CHAPTER XI

INTRODUCES CAPTAIN AMBROSE GREY

“You’re for the governor, 634,” said the warder.

“You surprise me, my warder,” said Amber ironically.

“Less of your lip,” said the man shortly, “you’ve lost enough marks in this month without askin’ for any further trouble.”

Amber said nothing. He stepped out from his cell and marched ahead of the warder down the steel stairway that led to the ground floor of the prison hall.

Captain Cardeen sat behind his table and greeted Amber unpleasantly.

Exactly why he should take so vindictive an interest in his charge, could be explained.

“634,” said the governor, “you’ve been reported again for impertinence to an officer of the prison.”

Amber made no reply.

“Because you spend half your life in prison I suppose you’ve an idea that you’ve got a sort of proprietorial right, eh?”

Still Amber made no reply.

“I have tamed a few men in my time,” the governor went on, “and I don’t doubt but that I shall tame you.”

Amber was looking at him critically.

“Sir,” said he, “I also am something of a tamer.”

The governor’s face went purple, for there was an indefinable insolence in the prisoner’s tone.

“You scoundrel,” he began, but Amber interrupted him.

“I am tired of prison life, my governor,” he said brusquely, “and I’ll take a thousand to thirty you do not know what I mean: I am tired of this prison, which is Hell with the lid off.”

“Take him back to his cell,” roared the governor, on his feet and incoherent with rage. “I’ll teach you, my man--I’ll have you flogged before I’m through with you.”

Two warders, truncheons in hand, hustled Amber through the door. They flung rather than pushed him into the cell. A quarter of an hour later a key turned in the door and two warders came in, the foremost dangling a pair of bright steel handcuffs.

Amber was prepared: he turned about obediently as they snapped the irons about his wrist, fastening his hands behind him. It was a favourite punishment of Captain Cardeen.

The door clanged to, and he was left alone with his thoughts, and for Amber, remembering his equable temperament, they were very unpleasant thoughts indeed.

“I’ll teach him something,” said the governor to his chief warder. “I know something about this man--I had a letter some time ago from a fellow-member of the Whistlers--one of my clubs, Mr. Rice--who gave me his history.”

“If anybody can break him, you can, sir,” said his admiring satellite.

“I think so,” said the governor complacently.

A warder interrupted any further exchange of views. He handed a letter to the chief warder with a salute, and that official glanced at the address and passed it on to his superior.

The latter slipped his finger through the flap of the envelope and opened it.

The sheet of blue foolscap it contained required a great deal of understanding, for he read it three times.

“The bearer of this, Miss Cynthia Sutton, has permission to interview No. 634 /c.c./ John Amber. The interview shall be a private one: no warder is to be present.”

It was signed with the neat signature of the Home Secretary and bore the Home Office stamp.

The governor looked up with bewilderment written in his face.

“What on earth is the meaning of that?” he demanded, and passed the paper to the chief warder.

The latter read it and pushed back his head.

“It’s against all regulations----” he began, but the governor broke in impatiently.

“Don’t talk nonsense about regulations,” he snapped. “Here is an order from the Home Office: you can’t get behind that. Is anybody with her?”

He addressed the question to the waiting warder.

“Yes, sir, a gentleman from Scotland Yard--I gave you his card.”

The card had fallen on to the floor and the governor picked it up.

“Chief Inspector Fells,” he read, “let us have him in first.”

A few seconds later Fells came into the room, and smiled a cheerful greeting to the governor.

“Perhaps you can explain the meaning of this, Mr. Fells,” said the governor, holding the paper in his hand.

Fells shook his head.

“I never explain anything,” he said. “It’s the worst waste of energy to attempt to explain the actions of your superiors--I’ve got an order too.”

“To see the prisoner?”

“Yes, sir.”

He groped in the depths of an under pocket and produced an official envelope.

“I have spoken to the young lady,” he said, “and she has no objection to my seeing Mr. Amber first.”

There was something about that “Mr.” which annoyed the governor.

“I can understand many things,” he said irritably, “but I really cannot understand the process of mind which induces you to refer to a convict as ‘Mr. Amber’--a man with your experience of criminals, Inspector.”

“Habit, sir, habit,” said Fells easily, “a slip of the tongue.”

The governor was reading the new order, which was couched in similar terms to that which he had already read.

“You had better see him first,” and made a sign to the chief warder. “The beggar has been grossly impertinent and is now undergoing a little mild punishment.”

“M--m--yes,” hesitated the detective; “pardon my asking, but isn’t this the gaol where the man Gallers died?”

“It is,” said the governor coldly; “he had a fit or a something.”

“He was undergoing some punishment,” said Fells, in the reflective tone of one striving to recollect a circumstance.

“It was stated so by irresponsible people,” said the governor roughly.

He took down his hat from a peg and put it on. “It was said he was being punished in the same manner that Amber is--that he became ill and was unable to ring the bell--but it was a lie.”

“Of course,” said the polite detective.

The governor led the way through the spotless corridors up the steel stairs to the landing whereon Amber’s cell was situated. He turned the key and entered, followed by the detective. Amber was sitting on a wooden stool when the cell door opened. He did not trouble to rise until he saw Fells. Then he got up with difficulty.

“Now, Mr. Fells, if you have anything to say to this man, you had better say it,” said the governor.

“I think,” Fells spoke hesitatingly, deferentially, but none the less emphatically, “I think I may have this interview alone--yes?”

