He snapped his fingers without looking away from me, and Shapley stepped smartly forward.
“I think prisoner Watson needs to be reminded that actions have consequences, Shapley. Perhaps, while further investigation of Hardie’s death takes place, you would see to that reminder?”
I could hear the anticipation in Shapley’s voice as he answered in the affirmative and yanked me backwards. I was still facing into Keegan’s office as the door swung shut. At my last glimpse of the governor he was staring straight ahead, a satisfied smile on his face.
In company with the other guard, Shapley half dragged and half pushed me down unfamiliar corridors and out into the fresh air. We crossed a patch of waste ground and proceeded until the squat shape of the prison pump house came into view. I knew then where we were going, for in earlier years water had been pumped through the prison by means of convict labour employed on a fearsome set of treadmills. We walked along the wall of the pump house, then passed through a doorway into the building which lay behind it. With one final kick, Shapley propelled me through and onto the tiled floor beyond.
He followed quickly, grabbing the front of my shirt and pulling me to my feet. “I always had my doubts about you, Doctor Watson,” he sneered, “even before you ended up inside. Used to hear about you, following that Sherlock Holmes round like a dog, telling everyone how brilliant he was. No better than a dago slave flattering his dago king, if you ask me.
“Turned out to be just like one of them murderous foreigners, as well. But you’re too much of a coward to admit what you done, ain’t you? Killing the boy, him who looked on you as a friend? That’s unnatural, is that.”
He raised a fist in genuine rage and I cursed my befuddled condition as I weakly covered my head, prepared for the blow. But it failed to land. Shapley visibly controlled himself and lowered his arm. “Suppose I can’t blame you for trying to get me and the lads involved. You don’t owe me nothing, and the likes of you’ll turn on anyone to save your own neck. Old ladies and little lads. That’s about your limit. But Matt Galloway’s been good to you. You’d think common decency would have held you back there at least.”
I wanted to ask him what he knew about Galloway, but the words would not form and instead I watched in silence as he moved to the wall and turned on a light.
The room thus illuminated was long but relatively narrow, with stalls for the picking of oakum set on both sides and behind them, on the left, numbered sets of treadmill slots.
The wheel itself was difficult to make out, as it was hidden behind a row of slatted openings, each about one and a half feet wide, through which only a small section could be seen. I had read enough about other treadmills to know how they were constructed. Essentially a paddle wheel such as one might find by a country mill, only with extra wide slats on which a man might stand, the treadmill moved by dint of prisoner exertion. The example before me comprised twenty-four stalls, arranged in two groups of twelve, separated by a brick-enclosed space into which Shapley retreated.
“Put him in number thirteen, May,” he called. “Take the seat out first though.”
The guard reached into the nearest stall and pulled out a short plank, which he laid to one side. “In you go then,” he said, prodding me forward.
“Dangerous things, treadmills,” Shapley said, emerging from the brick enclosure. “A man used to get caught between the slats regular in the old days. Lost a leg, if he was lucky. Course, we don’t use it nowadays and it ain’t connected to the pump no more. More enlightened times, the governor says, but still… There’s levers in there,” he pointed back to the enclosed space he had just left, “lets me set different levels of what they call resistance. Comes in handy when there’s someone needs to be taught a lesson that don’t leave bruises. Best get you started,” he said with a grin. “An hour or two treading the wind will soon have you minding your manners round Matty Galloway.”
It was a strange thing to say, I thought, as I gingerly placed a foot on the slat in front of me. I expected it to sink beneath me but instead it simply trembled without otherwise moving. I turned as well as I could in the confined space and – with a burst of angry bravado – asked Shapley if the blasted machine was on.
“Other foot, Watson,” he snarled. “They’re steps, not a platform for you to rest on.”
I lifted my foot and placed it on the next step, which immediately sank beneath me as I had originally expected. Within half a minute, the wheel was moving steadily beneath me.
As I took one step after another, pushing each slat away from me as it appeared beneath my feet, I recalled Hardie’s body on his bed and the look on his dead face. I heard Shapley call out to increase the resistance, but I was filled with energy, driven by anger and hate, and fuelled by the great wrong which had been done to the boy – and to me.
I pressed on, caring nothing for the guards or the governor, seeing only each step as it appeared beneath my feet.
Sweat ran down my forehead and into my eyes. The muscles in my calves burned and my breath came in great gulps, but still I pushed on. Dimly, I heard Shapley shout “More!” to his unseen confederate, but it signified nothing to me. I redoubled my efforts as spots swam lazily across my eyeline. My chest constricted as my heart rate increased until the pounding resembled a staccato drumbeat against my chest wall. Redness flooded my vision as Shapley gave some fresh instruction that I could not decipher – and then blackness replaced it and I knew nothing more.
Chapter Twenty
I slept little that night in the new cell into which Shapley and May had thrown me. Instead I lay curled up in a ball, gritting my teeth every time I moved, as my bruises and strains came into contact with the thin mattress. Occasionally, I rose and attempted to stretch my aching muscles, pacing the few steps from window to door and back again, before slumping back onto the bed with a stifled groan.
