Murder Mysteries for the Holiday Season. Джером К. Джером
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McAllister perceived that at best only a few moments could elapse before he was brought to face the charge against him, and that he must make up his mind quickly what course of action to pursue. As he stepped down from the doorway there was a perceptible flutter among the spectators. Several hungry-looking men with note-books opened them and poised their pencils expectantly.
Tom, having handed over McAllister to the temporary care of a brother officer, lost no time in locating his complainant, that is to say, the gentleman whose house our hero was charged with having burglariously entered. The two then sought out the clerk, who seemed to be holding a sort of little preliminary court of his own, and who, under the officer's instruction, drew up some formal document to which the complainant signed his name. McAllister was now brought before this official and briefly informed that anything he might say would be used against him at his trial. He was then interrogated, as before, in regard to his name, age, residence, and occupation, but with the same result. Indeed, no answers seemed to be expected under the circumstances, and the clerk, having written something upon the paper, waved them aside. Nothing, however, of these proceedings had been lost to the reporters, who escorted Tom and McAllister to the end of the line of officers, worrying the former for information as to his prisoner's origin and past performances. But Tom motioned them off with the papers which he held in his hand, bidding them await the final action of the magistrate. Nobody seemed particularly unfriendly; in fact, an air of general good-fellowship pervaded the entire routine going on around them. What impressed the clubman most was the persistence and omnipresence of the reporters.
"I must get time!" thought McAllister. "I must get time!"
One after another the victims of the varied delights of too much Christmas jubilation were disposed of. Fatty Welch was the only real "gun" that had been taken. He had the arena practically to himself. Now only one case intervened. He braced himself and tried to steady his nerves.
"Next! What's this?"
McAllister was thrust down below the bridge facing the bench, and Tom began hastily to describe the circumstances of the arrest.
"Fatty Welch?" interrupted the magistrate. "Oh, yes! I read about it in the morning papers. Chased off in a cab, didn't he? You shot the horse, and his partner got away? Wanted in Pennsylvania and Illinois, you say? That's enough." Then looking down at McAllister, who stood before him in bespattered dress suit and fragmentary linen, he inquired:
"Have you counsel?"
McAllister made no answer. If he proclaimed who he was and demanded an immediate hearing, the harpies of the press would fill the papers with full accounts of his episode. His incognito must be preserved at any cost. Whatever action he might decide to take, this was not the time and place; a better opportunity would undoubtedly present itself later in the day.
"You are charged with the crime of burglary," continued the Judge, "and it is further alleged that you are a fugitive from justice in two other States. What have you to say for yourself?"
McAllister sought the Judge's eye in vain.
"I have nothing to say," he replied faintly. There was a renewed scratching of pens.
The Judge conferred with the clerk for a moment.
"Any question of the prisoner's identity?" he asked.
"Oh, no," replied Tom conclusively. "The fact is, yer onner, we took him by accident, as you may say. We laid a plant for a feller doin' second-story work on the avenoo, and when we nabbed him, who should it be but Welch! Ye see, they wired on his description from Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago, but we couldn't find hide or hair of him in the city, and had about give up lookin'. Then, quite unexpected, we scoops him in. Here's his indentity," handing the Judge a soiled telegraph blank. "It's him, all right," he added with a grin.
The magistrate glanced at the form and at McAllister.
"Seems to fit," he commented. "Have you looked for the scar?"
Tom laughed.
"Sure! I seen it when he was gettin' his measurements took, down to headquarters."
"Turn around, Welch, and let's see your back," directed the magistrate.
The clubman turned around and displayed his collarless neck.
"There it is!" exclaimed Tom.
McAllister mechanically put his hand to his neck and turned faint. He had had in his childhood an almost forgotten fall, and the scar was still there. He experienced a genuine thrill of horror.
"Well," continued the magistrate, "the prisoner is entitled to counsel, and, besides, I am sure that the complainant, Mr. Brown, has no desire to be delayed here on Christmas Day. I will set the hearing for ten o'clock to-morrow morning, at the Tombs police court. I shall be sitting there for Judge Mason the rest of the week, beginning to-morrow, and will take the case along with me. You might suggest to the Warden that it would be more convenient to send the prisoner down to the Tombs, so that there need be no delay."
The complainant bowed, and the officer at the bridge slapped McAllister not unkindly upon the back.
"You'll need a pretty good lawyer," he remarked with a wink.
"Next!" ordered the Judge.
In the patrol wagon McAllister had ample time for reflection. A motley collection of tramps, "disorderlies," and petty law-breakers filled the seats and crowded the aisle. They all talked and joked, swinging from side to side and clutching at one another for support with harsh outbursts of profanity, as they rattled down the deserted streets toward New York's Bastile. Staggering for a foot-hold, between four women of the town, McAllister was forced to breathe the fumes of alcohol, the odor of musk, and the aroma of foul linen. He no longer felt innocent. The sense of guilt was upon him. He seemed part and parcel of this load of miserable humanity.
The wagon clattered over the cobblestones of Elm Street, and whirling round, backed up to the door of the Tombs. The low, massive Egyptian structure, surrounded by a high stone wall, seemed like a gigantic mortuary vault waiting to receive the "civilly dead." Warden and keepers were ready for the prisoners, who were now unceremoniously bundled out and hustled inside. McAllister stood with the others in a small anteroom leading directly into the lowest tier. He could hear the ceaseless shuffling of feet and the subdued murmur of voices, rising and falling, but continuous, like the twittering of a multitude of birds, while through the bars came the fetid prison smell, with a new and disagreeable element—the odor of prison food.
"Keepin' your mouth shut?" remarked the deputy to McAllister, as he entered the words "Prisoner refuses to answer," and blotted them.
"We're rather crowded just now," he added apologetically. "I guess I'll send you to Murderer's Row. Holloa, there!" he called to someone above, "one for the first tier!"
A keeper seized the clubman by the arm, opened a door in the steel grating, and pushed him through. "Go 'long up!" he ordered.
McAllister started wearily up the stairs. At the top of the flight he came to another door, behind which stood another keeper. In the background marched in ceaseless procession an irregular file of men. In the gloom they looked like ghosts. Aimlessly they walked on, one behind the other, most of them with eyes downcast, wordless, taking that exercise of the body which the law prescribed.
McAllister entered The Den of Beasts.
"All right, Jimmy!" yelled the keeper to the deputy warden below. Then, turning to McAllister. "I'm goin' to put you in with Davidson. He's quiet, and won't bother you if you let him alone. Better give him whichever berth he feels like. Them double-decker cots is just as good on top as they is below."
McAllister followed the keeper down the narrow gangway that ran around the prison. In the stone corridor below a great iron stove glowed red-hot, and its fumes rose and mingled with the tainted air that floated out from every cell. Above him rose tier on tier, illuminated only by the gray light which filtered through a grimy window at one end of the prison. The arrangement of cells, the "bridges" that joined the tiers, and the murky atmosphere, heightened the resemblance to the "'tween decks" of an enormous slaver, bearing them all away to some