CHAPTER XIII
AFTER THE FIGHT
FROM across the yards out of the various shops came the convicts tramping into the main building, into the wings and corridors through the steel-barred gates; and throughout the great prison echoed the ring of clanging doors, the clash of the massive bar-locks, the shuffling tread of lock-stepped files, the hoarse, gruff, curt commands of the guards.
Ever the man of prompt and decisive action. Warden Rand had thrown himself into the breach. Too well he was aware that the news would spread like wild-fire to every last prisoner in his charge; and upon its heels, spreading infection with the excitement, he feared an outbreak of insubordination that, as well as not, might develop into a general uprising. Within twenty minutes following what had been the most desperate attempt at wholesale delivery in the history of the institution, every man of the eight hundred convicts within the penitentiary walls was under lock and key.
And then in his office, man after man of those who, though taking no part in the fray, had been present in the carpenter shop was brought before him, subjected to a stern, searching interrogation and led away again. Over an hour this had taken him, and now as he finished with the last one and settled back in his chair, his usually genial face hard and troubled, a heavy frown on his brow, a white-jacketed form came through the doorway and stepped up to the desk—it was Doctor Kreelmar, the prison physician. Warden Rand glanced sharply at the other's face before he spoke.
"I was just going to send for you, doctor," he said. "Well?"
Doctor Kreelmar, a short, nervous, little black-haired man of fifty, shook his head.
"It's not well at all," he returned bluntly. "It's—hum!—infernally bad. Wenger shot two dead besides Blackie Lunn and—"
"I know that," interposed the warden tersely. "What about the rest?"
"Scotty can't live, not a ghost of a chance, Wenger's bullet touched his left lung—Wenger'll go out too. As for the others, I never saw anything like it in all my experience—some of them are battered as though they had been literally struck with a trip-hammer, and two of them have their ribs broken, simply crushed in from that chap's hug."
"You mean?" inquired the warden.
"Yes, of course—Varge—Number Seven-seventy-seven," said the doctor. "Rand, that man is wonderful"—Doctor Kreelmar drew in his breath. "Wonderful!" he repeated. "I wouldn't have believed it if any one had told me and I hadn't seen him professionally myself."
"Will he live?" Warden Rand demanded.
"Live!" exclaimed Doctor Kreelmar. "Yes; he'll live—but no other man would with the wounds he's got. He's been stabbed in a dozen places with all sorts of tools, and his head's laid open for three inches to the skull. Of course, he's in bad shape and will need care. but he's conscious again and doing well. I want you to come into the hospital, Rand, next time I do his dressings—I give you my professional word you'll see something that you don't need any special knowledge of anatomy to be amazed at. He's the most marvellous specimen of the human animal I ever heard of. I don't know how to express it any other way than to tell you to imagine the normal development of a man twice the ordinary size, and then imagine that development with all its strength and power compressed with the utmost harmony and delicate adjustment into this man's body. He's an absolutely perfect man—his skin is as smooth as satin, not a spot or blemish on it, and the muscles under it play like steel knobs in well-oiled grooves. It's no surprise to me he bent that bar that convicted him—his strength, fully exerted, would be something terrific."
Warden Rand nodded his head and looked at the doctor a little whimsically.
"It would seem as though he had given us some evidence of it this afternoon from your report," he said grimly.
"So he did, so he did," jerked out the little doctor. "And do you know. Rand, that's what gets me. How do you account for him doing what he did?—not only in keeping Twisty and his pals from making their escape, but trying to save Wenger's life as well? He surely hadn't any love for Wenger. Wasn't it Wenger who got him the black hole last week?—and wanted to get him the lash?"
"Yes," said the warden quietly; "it was Wenger."
"Well then," urged the doctor, "what do you make of him?"
"Frankly," admitted Warden Rand, "I don't know. I'll confess he has puzzled me ever since he has been here and—"
"And you thought enough of him to save him from the lash," supplied the doctor impulsively. "Well, I'll tell you what I think. I think a man who has done what he did to-day isn't the kind of man ever to have killed Doctor Merton over there in Berley Falls in cold blood, or hot blood, either, for that matter—evidence or no evidence, and whatever he says himself to the contrary."
Warden Rand drummed for an instant with his fingers on the desk.