My mind was far more active. Just as I had when caught up by Potter at Baker Street, at some point on my pointless ascent of the treadmill, as my muscles burned like fire and Shapley’s mocking laughter echoed behind me, I had remembered that I had done nothing wrong.
I reconsidered every second since my arrest, and slowly constructed a chain of events in my head, which I then mentally examined, looking for a weakness, an inconsistency, which could help me. Try as I might, I could identify nothing, and so I switched my attention from my own plight to that of my murdered cellmate. I had pledged to help him when he was alive but having failed in that – worse, having been the cause of his death – perhaps I could do something to avenge his killing.
As dawn broke sullenly through the small window above my head, I found myself wishing fervently that Holmes had completed whatever errand had kept him from the prison for the past days. It would be a great boost to my spirits to discuss matters with him.
I was still lying on the bed when I heard a key turn and the cell door swung open. A new guard, a big black-bearded brute of a man with heavy eyebrows and narrow squinting eyes, barked an order to get up. After barely a moment’s pause, he growled, “When I tells you to get up, you gets up!” and strode inside.
It seemed that there was to be no respite from yesterday’s torment but, in my newfound spirit of defiance, I resolved that I would no longer accept brutality as my due. I climbed to my feet and balled my fists, prepared for whatever was to come.
“Is that any way to greet an old friend?” asked the guard as he closed the door behind him. “One would think you were displeased to see me, Watson!”
Holmes’s face crinkled in a familiar half-smile as he gripped my hand in greeting.
“News of your young friend’s death reached me at Baker Street late yesterday. I recognised at once that the risk to yourself in this place had become too great to be ignored. Fortunately, I had already considered the need to infiltrate the prison, and so had much of the preparations already in place. A telegram to the right person, and a meeting last night with one or two others, and I was as you see me now – Harry
Andrews, freshly appointed guard at Holloway Prison.”
In spite of myself, I could not help but laugh at Holmes’s obvious pleasure in his own cleverness, but the action aggravated the pain in the strained muscles of my chest, forcing a wince from me and instantly focusing the whole of Holmes’s attention on my physical condition.
“But I see that I have arrived later than I should have.” His brows furrowed as his eyes darted restlessly up and down my frame. “It is illegal to put any prisoner not yet convicted into a treadmill, Watson! Tell me, who ordered this?”
It was a measure of my relief and delight in seeing him that I laughed again at this demonstration of his powers of observation and, still laughing, asked for an explanation.
“There is no time for this, Watson,” he replied severely then, perhaps recognising my desire for the familiar, relented sufficiently to provide an answer. “But if it will satisfy you…
“You have been a soldier, and taken a wound in battle; you would not groan in that manner unless you had in the recent past been extremely ill served physically. The manner in which you stood as I entered indicates several pulled muscles in your chest and upper thigh, reminiscent of those suffered by men labouring overlong on a treadmill, while the clenching of your fists at the sight of a guard provides a likely source for your discomfort. Additionally, you have a slight scuffing of your trousers caused by your knees brushing constantly against an object directly in front of you as you walked. I can think of seven different potential causes of such marks, but in a prison environment, a treadmill is by far the most likely culprit. Now if you are content, perhaps you will answer my original question. Who ordered you placed in the treadmill, and why?”
Quickly, I recounted the events of the previous days, including my meeting with McLachlan, while Holmes – or Andrews, as I must think of him for the foreseeable future – listened intently, nodding now and again, and frowning as I came to my interview with Governor Keegan.
As soon as my narrative was complete, Holmes filled in the details of his own recent activities.
“I feared that our visit to Major McLachlan had proven far less productive than I had hoped, but it has borne some unexpected fruit. Your lawyer is correct, however. Though I am willing to admit that you are a sound judge of character, I have little faith in anyone’s intuition unless there are solid facts to support it. Still, I have not been to Baker Street for several days, and should his card await me there, that is something in his favour, I grant you. Rest assured, I am not so cold a creature as to accept the death of one innocent man in order to save the life of another. You have my word that I shall give due weight to what you have said.
“To return to his elder brother, however. Since we were expelled from his home, Sir Campbell has made of your case a great crusade, describing you in private conversation in the Commons as a gutter-press wordsmith for hire, and making great play of your alleged links to the criminal gangs who wish to bring him low. I have managed to keep the case unreported in the popular press, but I am sorry to say that political opinion is turning against you, Watson. It was all I could do to have myself placed here; there will be no further aid from those from whom I have previously sought assistance.”
“What of the girl who began this? Have you had any luck in finding her?”
He shook his head. “It is as though she has disappeared completely from the face of the earth, Watson. I have had my irregulars scouring the rookeries and slums to no avail, and the offer of a reward for her location has thus far turned up only the unconnected and the addled.”
“So we are no nearer a solution?” I enquired glumly.
“I did not say that,” Holmes chided me softly. “There are times when no evidence is evidence in itself. But in the absence of anything which I could take to Scotland Yard, I would prefer not to raise your hopes prematurely. But do not despair. There is yet time.”
