The Shrieking Pit by Arthur J. Rees (new ebook reader TXT) 📗

again, accompanied by a warder. The blue and silver functionary silently lifted the flap of the counter, and beckoned Mr. Oakham and Colwyn to accompany the warder through the small door at the other end of the room.

They went through and the bell clanged once more as the door closed behind them. The warder took them along a corridor to a door at the farther end, and ushered them into a room—a large apartment, not unlike a board room, furnished with a table and chairs ranged on each side. It was the governor of the gaol's room, where the interview was to take place. Colwyn took one of the chairs at the table, Mr. Oakham took another, and silently they awaited the coming of the condemned man.

Another quarter of an hour elapsed before the door at the other end of the room opened, and Penreath appeared between two warders. They conducted him to the table, and placed a chair for him. With a quick glance at his visitors he sat down, and the warders seated themselves on each side of him. The warder who had brought the visitors in then nodded to Mr. Oakham, as an indication that the interview might begin.

In the brief glance that the young man cast at his visitors Colwyn observed both calmness of mind and self-possession. Although deep shadows under the eyes and the tenseness of the muscles round the mouth revealed sleepless nights and mental agony, Penreath's face[Pg 276] showed no trace of insanity or the guilty consciousness of evil deeds, but had the serene expression of a man who had fought his battle and won it.

Mr. Oakham began the interview with him in a dry professional way, as though it were an interview between solicitor and client in the sanctity of a private room, with no hearers. And, indeed, the prison warders sitting there with the impassive faces of officialdom might have been articles of furniture, so remote were they from displaying the slightest interest in the private matters discussed between the two. No doubt they had been present at many similar scenes, and custom is a deadening factor. Mr. Oakham's object was to urge his client to consent to the lodgement of an appeal against the jury's verdict, and to that end he advanced a multitude of arguments and a variety of reasons. The young man listened patiently, but when the solicitor had concluded he shook his head with a gesture of finality which indicated an unalterable refusal.

"It's no use, Oakham," he said. "My mind is quite made up. I'm obliged to you for all the trouble you have taken in my case, but I cannot alter my decision. I shall go through with it—to the end."

"In that case it is no use my urging you further." Mr. Oakham spoke stiffly, and put his eye-glasses in his pocket with an air of vexation. "Mr. Colwyn has something to say to you on the subject. Perhaps you will listen to him. He believes he can help you."

"He helped to arrest me," said Penreath, with a slight indifferent look at the detective.

"But not to convict you," said Colwyn. "I had hoped to help you."

"What do you want of me?" Penreath's tone was cold.[Pg 277]

"In the first place, I have to say that I believe you innocent."

The young man lifted his eyebrows slightly, as if to indicate that the other's opinion was a matter of indifference to him, but he remained silent.

"I have come to beg of you, even at this late hour, to break your silence, and give an account of your actions that night at the inn."

"You might have saved yourself the trouble of coming here. I have nothing whatever to say."

"That means that you continue in your refusal to speak. Will you answer one or two questions?"

"No."

"Will you not tell me why you kept silence about what you saw in Mr. Glenthorpe's room that night of the murder?"

"Man, how did you find that out?" Penreath's calm disappeared in a sudden fury of voice and look. "What do you know?"

"I know whom you are trying to shield," replied the detective, with his eyes fixed on Penreath's face. "You are wrong. She——"

"I beg of you to be silent! Do not mention names, for God's sake." Penreath's face had grown suddenly white.

"It is in your power to ensure my silence."

"How?"

"By speaking yourself."

"That I will never do."

"Then you compel me to go to the authorities and tell them what I have discovered. I will save you in spite of yourself."

"Do you think that I want to be saved—like that?"[Pg 278]

Struggling desperately for self-control Penreath turned to Mr. Oakham. "Why did you bring Mr. Colwyn here?" he asked the solicitor fiercely. "To torture me?"

Before Mr. Oakham could reply Colwyn laughed aloud. A clear ringing laugh of unmistakable satisfaction. The laugh sounded strangely incongruous in such a place.

"Penreath," he said, "you've told me all that I came here to know. You're a splendid young Briton, but finesse is not your strong point. You've acted like a quixotic young idiot in this case, and got yourself into a nice muddle for nothing. The girl is as innocent as you are, and you are a pair of simpletons! Yes. I mean what I say," continued the detective, answering the young man's amazed look with a reassuring smile. "Do you think that I would want to save you at her expense? Now perhaps, when I have told you what happened that night, you will answer a few questions. Before you went to bed you sat down and wrote a letter on a leaf torn from your pocket-book. That letter was to Miss Willoughby, breaking off your engagement. After writing it you went to bed. At that time it was raining hard.

"You must have fallen asleep almost immediately, and slept for half an hour—perhaps a little more—for when you awoke the rain had ceased. You heard a slight noise in your room, and lit your candle to see what it was. There was a rat in the corner of the room. You got up to throw something at it, but as soon as you moved the rat darted across the room and disappeared behind the wardrobe at the side of the bed. You pushed back the wardrobe and——"

"For God's sake, say no more!" said Penreath. His face was grey, and he was staring at the detective with the eyes of a man who saw his heart's secret—the secret for which he was prepared to die—being dragged out[Pg 279] into the light of day. "How did you learn all this?"

"That does not matter much just now. What you saw through the wall made you determine to leave the house as speedily as possible, and also caused you to destroy the letter you had written to Miss Willoughby.

"You were wrong in what you did. In the first place, you misinterpreted what you saw through the door in the wall. By thinking Peggy guilty and leaving the inn early in the morning, you not only wronged her grievously, but brought suspicion on yourself. Peggy's presence in the room was quite by accident. She had gone to ask Mr. Glenthorpe to assist you in your trouble, by lending you money, and, finding the door open, she impulsively went in and found him dead—murdered. And at the bedside she picked up the knife—the knife you had used at dinner—and this."

Colwyn produced Penreath's match-box from his pocket and laid it on the table in front of him.

"Because of the knife and this match-box she thought you guilty."

"I! Why I never left my room after I went into it," exclaimed Penreath. "I left the match-box in the room where I had dined with Mr. Glenthorpe. When I awoke after falling asleep, and heard the noise in the room—just as you describe—I could not find my match-box when I wanted a match to light my candle, then I remembered that I had left it in the sitting-room on the mantelpiece. I happened to find a loose match in my vest pocket."

"Peggy came to see me at my hotel, after the trial, and told me all she knew," continued Colwyn. "It was well she did, for my second visit to the inn brought to light a number of facts which will enable me to establish your innocence."[Pg 280]

"And what about the real murderer?" asked Penreath, in a hesitating voice, without looking at the detective.

"We will not go into that just now, unless you have anything to tell me that will throw further light on the events of the night." Colwyn shot a keen, questioning glance at the young man.

"I will answer any questions you wish to put to me. It is the least I can do after having made such a fool of myself. It was the shock of seeing Peggy in the room that robbed me of my judgment. I should have known her better, but you must remember that I had no idea she was in the house until I looked through the door in the wall which I had accidentally discovered, and saw her standing at the bedside, with the knife in her hand. I started to follow her home that day because I wished to know more about her. I lost my way in the mist. I