Amusement Only Part 10

"If the food were cooked, I don't see how we should give it to the men."

"That's the question." Mr. Murray pondered.

"We might pa.s.s it through the gas-holes."

"We should have to break the gla.s.s to do it. You wouldn't find it easy. It's plate-gla.s.s, an inch in thickness, and built into the solid wall."

There was a pause for consideration.

"Well, this is a pretty start. I've never come across anything like it in all my days before."

Mr. Paley pa.s.sed his hand through his hair. He had never come across anything like it either.

"I shall have to telegraph to the commissioners. I can't do anything without their sanction."

The following telegram was sent:

"Cannot get prisoners out of night-cells. Something the matter with locks. Cannot give them any food. The matter is very urgent. What shall I do?"

The following answer was received:

"Inspector coming down."

The inspector came down--Major William Hardinge. A tall, portly gentleman, with a very decided manner. When he saw the governor he came to the point at once.

"What's all this stuff?"

"We can't get the prisoners out of the night-cells."

"Why?"

"There's something the matter with the locks."

"Have you given them any food?"

"We have not been able to."

"When were they locked up?"

"Yesterday evening at six o'clock."

"This is a very extraordinary state of things."

"It is, or I shouldn't have asked for instructions."

"It's now three o'clock in the afternoon. They've been without food for twenty-one hours. You've no right to keep them without food all that time."

"We are helpless. The construction of the night-cells does not permit of our introducing food into the interior when the doors are closed."

"Have they been quiet?"

"They've been as quiet as under the circ.u.mstance was to be expected."

As they were crossing towards the north division the governor spoke again:

"We've been able to get one man out."

"One!--out of the lot! How did you get him?"

"Oddly enough, the lock of his cell was the only one in the prison which had not been tampered with."

"Hum! I should like to see that man."

"His name's Mankell. He only came in yesterday. He's been pretending to magic powers--telling fortunes, and that kind of thing."

"Only came in yesterday? He's begun early. Perhaps we shall have to tell him what his fortune's likely to be."

When they reached the wards the keys were handed to the inspector, who in his turn tried his hand. A couple of locksmiths had been fetched up from the town. When the Major had tried two or three of the locks it was enough for him. He turned to the makers of locks.

"What's the matter with these locks?"

"Well, that's exactly what we can't make out. The keys go in all right, but they won't turn. Seems as though somebody had been having a lark with them."

"Can't you pick them?"

"They're not easy locks to pick, but we'll have a try!"

"Have a try!"

They had a try, but they tried in vain. As it happened, the cell on which they commenced operations was occupied by a gentleman who had had a considerable experience in picking locks--experience which had ended in placing him on the other side that door. He derided the locksmiths through the door.

"Well, you are a couple of keen ones! What, can't pick the lock! Why, there ain't a lock in England I couldn't pick with a bent 'airpin. I only wish you was this side, starving like I am, and I was where you are, it wouldn't be a lock that would keep me from giving you food."

This was not the sort of language Major Hardinge was accustomed to hear from the average prisoner, but the Major probably felt that on this occasion the candid proficient in the art of picking locks had a certain excuse. He addressed the baffled workmen.

"If you can't pick the lock, what can you do? The question is, what is the shortest way of getting inside that cell?"

"Get a watch-saw," cried the gentleman on the other side the door.

"And when you've got your watch-saw?" inquired the Major.

"Saw the whole lock right clean away. Lor' bless me! I only wish I was where you are, I'd show you a thing or two. It's as easy as winking.

Here's all us chaps a-starving, all for want of a little hexperience!"

"A saw'll be no good," declared one of the locksmiths. "Neither a watch-saw nor any other kind of saw. How are you going to saw through those iron stanchions? You'll have to burst the door in, that's what it'll have to be."

"You won't find it an easy thing to do." This was from the governor.

"Why don't you take and blow the whole place up?" shouted a gentleman, also on the other side of the door, two or three cells off.