THE CHINA MAIL THURSDAY SUPPLEMENT, APRIL 1, 1937
CASE
HE State Prison Board was
Tin Session, Seated about a long mahogany table with glass top, they resembled the directors of a steel corporation. A row of filing cabinets was at one end of the room, from the windows of which could be seen the rolling and beautiful water of San Francisco Bay.
A large picture of Abraham Lincoln, with eyes of haunting sadness, hung upon the wall.
Clerks known as trusties mov- ed softly about the room. ·
The new warden, now chair- man of the board, arrived. A square built man, about fifty, his face was broad and firm. His unruly hair was a mass of gray.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he said, handing his brief case to a trusty. "My apologies.”
The clerk of the board, a wea- ther-worn man, stood near the row of files that contained the records of six thousand men.
The board exchanged a few pleasantries.. Then with papers strewn before them, they dispos- ed of hopes and dreams rapidly.
one
The clerk came to file No. 883, prisoner 1174. He might have known the words by heart, he read so swiftly, “.
he has been here twenty-four years. Arrived when thirty. Embezzle- ment. High living. Corporation lawyer. Absconded with hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Thirty thousand covered. Presumed to have hid- den the rest. No trace of it ever found. Taciturn Up for par- don or parole eleven times in fourteen years. Dismissed each time. Woman in the case.
re-
""
The clerk looked up from the paper. The faces of the board were turned toward him. Seem- ing to feel that more was ex- pected, he read, "Powerful in- fluences have fought every move in his favour, unless secret of lost money
divulged. Allen of Bankers' Exchange in Iîne against him, now dead.”
"Show him in," commanded the warden.
The prisoner entered.
His thin hands were behind his back. The muscles of his throat were contracted. He swallowed as he walked. The gray prison uniform covered his tall sparse body like a faded moth-eaten shroud. His legs were bent at the knees. His lifeless eyes were fixed. One strand of gray hair straggled backward on his head. His forehead projected far out. His noise was beaked and sharp as the blade of a knife at the bridge. His lips were thin and sensitive. The corners of his large mouth drooped. His cheeks had the watery blue co- lour of a freshly shaven corpse. His tongue constantly touched the edges of his lips.
He halted for a moment, stum- bled a few steps more, and stood before his keepers.
A member of the board drop- ped his pencil
silence of the the table. The·
room accentuated
the noise made by the metal tip striking the glass top.
**Prisoner 1174," said the war- den, as the member recovered
the pencil.. 5
“Yes, sir," returned the con- vict in a hoarse whisper. He tried to say more, and stopped in a gesture of despair.
The warden continued, "You have been here twenty-four years. May we ask what you
OF CONVICT
After twenty-four years within prison walls, he figured he had sixteen good years left.
did with the hundred and fifty thousand? So long as you keep us in ignorance of that it shows that you are not contrite at heart."
"Your
stuttered Honour," weakly the man whom more than two dozen years of prison disci- pline had made
obsequious,
"Lead him out," said the war- den.
The door closed:
The warden continued, “Allen of the Bankers' Trust is dead the papers he controlled will make no fight on his release The governor has granted
now.
they could never take it from him .. . he had served twenty- four years for it, no use to tell now. Would the warden ask him questions
the as had other wardens?
A dazed automaton în dirty crumpled gray, he marched from the dining room and fell on his cot face forward like a man shot in the back. His pulse throbbed heart beat hard. swiftly. His "In six years I'll be sixty. Six- teen good years yet, anyhow."
He rose from the cot and look- ed out of his barred window to- ward the bay. A few sea, gulls circled through the bright blue
By JIM TULLY
my request. A man should not be punished forever for ven- geance.""
"But the money," said a mem- bér, "and justice."
"I've thought of both. We are not here to punish the insane." The member fingered his pen- cil.
"But we can't allow him to de- feat justice.”
The warden sighed. “It's too large a question for this room.
He's already served to four
years."
Passing with the guard through the steel corridors, Con- vict 1174 reached his cell-in time to fall in line for the noonday. meal. His mind in turmoil over what the next day would bring, he was unable to touch the coarse food.
.
•
*
Twenty-four years the same place at the table for eleven years
the same cell for nineteen years
the old- est man in the prison. in point of time served except a derelict Chinaman
+
+
There was time enough yet he came of a long lifed
crew
*
his father had died at nearly ninety-five
his mother, long past eighty. ·He would still have good meals and know women
a hun- dred and fifty thousand
weather. For years he had wat- ched the sea gulls. They gave him vicarious freedom and re- vived the dying poet in his soul, For the first year. they had all
·looked alike, but now he could tell the difference between them. Long ago when fog clouds scur- ried across the bay as though driven from the bellows of a mile-high giant, a sea gull had perched on an iron cross piece outside his window. It came to his cell for many weeks, then flew away forever. Its disappear- ance made him more lonely. Once he thought he saw it flying in the midst of many other gulls. He strained his eyes but. could · not distinguish it more clear- ly.
"That was fourteen-or seven- teen years ago.”
19
Her letter came three days la- ter. “Of course I know you will not forgive, but I am weary. Things will be better in Brazil
perhaps."
"Oh, well," he thought, "who could expect her to wait twenty- four years?”
The night dragged in utter weariness away.
A guard called for him at ten o'clock the next morning. A tre- mor went through his body. He might be free at last.
The warden leaned on his desk,
1174
his heavy law in a heavy hand. Through his strong brain tum- bled many thoughts. He com- pared Convict 1174 with the man from whom the money had been stolen. He was more powerful than laws. He had committed Convict 1174 many crimes. but one.
He
recalled the
prisoner's name-Jonathan Fletcher. The. horror of his career was too vivid. He rubbed his eyes.
A knock came to the door. Con- viet 1174 stood before him. The warden turned to the guard. "You may leave the room.”
He then said, “Well, Fletcher!” Then prisoner stepped back. It was the first time he had been called- by his name in twenty- four years.
"It's a lovely morning, Fletch- er." The warden rose. “You've been here a hell of a while, Flet- cher-a hell of a while.”-
"Yes, sir
a long time.” The convict's voice fell in his throat.
"What I'm interested in, Flet- cher, is not morale now-you were a civilised man when you came here
some kink in your brain maybe
I don't think you're as bad as half the men I know. You took a bigger chance. But why did you want that chance? Didn't your intelli- gence tell you that even men more adept in crime than your self spend half their years in jail?”
I-didn't think." The pri- "soner slumped.
“Come on, brace up! We're two men in a room. that's all.”
The warden walked to the window, then turned toward the prisoner. "Something's fixed in your brain.” He paused a mo- ment. "But anyhow, you're a free man, Fletcher."
The prisoner went to his knees. "God Almighty," he mum- bled. "At last.
at
las.
“Come, Fletcher, no foolish- ness. Don't let them see you break now."
:
The warden pressed a button; The prisoner rose. A clerk and a guard entered.
"You can make it on the one o'clock bus, Fletcher step- along." He clutched the convict's hand, and watched him shufflé. down the gravel path between the clerk and the guard, and said to himself, “Old Allen will turn over in his grave.”
(Continued on Page 8)
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