Edgar Wallace

“ CHELMSFORD
They took Manfred back to Wandsworth Gaol on the night of the trial. The governor, standing in the gloomy courtyard as the van drove in with its clanking escort, received him gravely.
“Is there anything you want?” he asked when he visited the cell that night.
“A cigar,” said Manfred, and the governor handed him the case. Manfred selected with care, the prison-master watching him wonderingly.
“You”re an extraordinary man,” he said. ”

“ Leon unlocked a drawer and took out a folded paper.
“If you would arrange that,” he said, “I should be grateful.”
The man who called himself Courtlander marked the plan with a pencil.
“I have men who may be trusted to the very end,” he said. “The wires shall be cut at eight o’clock, and Chelmsford shall be isolated from the world.”
Then, with a tin of petrol in his hand, he walked back to his car. ”

“ Heckford,’ says I, ‘I’ve come about the petition.’
“‘What petition?’ says he.
“‘The petition for the poor creature now lyin’ in Chelmsford,’ says I, ‘under sentence of death—which is legal murder,’ I says.
“‘Go to the devil’ he says; they were his exact words, ‘Go to the devil.’ I was that upset that I walked straight away from the door—he didn’t even ask me in—an’ just as I got to the bottom of the front garden, he shouts, ‘What do you want him reprieved for—hasn’t he left you a pot of money?’”
Mr. Peter Sweeney was very much agitated as he repeated this callous piece of cynicism. ”

“ As sailors store life-belts for possible contingencies, so, in every country had the Four Just Men stored the equipment of rescue against their need. Poiccart, paying many flying visits to the Midlands, brought back with him from time to time strange parts of machinery. The lighter he carried with his luggage, the heavier parts he smuggled into Chelmsford in a strongly-built motor-car. ”

“ At midnight they ceased, and washed away the stains of their labours.
“Luckily,” said Poiccart, “we have many rooms to fill yet; the drawing-room can hold little more, the dining-room we need, the morning-room is packed. ”

“ It was to give the lie to the wicked suggestion that Peter arranged his daily demonstration, from twelve to two. There had been such functions before, “Mass” meetings with brass bands at the very prison gates, but they were feeble mothers’ meetings compared to these demonstrations on behalf of Manfred. ”

“ Clarker, the town electrician, tells me that they had got a power current in their works, they have got a little gas-engine too, and from the way one of them was handling a big car today on the London road, it strikes me they know something about the business of motor-car running. ”