"I am afraid that is not for us to say," he said gravely. "We can only deal with conditions as we find them. He is here for life—we cannot alter that. However, this afternoon makes a pretty big score to his credit and we'll see what we can do for him. Wenger, you say, can't live? "
"No," the doctor answered. "There is absolutely no chance for him—he is sinking fast now. I'm sorry for him, for he put up a game fight. I'd give him twelve hours at the outside and—"
Doctor Kreelmar broke off and turned suddenly at the sound of a step in the corridor without—then frowned, as the dark, handsome face of Harold Merton appeared in the doorway. As impulsive and irascible as he was big of heart, it was Doctor Kreelmar's boast that he wore his heart upon his sleeve. He had taken a dislike to this man who of late had been so frequent a visitor at the warden's house—and he made no attempt to conceal it now.
"May I come in?" Merton asked.
"Certainly," responded Warden Rand cordially. "You've met Doctor Kreelmar, I think."
"Several times," said the doctor stiffly.
Merton bowed politely, apparently oblivious of the other's brusqueness—and addressed himself to Warden Rand.
"I met one of the mounted patrol—Kingman—as I was driving in," he said. "Kingman told me that Varge had been in a desperate fight and that he was badly hurt. I was going over to the house, but I hurried in here instead"—Merton sensed a thrill of exultation creeping into his voice and lowered it to a tone of more consistent concern. "I just caught the doctor's last words as I came in. I sincerely hope that it is not as bad as that." He turned to Doctor Kreelmar. "Is there no chance whatever, doctor?"
"None at all," said Doctor Kreelmar curtly, quite well aware of the mistake Merton was labouring under, and deliberately refusing to enlighten him.
"Too bad," murmured Merton in a low voice. "Too bad. I—"
"Doctor Kreelmar was speaking of Wenger, one of the guards," explained Warden Rand quickly, with a slight frown of disapproval directed at the doctor.
"Oh!" said Merton. "Not—not Varge. I—I am very glad. And Varge, then?"
"Will live," said the warden. "And I am sure you will be glad to know that as soon as he is able to be about again, we are going to make things easier for him—thanks to what he has done this afternoon."
"I am indeed," said Merton instantly, with well-simulated sincerity. "Anything that can be done for him, as I have told you before, will be appreciated by both my mother and myself. What do you intend to do for him?"
"Well," Warden Rand said genially, "I suppose the doctor here would prescribe plenty of fresh air, sunshine and light work—eh, doctor?"
"I would," agreed Doctor Kreelmar with emphasis. "That's just what he'll need—and he's earned it."
"Just so," smiled Warden Rand. "Well then, we'll make a trusty of him, and let him look after my garden this summer—that'll keep him outdoors all day and won't be very arduous."
"A trusty—over there in the garden!" echoed Merton blankly. "Do—do you think that would be wise?"
Warden Rand's eyebrows went up a little in surprise. Doctor Kreelmar looked sharply at Merton.
"Wise?" repeated Warden Rand questioningly.
"Perhaps I should have said safe," said Merton hastily. "That is what I really meant. Of course, I'm interested, deeply interested, in Varge's welfare; but, equally, I—I cannot forget what he has done—what he is. I was thinking of Miss Rand. Do you think it would be safe for her to have a man around there day after day without any guard to watch him who—who has—who is a murderer?"
"I don't think Miss Rand has anything to fear from a man who will offer his life to save another toward whom he has little cause to bear any goodwill," remarked Doctor Kreelmar caustically.
With a quick, startled glance, Merton swept the doctor's face.
"I—I don't know what you mean," he said, his voice faltering a little in spite of himself as the unintentional shot went home.
"Wenger, the guard Varge fought for, and Varge, it seems, weren't on very good terms," explained the warden quietly interposing. "As for the rest, I must say I agree with the doctor. I should have no uneasiness on Janet's account through sending Varge over there, though I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Take it all around in fact, I believe it's the best thing to do, and we might as well call it settled—you can tell him, doctor, when you go back, if you like."
Doctor Kreelmar nodded; and Merton, not daring to take the risk of pressing the matter further at that time, took pains to change the subject of conversation, and presently left the office to go over to the warden's house.
"What's the matter between you two?" demanded Warden Rand abruptly, when he and the doctor were alone again.
"Nothing. Don't like him, that's all," Doctor Kreelmar answered crisply.
