me to
become very well acquainted with her. I told her all about myself, but
when I would ask her her name and something about herself, she would
frown and turn the conversation.
“Finally I found myself in love with her, and one morning I told her so.
Then she looked very serious, and said she was sorry, but she loved
another man, and that her love for the man had brought nothing but
trouble into her life. When we came to the cross-roads she reached out
her hand to me and said, ‘Goodbye.’
“I felt something like a shot in my side, right under my heart, as I
turned away from her, and the touch of her hand thrilled me, so I
stopped the horse and looked after her.
“She had a peculiar, mysterious face that appealed strangely to me that
morning, and although I felt hurt and resentful, I galloped after her,
overtook her, and said: ‘Girl, if you ever need a friend, call on me,’
and I handed her a card, which had my town address on it. The only
answer she made was to rein in her horse and look searchingly into my
face.
“I could see that something was moving her strangely, and I said: ‘What
is the matter? I feel that you are in some trouble. What can I do to
help you now?’
“‘Give me the keys to your cottage,’ she said finally, ‘and don’t ride
out here for a few days. I want to hide there until my husband comes for
me.’
“‘You have a husband?’ I blurted out in surprise.
“‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I was married a year ago, but no one must know it
now. I live with my father and stepmother.’
“While she was speaking the tears were running down her cheeks, and I
was too hurt to speak, but I handed her the key, and rode away as
quickly as I could. I never saw her again until three months ago.
“Two weeks later I was arrested for having murdered her. I was in my
office one morning, when the sheriff came and took me to view the spot
where the deed was supposed to have been committed. She was supposed to
have been killed by me while in her bed. The cottage door was locked,
and the key to it was in my vest pocket. I had had two keys to the
front door of the place, the one I gave her and the one which helped to
convict me.
“Her trinkets were found in a bedroom, some clothing, a pair of
slippers, and my business card. There was blood on the straw matting in
the bedroom which the girl had occupied; there was blood on the chairs,
on the dresser, and on the stairs; in the front hall as far as the front
door, and on the front porch, as if some one bleeding had walked or had
been carried down the stairs and out upon the front veranda. Every door
and window was carefully bolted, so it was evident that the murderer had
entered through the door with the help of a key, and had carefully
locked the door behind him in going out. A sheet had been torn to
shreds, and some of it was missing.
“I told my story, but it had no weight in court. The girl had never been
away from home, according to her father and the servants, except
mornings for a short ride, when it was proven that she had met me. More
than twenty people testified that I had been to the cottage every night.
They had seen me riding out, according to my custom, and they had seen
me ride back in the morning.
“As a matter of fact, I had taken a ride on horseback every night and
every morning, but never in the direction of the cottage while she was
there.
“At the trial there were people who testified in my behalf, and many
people believed in my innocence. Among them was a black servant, who
said that the lady had had a secret lover before she ever saw me, and
the girl’s stepmother testified that the girl had acted queerly for many
months; that she used to ride to the postoffice every morning and night,
because she feared that her letters would fall into the hands of her
father.
“In spite of all this, my guilt was made to appear perfectly clear, and
the jury brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree, and, as I
told you before, I was sentenced to be hanged.
“The Sheriff had had a horse taken a few nights before when they
searched my cottage, and when his dogs had begun to bark and give the
alarm, he said to the court, he had fired the contents of his shotgun at
a man who was galloping away from his barn. He told the court that the
man he had fired at was me. In the morning the horse was found in the
Sheriff’s field, with blood on its side and mane. The prosecuting
attorney brought out at the trial that the horse was used to convey the
body of the murdered girl to the place which I had secured as a grave
for her.
“No motive was ever given for my having killed her. If I had ruined her,
there would even then have been no motive, as the girl was of a higher
class of society than I, and as her father had lots of money, it would
have been to his advantage to hush the matter up, rather than to try to
make trouble for me.
“That was the argument of my lawyer. He showed that I had everything to
gain by having the girl alive, if she had liked me well enough to meet
me in that lonely cottage, and I had everything to lose by making away
with her.”
“A darned queer thing. I remember readin’ all about it,” interrupted
John Hogan, while the man from Number 9 moistened his dry lips with his
tongue, and looked over his shoulder in the frightened way he had.
“Well,” said Bill Wiley, “if the woman was alive, why didn’t she show up
and clear you? If it was in the papers, she should have seen it.”
“It was in the papers,” said Hogan, “and a picture of him was in the New
York World.”
“I have that right here,” said the man, touching his breast.
“How did you get out of Sing Sing after twenty-five years, when you got
life?” asked Ikey, as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
“The woman came back, I suppose,” put in Higgins.
“Look at these,” said the man from Number 9. The four men bent eagerly
forward, each with his hand outstretched to take the packet of papers
which the man held in his trembling hands. “Look at this
postmark--‘1885, Panama.’”
John Hogan gently took the yellow letter and unfolded it, while the
other men bent forward, their eyes fairly bulging from their sockets. It
read: ‘My Dear Mr. Frayer; Please forgive us for the condition in which
you found your house. My husband came for me on the night of the 21st of
September, and he stopped to take a horse for me to ride from the
Sheriff’s place. The Sheriff shot at him, and he was wounded in the
arm--a very bad scratch. Did you think that some one had been killed?
The wound bled a great deal, but I bound it up so well that he was all
right until he could see a doctor in New York City. He says I would make
a good surgeon. We left New York on the following Monday and came on one
of the Panama Railroad steamers to Panama. Our destination is Chile.
Please accept this trifle from my husband and me.’
“This is it,” said the man, with a harsh laugh, and he drew from the
faded envelope a slip of paper.
“A check for one thousand dollars,” said the four listeners in turn,
and as each man looked at the check the man from Number 9 gave another
harsh laugh.