A noise outside caused him to fall instantly silent. He gripped my shoulder lightly in his hand and guided me to the door. “My apologies, Watson, but I must play the part to some extent,” he whispered as he hooked it open with a foot and shoved me into the corridor just as Shapley came into view from the central area.
“There you are, Andrews,” he declared loudly. “I see you’ve met one of our most famous inmates – and one of our more troublesome too. Make haste, Watson,” he addressed himself to me, “and get into line. You should know the routine by now.”
It was as though the events of yesterday had not happened. No reference was made to Hardie’s death, nor to my own punishment. I shuffled into my place in the queue of prisoners and wondered if Holmes were correct. Was there yet time?
Chapter Twenty-One
From then on, Holmes was at hand whenever I left my cell.
It should not be supposed, of course, that Collins (or whoever he worked for – the question remained unresolved) and Galloway were the only prisoners who wished me ill. On two other occasions over the next week, attempts were made to harm me.
On the first, a skinny, scar-faced inmate took the space beside mine in the chapel, as we sang the hymn, and tried to slide an improvised knife into my ribs. Fortunately, I had wondered at his insistence on taking that specific seat and was ready for him. As he bent down to pull the knife from the ankle to which it was strapped, I mimicked the motion and savagely twisted his wrist before he could react, causing him to drop the weapon, which I then kicked away. An instant later, “Andrews” had reached us and bustled my attacker away to the punishment cells.
The second occasion was more serious. I was walking slowly around the exercise area, acutely aware of Hardie’s absence, when a group of prisoners swiftly cut between the marked paths and rushed towards me. After Collins’s attack I was prepared for such an approach, however, and as soon as the first man came within range I lashed out, catching him square on the chin and sending him sprawling in the dirt. The second man I incapacitated with a swift kick, but by then several hands were upon me. Guards who only a second before had been within a dozen yards of me melted away into the crowd of men, and things would have gone badly had it not been for the sound of Andrews’ whistle and his sudden presence, swinging his truncheon with calculated efficiency. Two of the gang joined their compatriots on the ground, while the remainder scattered in fright. As with the scarred man in the chapel, I recognised none of my attackers. It was clear, however, that I was a marked man, even with Galloway’s supposed protection.
I mentioned the paradox of Galloway’s ineffectual protection to Holmes the next morning when, as had become customary, he opened my cell and we had a few minutes to talk.
“If Galloway’s protection is supposed to keep Isaac Collins from my throat, how is it that it has had no similar effect on these other prisoners?”
“That is a puzzle which I have yet to decipher, Watson. Clearly, however, you can expect little assistance from the warders. Shapley has already sounded me out in my guise of Mr. Andrews. Yesterday evening, we completed our day’s work at the same time. Quite naturally, he extended to me an invitation to the local public house, by way of a welcome to my new position. Once there, over several pints of abominable ale, he enquired, none too subtly, if I would be interested in supplementing my wages. ‘All it needs is a blind eye now and again,’ were his exact words. I affected to take the matter as a test of my honesty and laughed it off, which satisfied him for now, but it is a fact that certain guards cannot be trusted to act in the interests of every prisoner in their care. You are, I fear, one of those unfortunate prisoners.”
I recalled the disappearing guards in the exercise yard, and shuddered inwardly. The message of the treadmill could not be clearer. My life had been judged expendable, and I could expect protection from no one.
“As to Collins, he has no link to you and has never crossed our path professionally, so we may safely conclude that he acted on behalf of someone else. However, the code of the criminal has so stoppered his lips that he has said no word other than to clai
m the attack as his own. The same attitude has been taken by those whose assaults on you are more recent. There, at least, it appears that each man is currently within these walls as a result, however indirectly, of our efforts. You may not have recognised him, but your chapel assailant was one of the thugs employed by Kavanagh, the Manchester arsonist, and the group in the yard were all at one time in the service of the blackmailer Jonathan Hoad, now safely locked away in Dartmoor.”
“So Galloway’s protection is worthless? Good. I have been in far more dangerous situations than I find myself in now, and I have no desire to owe the killer of Albert Hardie any favours.”
“Well said, Watson! That is the stout-hearted fellow I know.”
“Could Collins’s employer be the same person who murdered Hardie?” I asked. “Could he be Galloway, playing some double bluff, his every move designed to increase my torment?”
Holmes glanced across at the cell door, but as yet there was no sign of any other guard and so we had a moment more unobserved.
“I fear you are becoming obsessed with Galloway, Watson. Why would Galloway wish to harm you? Besides, whether he was involved in the attacks on you and Hardie is not of paramount importance at the moment, when we are so close to your trial and, as yet, have no new suspect to offer Potter in your stead. I shall not be here for the next two days – I have certain matters to attend to outside the prison – but I beg of you, keep to your cell as much as possible and if you cannot, stay in plain sight of a guard at all times. Shapley and those like him are not above bribery and even assault, but they will baulk at murder, if I am any judge.”
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes--The Improbable Prisoner Page 16
