Room 13

I

Over the grim stone archway was carved the words:

Parcere Subjectis

In cold weather, and employing the argot of his companions Johnny Gray translated this as “Parky Subjects”—it certainly had no significance as “Spare the Vanquished” for he had been neither vanquished nor spared.

Day by day, harnessed to the shafts, he and Lal Morgon had pulled a heavy handcart up the steep slope, and day by day had watched absently the red-bearded gate-warder put his key in the big polished lock and snap open the gates. And then the little party had passed through, an armed warder leading, an armed warder behind, and the gate had closed.

And at four o’clock he had walked back under the archway and waited whilst the gate was unlocked and the handcart admitted.

Every building was hideously familiar. The gaunt “halls,” pitch painted against the Dartmoor storms, the low-roofed office, the gas house, the big, barn-like laundry, the ancient bakery, the exercise yard with its broken asphalt, the ugly church, garishly decorated, the long, scrubbed benches with the raised seats for the warders … and the graveyard where the happily released lifers rested from their labours.

One morning in spring, he went out of the gate with a working-party. They were building a shed, and he had taken the style and responsibility of bricklayer’s labourer. He liked the work because you can talk more freely on a job like that, and he wanted to hear all that Lal Morgon had to say about the Big Printer.

“Not so much talking today,” said the warder in charge, seating himself on a sack-covered brick heap.

“No, sir,” said Lal.

He was a wizened man of fifty and a lifer, and he had one ambition, which was to live long enough to get another “lagging.”

“But not burglary, Gray,” he said as he leisurely set a brick in its place; “and not shootin’, like old Legge got his packet. And not faking Spider King, like you got yours.”

“I didn’t get mine for faking Spider King,” said Johnny calmly. “I didn’t know that Spider King had been rung in when I took him on the course, and was another horse altogether. They framed up Spider King to catch me. I am not complaining.”

“I know you’re innocent—everybody is,” said Lal soothingly. “I’m the only guilty man in boob. That’s what the governor says. ‘Morgon,’ he says, ‘it does my heart good to meet a guilty man that ain’t the victim of circumstantiality. Like everybody else is in boob,’ he says.”

Johnny did not pursue the subject. There was no reason why he should. This fact was beyond dispute. He had known all about the big racecourse swindles that were being worked, and had been an associate of men who backed the “rung in” horses. He accepted the sentence of three years’ penal servitude that had been passed without appeal or complaint. Not because he was guilty of the act for which he was charged—there was another excellent reason.

“If they lumbered you with the crime, it was because you was a mug,” said old Lal complacently. “That’s what mugs are for—to be lumbered. What did old Kane say?”

“I didn’t see Mr. Kane,” said Johnny shortly.

“He’d think you was a mug, too,” said Lal with satisfaction—“hand me a brick, Gray, and shut up! That nosey screw’s coming over.” The “nosey screw” was no more inquisitive than any other warder. He strolled across, the handle of his truncheon showing from his pocket, the well-worn strap dangling. “Not so much talking,” he said mechanically.

“I was asking for a brick, sir,” said Lal humbly. “These bricks ain’t so good as the last lot.”

“I’ve noticed that,” said the warder, examining a half-brick with a professional and disapproving eye.

“Trust you to notice that, sir,” said the sycophant with the right blend of admiration and awe. And, when the warder had passed:

“That boss-eyed perisher don’t know a brick from a gas-stove,” said Lal without heat. “He’s the bloke that old Legge got straightened when he was in here—used to have private letters brought in every other day. But then, old Legge’s got money. Him and Peter Kane smashed the strongroom of the Orsonic and got away with a million dollars. They never caught Peter, but Legge was easy. He shot a copper and got life.”

Johnny had heard Legge’s biography a hundred times, but Lal Morgon had reached the stage of life when every story he told was new.

“That’s why he hates Peter,” said the garrulous bricklayer. “That’s why young Legge and him are going to get Peter. And young Legge’s hot! Thirty years of age by all accounts, and the biggest printer of slush in the world! And it’s not ord’nary slush. Experts get all mixed up when they see young Legge’s notes—can’t tell ’em from real Bank of England stuff. And the police and the secret service after him for years—and then never got him!”

The day was warm, and Lal stripped off his red and blue striped working jacket. He wore, as did the rest of the party, the stained yellow breeches faintly stamped with the broad arrow. Around his calves were buttoned yellow gaiters. His shirt was of stout cotton, white with narrow blue stripes, and on his head was a cap adorned with mystic letters of the alphabet to indicate the dates of his convictions. A week later, when the letters were abolished, Lal Morgon had a grievance. He felt as a soldier might feel when he was deprived of his decorations.

“You’ve never met young Jeff?” stated rather than asked Lal, smoothing a dab of mortar with a leisurely touch.

“I’ve seen him—I have not met him,” said Johnny grimly, and something in his tone made the old convict look up.

“He ‘shopped’ me,” said Johnny, and Lal indicated his surprise with an inclination of his head that was ridiculously like a bow.

“I don’t know why, but I do know that he ‘shopped’ me,” said Johnny. “He was the man who fixed up the fake, got me persuaded to bring the horse on to the course, and then squeaked. Until then I did not know that the alleged Spider King was in reality Boy Saunders cleverly camouflaged.”

“Squeaking’s hidjus,” said the shocked Lal, and he seemed troubled. “And Emanuel Legge’s boy, too! Why did he do it—did you catch him over money?”

Johnny shook his head.

“I don’t know. If it’s true that he hates Peter Kane he may have done it out of revenge, knowing that I’m fond of Peter, and … well, I’m fond of Peter. He warned me about mixing with the crowd I ran with—”

“Stop that talking, will you?”