“This is the key to the cottage,” said he, drawing from the envelope a
rusty Yale lock latchkey. Then John Hogan read on: “I trust to you to
keep my whereabouts a secret. I am never coming back to New York again.
Let us hear from you. We expect to live at No. 12 Sacramento Street,
Valparaiso, Chile.
“I know my people will make a search for me, but I feel sure that you
will keep silent about me. I am very happy. Your grateful friend, Ada
Bermugues.”
John Hogan threw the letter to Ikey and looked into space for some time,
while the man from Number 9 drew a table toward him and placed upon it
some other papers which he took from the inside pocket of his coat. The
four men bent forward and watched him as, one by one, he unfolded the
various letters and papers which were in some way connected with the
story of his life. One was a pretentious-looking document with two red
seals. It was his acquittal from the Governor of New York for the crime
he had never committed, and was dated May 1st, 1910. Another was the
petition which Ada Bermugues had presented to the Governor in behalf of
the man who had been imprisoned for her supposed murder. There was not a
word spoken while the papers were being perused. One would read a letter
or newspaper clipping, and in silence hand it to another, until all were
read and reread. The men made a weird picture in the soft moonlight, as
they sat, with anxious, set faces. “You see,” the man from Number 9
continued, when the last paper was read and folded by Higgins, from
whose forehead great beads of perspiration dropped, “the woman came back
after a few years and lived in New York City. She didn’t know that I had
ever been put in jail, because she never went about any one she had ever
known before. About three months ago her father died, and she read of
his death in the newspapers. Then she went to their family lawyer and
made herself known to him, and when he told her about me she went
straight to the Governor and had the case opened, and, after a lot of
red tape, I was released. I found that letter which she wrote me from
Panama twenty-five years ago in the pocket of the rain coat that I wore
just before the sheriff arrested me. As I look back now, I remember that
these three letters were handed to me just before the Sheriff put his
hand on my shoulder to tell me I was under arrest.”
The man from Number 9 picked up the three letters indicated. “One,” he
went on, “is, you will see, a bill from a horseshoer; one is from a
tailor, and the other from her. I left the raincoat in my office that
morning and forgot all about the letters. When I was let out of Sing
Sing a cousin of mine took me to his home in my old home town. He told
me that he had all the things that were in the office at the time of my
arrest, and among them was the raincoat, with the letters in the pocket
that might have gained me my freedom. My cousin had never looked in the
pockets, and, therefore, didn’t know that they were there.”
“My God!” said John Hogan; “and the Bible says that not even a sparrow
shall fall to the ground without His knowledge.” “Bible, your foot!”
grunted Ikey. “If God knows everything, why didn’t he make this man
think about the three letters in the pocket of the rain coat? Why didn’t
He put it into the Sheriff’s mind to hunt for evidence the way they do
in the story-books? He never did anything to God that most other men
ain’t doing every day. He tried to do a good act. There was a girl in
some trouble, and he helped her out by giving her the key of his house.
It helped her, because she got away from her folks. They must have been
cussed mean, like mine were when I got away from them. God can’t give
back to this man his youth and health. He can’t give him the sons and
daughters that he might have had if he had been left his freedom. He
can’t give him anything now that will compensate for the twenty-five
years in Sing Sing.” “But there’s another life,” said the man from
Number 9 with awful calmness. “I have had visions of it, and have prayed
to God on my bare knees, and asked Him to bring the girl back, and He
brought her, didn’t He?” “Yes,” said John Hogan, “He did after
twenty-five years.” “I prayed that she’d come back and tell me that she
regretted that she hadn’t loved me, and she did.” “And she just said
that because she thought it would make you feel good. She was sorry for
you. Women can feel sorry for their worst enemies if they are in
trouble,” said Ikey, cynically. “I prayed to God for peace, and He gave
me peace; and I got used to Sing Sing, and would have been content to
live there the rest of my life, if the girl hadn’t come back,” went on
the man from Number 9.
“God can’t do more for a man than give him contentment, and I had that
for many years. I had no desires like I used to have when I was a young
man. I had nothing to lose. There was nothing around me that I would
want to covet. I envied no human being, and no one envied me. Why, I
used to lie in my narrow cell at night and wonder to myself why I was
ever foolish enough to covet the silly things that I used to covet
before I went to jail, and gradually everything that was most dear to me
became only a memory, and the simple things of my prison life became
dear to me. I was a sort of leader among the prisoners, and the worst
ones among them believed that I was innocent.” “That was the potency of
right and truth,” said Higgins, interrupting him for the first time.
“Schopenhauer says that truth is the only God there is, and that’s all I
believe in,” said Ikey.
“After what we guys heard to-night,” said John Hogan, “I’m beginning to
think that old Schuppy was more of a prophet than we give him credit
for.” “You have invited me over here from Number 9,” said the man, “and
I must ask you men not to say things that might have a tendency to kill
my faith, because that’s all I have left.” “You have more than we have,”
said Higgins, “and we are going to try to strengthen your faith, rather
than weaken it.”
“We’ll try to,” said Ikey. “Better go to bed now,” said John Hogan; “you
look tired. Ikey’s room is the coolest in the house. Show him his bed.”
“Good night. Thank you for your kindness, men,” said the man from Number
9, as he followed Ikey to his room. “Good night,” said Higgins and
Hogan. “Poor devil!” said Bill Wiley, as the man disappeared into Ikey’s
room.
“He’s got the right dope on religion,” said John Hogan, “and is happy in
it.” “He bears no ill-feeling for the woman who ruined his life,” said
Higgins. “Why pity him? He’s happy because he believes in a living God.”
“That check he’s got must be worth good money by now,” said Ikey,
returning. “Why don’t the darn fool cash it in?”