"That's very apparent," smiled the warden dryly. "You've got a bigger heart than a woman's on occasions, Kreelmar; but you're the worst man for violent likes and dislikes that I've ever met—and you take no pains to hide them."
"Why should I?" snapped the irascible little doctor aggressively. "I get along better by being honest about it. It gives me less to do with those I dislike; and as for the ones I like, I'd rather tell them now that they're good fellows and that I think so than wait till they're dead and tell somebody else what I have thought of them—does 'em a hanged-sight more good, what?"
Warden Rand laughed good-naturedly.
"Well," he said, "I am not going to argue it. It's a brand of philosophy that Number Seven-seventy-seven, at least, ought to appreciate for the next few days, seeing that he's on the right side of your mental ledger." Warden Rand paused, and his eyes, grown serious, held Doctor Kreelmar's for a moment. "I've official strings, on my tongue that you haven't on yours, Kreelmar," he said significantly; "but I'm as much interested in the man as you are, understand? I leave it to you to pull him around in the best shape you can."
"Hum!" said Doctor Kreelmar eloquently, as he turned toward the door. "That's all right as far as it goes—but it isn't medicine that man needs."
"Perhaps not," admitted the warden. "But what else can you do for him?"
"What else!" repeated the little doctor with a grunt, as he walked out. "I don't know, do I? If I did, he'd be a free man."
Doctor Kreelmar passed down the hall into the penitentiary proper through the steel gates opened for him by a guard, turned to his left and kept on along a corridor to where, at the extreme end, it opened into the prison infirmary. As he walked, his small, round face was fiercely puckered, and he plucked continuously at a diminutive black goatee with the knuckle of his thumb and the end of his forefinger.
"Marvellous physique!" he muttered. "Marvellous! Fine fellow. Seen lots of 'em, lots of 'em—know 'em when I see 'em. Murderer—poppycock! Something queer about it—something underneath. I wonder—hum! Good mind to try it. End justifies the means—always believed in that. Good mind to try it."
He reached the hospital door, stepped inside, and halted for an instant to sweep each individual form in the six cots, that were lined up together by the doorway, with a swift, critical glance; then he strode on down the ward, motioned the two guards who had been placed on duty imperiously to the lower end of the room, and stopped before the two beds in the upper corner that had been drawn close beside each other and apart from the rest. In the one nearer the door, unconscious and scarcely breathing, the heavy, brutish features strangely softened and refined by the pallor of approaching death, lay Wenger, the guard; in the other, Varge turned his head, swathed in bandages, and fastened his eyes on Doctor Kreelmar.
A moment the doctor bent over Wenger, then he came around to the far side of Varge's bed, nodded to Varge, whipped his clinical thermometer from his pocket, shook the mercury down, and thrust it under Varge's tongue. His fingers closed on Varge's wrist, held there an instant—and a startled look came over his face. He took out his watch hurriedly, recounted the pulse, and finally, reaching for the little thermometer, took it from Varge's lips. He read it quickly, and as quickly held it to the light as though to assure himself that he had made no mistake. A suppressed exclamation escaped him as he glanced back at Varge, his brows knitted; then he turned suddenly, beckoning to one of the guards.
"What's been going on here?" he demanded sternly.
"Nothing, sir," replied the guard.
"Nothing! Nothing!" echoed the little man sharply. "How nothing! Any of that scum down there"—he pointed to the six cots—"been making a disturbance, threatening this man that you're here to protect, doing anything to excite him, or anything like that, eh?"
"Why, no, sir," replied the guard. "It's been as quiet here since you left as it is now."
"Hum!" said Doctor Kreelmar fiercely. "Well, that's all"—he waved the man away—"go back where you were."
He drew a chair to the bedside, sat down, and for a long while studied Varge's face with troubled intentness.
Varge, who had been watching the doctor from under half-closed lids, was the first to speak.
"What is it, doctor?" he asked, the kindly, habitual smile—that in the months had grown to know a tinge of wistfulness—hovering on his lips, in spite of the pain he was suffering.
