by Otto Penzler
Out of sight, indeed, for from the pit poured up a dense volume of black smoke, which sent the men at the edge reeling and coughing backward to the open air.
‘What is it? What is it?’ a frantic official struggled through the press at the door and shouted an order.
‘Quick! The fire hose!’
The clanging of a bell sent the men to their stations. ‘He is in the pit,’ somebody cried, but a man came with a smoke helmet and went down the side. He was a long time gone, and when he returned, he told his story incoherently.
‘The bottom of the pit’s been dug out—there’s a passage below and a door—the smoke—I stopped that, it’s a smoke cartridge!’
The chief warder whipped a revolver from his holster.
‘This way,’ he shouted and went down the dangling rope hand over hand.
It was dark, but he felt his way; he slipped down the sharp declivity where the tunnel dipped beneath the prison wall, and the men behind him sprawled after him. Then, without warning, he ran into an obstacle and went down bruised and shaken.
One of the last men down had brought a lamp, and the light of it came flickering along the uneven passage. The chief warder shouted for the man to hurry.
By the light he saw that what confronted him was a massive door made of unpainted deal and clamped with iron. A paper attracted his attention. It was fastened to the door, and he lifted the lantern to read it:
‘The tunnel beyond this point is mined.’
That was all it said.
‘Get back to the prison,’ ordered the warder sharply. Mine or no mine, he would have gone on, but he saw that the door was well nigh impregnable.
He came back to the light stained with clay and sweating with his exertions.
‘Gone!’ he reported curtly. ‘If we can get the men out on the roads and surround the town—’
‘That has been done,’ said the governor, ‘but there’s a crowd in front of the prison, and we’ve lost three minutes getting through.’
He had a grim sense of humour, this fierce, silent old man, and he turned on the troubled chaplain.
‘I should imagine that you know why he didn’t want the service now?’
‘I know,’ said the minister simply, ‘and knowing, I am grateful.’
Manfred felt himself caught in a net; deft hands loosened the straps at his wrists and lifted him to his feet. The place was filled with the pungent fumes of smoke.
‘This way.’
Poiccart, going ahead, flashed the rays of his electric lamp over the floor. They took the slope with one flying leap and stumbled forward as they landed; reaching the open door, they paused while Leon crashed it closed and slipped the steel bolts into their places.
Poiccart’s lamp showed the smoothly cut sides of the tunnel, and at the other end, they had to climb the debris of dismantled machinery.
‘Not bad,’ said Manfred, viewing the work critically. ‘The “Rational Faithers” were useful,’ he added. Leon nodded.
‘But for their band, you could have heard the drills working in the prison,’ he said breathlessly.
Up a ladder at the end they raced, into the earth-strewn ‘dining room’ through the passage, inches thick with trodden clay.
Leon held the thick coat for him, and he slipped into it. Poiccart started the motor.
‘Right!’ They were on the move, thumping and jolting through a back lane that joined the main road five hundred yards below the prison.
Leon, looking back, saw the specks of scarlet struggling through the black crowds at the gates. ‘Soldiers to hold the roads,’ he said. ‘We’re just in time—let her rip, Poiccart.’
It was not until they struck the open country that Poiccart obeyed, and then the great racer leapt forward, and the rush of wind buffeted the men’s faces with great soft blows.
Once, in the loneliest part of the road, they came upon telegraph wires that trailed in the hedge.
Leon’s eyes danced at the sight of it.
‘If they’ve cut the others, the chase is over,’ he said; ‘they’ll have cars out in half an hour and be following us; we are pretty sure to attract attention, and they’ll be able to trace us.’
Attract attention they certainly did, for leaving Colchester behind, they ran into a police trap, and a gesticulating constable signalled them to stop.
They left him behind in a thick cloud of dust. Keeping to the Clacton road, they had a clear run till they reached a deserted strip, where a farm wagon had broken down and blocked all progress.
A grinning wagoner saw their embarrassment.
‘You cairn’t pass here, mister,’ he said gleefully, ‘and there ain’t another road for two miles back.’
‘Where are your horses?’ asked Leon quickly.
‘Back to farm,’ grinned the man.
‘Good,’ said Leon. He looked round; there was nobody in sight.
‘Go back there with the car,’ he said and signalled Poiccart to reverse the engine.
‘What for?’
Leon was out of the car, walking with quick steps to the lumbering wreck in the road.
He stooped down, made a swift examination, and thrust something beneath the huge bulk. He lit a match, steadied the flame, and ran backward, clutching the slow-moving yokel and dragging him with him.
‘’Ere, wot’s this?’ demanded the man, but before he could reply, there was a deafening crash, like a clap of thunder, and the air was filled with wreckage.
Leon made a second examination and called the car forward.
As he sprang into his seat, he turned to the dazed rustic.
‘Tell your master that I have taken the liberty of dynamiting his cart,’ he said, and then, as the man made a movement as if to clutch his arm, Leon gave him a push, which sent him flying, and the car jolted over the remainder of the wagon.
The car turned now in the direction of Walton and, after a short run, turned sharply toward the sea.
Twenty minutes later, two cars thundered along the same road, stopping here and there for the chief warder to ask the question of the chance-met pedestrian.
They too swung round to the sea and followed the cliff road.
‘Look!’ said a man.
Right ahead, drawn up by the side of the road, was a car. It was empty.
They sprang out as they reached it—half a dozen warders from each car. They raced across the green turf till they came to the sheer edge of the cliff.
There was no sign of the fugitive.
The serene blue of sea was unbroken, save where, three miles away, a beautiful white steam yacht was putting out to sea.
Attracted by the appearance of the warders, a little crowd came round them.
‘Yes,’ said a wondering fisherman, ‘I seed ’em, three of ’em went out in one of they motorboats that go like lightenin’—they’re out o’ sight by now.’
‘What ship is that?’ asked the chief warder quickly and pointed to the departing yacht.
The fisherman removed his pipe and answered: ‘That’s the Royal Yacht.’
‘What Royal Yacht?’
‘The Prince of the Escorials,’ said the fisherman impressively.
The chief warder groaned.
‘Well, they can’t be on her!’ he said.
Originally published in 1908
Cover design by Andrea Worthington
ISBN: 978-1-4804-9392-6
This 2014 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Otto Penzler, owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan, founded the Mysterious Press in 1975. Penzler quickly became known for his outstanding selection of mystery, crime, and suspense books, both from his imprint and in his store. The imprint was devoted to printing the best books in these genres, using fine paper and top dust-jacket artists, as well as offering many limited, signed editions.
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