B. Fletcher Robinson

“ Plainly he was in great uncertainty of mind.
“Perhaps I have nothing to tell,” he said at last.
“A man does not attempt to murder detectives unless he has a crime to conceal.”
“That is true,” he said, nodding his head; “very just and true.”
There was nothing to be gained by a long bargaining of secrets with him. Whatever his business he could speedily discover mine if he chose. If I were honest with him he might return the confidence.
“I am arranging for the escape of Julius Craig, now doing his time in the prison yonder,” I told him.
“Julius Craig!” he echoed, with wild eyes. ”

“ There was nothing but a low hedge to stop the convicts if they knocked down the guards with their spades and make a run for it. But when I looked back across the wastes of the moor I understood. In a city a man may vanish in a crowd, but on Dartmoor he must tramp a dozen miles before he can find even a bush to hide him. In clear weather the mounted warders of the pursuit would ride him down in half an hour.
The Princetown Arms, a grey, weather-beaten square of granite, was a pleasant country inn standing near the centre of the village. ”

“ His affection for the convict seemed to fill his life. No risk, no labour was too heavy; no storm would drive him from his post. Often when I was smoking by the inn fire, he was crouching patiently amongst the rocks on the cairn hill, as if it were his only son for whom he waited. There was something inhuman in his merciless self-sacrifice; but I had no reason to complain, for it lightened the burden on my shoulders.
It was at three o'clock on Tuesday, May 9th, that Julius Craig escaped. Poor devil! if he had but known!
Hearne and I had quarrelled that morning over the fog question. ”

“ No one, so far as I could see, was in sight, and presently I turned off the road along a disused cart track that seemed to lead in the direction I wanted. Its ancient ruts were filled with sprouting heather, and the short moor turf had covered up the hoof-marks with a velvet surface.
I had walked a good quarter of a mile, when, rounding a curve of the hill, I found the old road explained in the ruins of a small farm, one of those melancholy memorials of a time when frozen meat was unknown, and it paid a man to breed cattle and sheep and cultivate a wheatfield or two, even on Dartmoor. ”

“ My life on the moors had put me in sound condition, and I never slackened my pace till I had trotted up the rise to where the track to the ruined farm began. I checked the horse and walked slowly forward studying the edge of the moor beside the highway for the mark of the grass-grown ruts I knew so well.
I heard the footsteps long before I saw him, a quick patter upon the hard surface behind me. As he came out of the fog he shouted, bringing his rifle to his hip with an easy swing. He was a stoutly built man in the neat dark uniform that marks the prison warder. ”

“ Kingsley,” he concluded. “I am not a lunatic; but I have made up my mind in this matter of Julius Craig. Any one who is foolish enough to come between us must stand aside or take the consequences. Towards yourself, for example, I had no ill will In fact, I rather liked you. But you must admit that, as a detective, your presence was excessively inconvenient. Now that I know the truth, I welcome you as a most valuable ally. I am prepared to trust you absolutely. Come, what are your plans?”
I told him as we walked back to the inn. ”

“ There was nothing to be gained by imagining bad luck. I walked back to the inn, and sat down to a study of the district with maps I had brought with me. There was only one railroad within many miles, and that was the single track that ran up from Plymouth to Princetown village. At the first signal that a convict had escaped the station would be full of warders; so that outlet was barred. South of the moor, fifteen miles away, ran another branch lino ending at Ashburton. But I was determined to leave the railroad alone. The stations would be the first places to be watched by the police. ”

“ Matters moved quickly with us. I hired a stout horse and a two-wheeled cart for a month from the landlord to whom I talked neolithic man of an evening, impressing him with a learning, acquired from the reports of that worthy society the Devonshire Association. I preferred to drive myself, declining the boy offered for that purpose. There were no other preparations to make; and so, on the day following, that earnest student, Mr. Abel Kingsley, might have been seen smoking his pipe on the cairn hill in a new white mackintosh, for was there not a threat of rain in the air? ”

“ He was a half-and-half man—too lazily clever to be quite honest, and too honest to be quite a criminal. Poor Jack Henderson! A good man gone wrong—let that be his epitaph when it comes to setting up his headstone. ”

“ The huge prison was built on the opposite slope of the shallow valley, and the farm which the convicts had won field by field stretched down from its walls to a brook at the foot of the cairn hill where I was. On the further edge of the brook a gang was at work inclosing some new ground, and through my glasses I soon made out the man I was after. The last time I had seen him was on his own coach at Ascot, with the girls buzzing round him like wasps after sugar, and there he was digging trenches with a spade. It's a funny world!
About twenty men were in the gang. ”

“ The sight of a man in a white waterproof loitering on the cairn bill would be his signal that all was ready. Sudden fogs were frequent upon the moor, and when they came while the convicts were at work in the fields, the chance of escape was excellent; for the authorities did not chain their men, and the warders rarely used their rifles. They trusted to the huge moors upon which men who escaped were easily retaken, half dead from fatigue and starvation. ”

“ He lay flat on his chest, while he covered the gang at work in the new ground below with a small telescope.
It might be curiosity, of course, for many men regard a convict as something abnormal, something that is as pleasant to stare at as if he were the cannibal king at a fair. ”

“ The stranger pushed me into a brougham that was standing by the pavement opposite the door, and we started off at a smart pace. Once in Regent's Park, however, the driver pulled his horse to a walk, and my companion began to do his talking.
“Five hundred sovereigns would be useful to you these days—eh, Mr. Henderson?” ”