The doctor did not answer for a moment, and Varge searched the sober, serious countenance of the other curiously. There had been a fight, an attempted escape—he remembered every detail of it until he had lost consciousness. He had been wounded, seriously wounded—his own medical knowledge had told him that. He had come to himself in this room and the doctor had dressed his wounds. He remembered the strange gentleness of the other's touch; the friendly, sympathetic voice, gruff and blunt with chopped-off words, though it had been. Then he had slept a little and awakened again at Doctor Kreelmar's entry into the room. What was it now? Why was the doctor bending over him so anxiously, so soberly now? If it were over Wenger there might be reason—his practised eye had told him that it was already the twilight of life for the man whose form lay within arm's reach of him upon the next bed.
"You are a brave man," said Doctor Kreelmar finally in low, grave tones, as though forcing himself to speak; "and big enough to want to know the truth. An hour ago I thought there was every chance in the world for you, and now"—he hesitated.
"And now?" Varge prompted steadily, his eyes fixed speculatively on the physician's face.
Doctor Kreelmar shook his head.
"You have taken a serious turn for the worse—I do not want to buoy you up with false hopes."
"You mean," said Varge quietly, "that I am going to die?"
"I mean," said the little doctor gently, nodding his head slowly, "that if there is anything you might want to say, any confession you might want to make, anything in connection with the crime that brought you here, you should speak while your mind is still clear and while you have the strength."
The look of speculation in Varge's eyes vanished—his brain, keen, quick and active, had read the other now.
"There is nothing I can say—there is nothing to say," he answered. "Everything is known—I have confessed to it. What more can I say?"
"Varge," said the doctor, and, reaching out, took Varge's hand, "I want you to believe me when I say that I am your friend. You can trust me. I do not that you are guilty and I want you to tell me the truth. You are growing weaker—you are going to die—who killed Doctor Merton?"
"I did," Varge replied, meeting calmly the challenge in the other's eyes.
Doctor Kreelmar bent closer.
"Don't you believe that I am your friend?" he asked, with gruff tenderness.
Slowly Varge's hand tightened over the doctor's—tighter and tighter—increasing the pressure with his mighty strength. Doctor Kreelmar tried to look unconcerned, then bit his lip, then grasped with his other hand at the seat of his chair, and then with the pain was literally forced dancing to his feet.
"Confound you!" he burst out suddenly, unable to bear it any longer. "Let go, will you!"
With a smile, Varge released his hold.
"It was useless for you to attempt a ruse like that," he said simply; "for even if you had made me believe you, there was only one answer I could make." Then, with a catch in his voice, unconsciously repeating the warden's words: "You've got a big heart, doctor; I understand, and—and God bless you!"
"And you've got a fool head!" growled the little man, puckering up his face to its fiercest aspect in an effort to distract attention from the suspicious moisture that had suddenly dimmed his eyes. "A stubborn, mule-headed fool!" He turned away, but halted at the foot of the bed and turned again. "You're a strong man, Varge," he flung out, "a strong man—both ways. And seeing that you're not going to die, the warden told me to tell you he was going to make a trusty of you and put you out in his garden where you'd get a bit of sunshine and fresh air this summer."
A flush of pleasure crept to Varge's cheeks, and the fine dark eyes lightened up and brightened—God alone knew the weariness of the days behind; the brave patience with which he had set himself to face the same drear, endless weariness of the days to come. He reached out his hand to the doctor.
"Hum!" said Doctor Kreelmar. "No; I guess not—I'll wait till you get weaker"—and abruptly walked away.
Evening fell, and the hours crept on. At times, Varge dozed fitfully; at others, wakeful, he watched the guards dreamily as they sat together near the cots of Twisty and his pals, or listened to the heavy, stertorous breathing of the convicts that now and then was mingled with a mumbled curse and groan, or, again, his eyes would rest on the grey, almost lifeless face of Wenger beside him—then he would drowse off once more.
Midnight came and went. There was a sudden stir, the quick movement of some one near him, and Varge, instantly aroused, raised himself to his elbow. Doctor Kreelmar was bending over Wenger's bed. A single swift glance Varge shot at the doctor; and then, as his gaze fell upon the white, drawn face turned sideways toward him on the pillow, suddenly Wenger's dull, glazed eyes lighted up with recognition as they met his, and a smile struggled for expression on the lips of the dying guard. Feebly, Wenger's hand stretched out and groped across the space between them—and gently, while his eyes grew wet, Varge caught and pressed it in both his own.
"Good-night," Wenger whispered. "Good—"
There was a fluttering sigh, the hand relaxed—and Wenger had passed out into the long night.