The governor stiffened.

“If you would prefer it, of course,” he said grudgingly, and turned to go.

“Excuse me,” Fells laid his hand on the official’s arm. “I would rather the irons were off this man.”

“Attend to your business and allow me to attend to mine, Mr. Inspector,” said the governor. “The code allows me the right to award punishment.”

“Very good, sir,” replied Fells. He waited until the door clanged and then turned to Amber.

“Mr. Amber,” he said, “I have been sent down from the Home Office on a curious mission--I understand you are tired of prison?”

“My Fells,” said Amber wearily, “I have never found prison so dull as I do at present.”

Fells smiled. From his pocket he produced a sheet of foolscap paper closely covered with entries.

“I’ve discovered your guilty secret.” He shook the paper before the prisoner’s eyes.

“A list of your convictions, my Amber,” he mocked, but Amber said nothing.

“Never, so far as I can trace, have you appeared before a judge and jury.” He looked up, but the man in front of him was silent, and his face was expressionless.

“And yet,” the detective went on, “to my knowledge, you have been committed to seventeen gaols, on seventeen distinct and separate orders, each signed by a judge and countersigned by the Home Office....”

He waited, but Amber offered no comment.

“In 1901, you were committed to Chengford Gaol on an order signed at Devizes. I can find no record of your having been brought before a court of any description at Devizes.”

Still Amber did not speak, and the inspector went on slowly and deliberately.

“At the time of your committal to Chengford, there had been all sorts of stories current about the state of affairs in the gaol. There had been a mutiny of prisoners, and allegations of cruelty against the governor and the warders.”

“I remember something about it,” said Amber carelessly.

“You were admitted on May 10. On August 1 you were released on an order from the Home Office. On August 3 the governor, the assistant governor and the chief warder were summarily suspended from their duties and were eventually dismissed from the prison service.”

He looked at Amber again.

“You surprise me,” said Amber.

“Although you were released in August, and was apparently a free man, you arrived in the custody of warders at the Preston Convict Establishment on September 9. There had been some trouble at Preston, I believe.”

“I believe there was,” said Amber gravely.

“This time,” the detective continued, “it was on an order from the Home Office ‘to complete sentence.’ You were six months in Preston Prison, and after you left, three warders were suspended for carrying messages to prisoners.”

He ran his fingers down the paper.

“You weren’t exactly a mascot to these gaols, Mr. Amber,” he said ironically, “you left behind you a trail of casualties--and nobody seems to have connected your presence with gaps in the ranks.”

A slow smile dawned on Amber’s face.

“And has my chief inspector come amblin’ all the way from London to make these startlin’ and mysterious communications?”

The detective dropped his banter.

“Not exactly, Mr. Amber,” he said, and the note of respect came to his voice which had so unaccountably irritated the governor. “The fact is, you’ve been lent.”

“Lent?” Amber’s eyebrows rose.

“You’ve been lent,” repeated the detective. “The Home Office has lent you to the Colonial Office, and I am here to effect the transfer.”

Amber twiddled his manacled hands restlessly.

“I don’t want to go out of England just now,” he began.

“Oh yes, you do, Mr. Amber; there’s a River of Stars somewhere in the world, and a cargo of roguery on its way to locate it.”

“So they’ve gone, have they?”

He was disappointed and did not attempt to disguise the fact.

“I hoped that I should be out in time to stop ’em, but that racket has nothing to do with the Colonial Office.”

“Hasn’t it?”

Fells went to the wall where the prisoner’s bell was, and pushed it. Two minutes later the door swung open.

“There’s another visitor, who will explain,” he said, and left the exasperated Amber muttering rude things about government departments in general and the Home Office in particular.

In ten minutes the door opened again.

Amber was not prepared for his visitor, and as he sprang awkwardly to his feet, he went alternately red and white. The girl herself was pale, and she did not speak until the door closed behind the warders. That brief space of time gave Amber the opportunity to recover his self-possession.

“I fear that I cannot offer you the courtesies that are due to you,” he said. “For the moment my freedom of movement is somewhat restricted.”

She thought he referred to his presence in prison, and half smiled at the politeness of a speech so out of all harmony with the grim surroundings.

“You are probably surprised to see me, Mr. Amber,” she said. “It was in desperation that I went to the Home Office to endeavour to secure an interview with you--there is no one else in the world knows so much of this expedition and the men who have formed it.”

“Did you find any difficulty in obtaining permission?” There was an odd twinkle in Amber’s eye which she did not observe.

“None--or almost none,” she said. “It was very wonderful.”

“Not so wonderful, my lady,” said Amber. “I’m an old client: anything to oblige a regular customer.”

She was looking at him with pain in her eyes.

“Please--please don’t talk like that,” she said in a low voice. “You rather hurt me: I want to feel that you are not beyond--help, and when you talk so flippantly and make so light of your--trouble, it does hurt, you know.”

He dropped his eyes and, for the matter of that, so did she.

“I am sorry,” he said in a quieter tone, “if I have bothered you: any worry on your part has been unnecessary, not,” he added with a touch of the old Amber, “that I have not been worth worrying about, but you have not quite understood the circumstances. Now please tell me why you wish to see me; there is a stool--it is not very comfortable, but it is the best I can offer you.”

She declined the seat with a smile and began her story.

Her brother had sailed, so also had Lambaire and Whitey, taking with them a copy of the chart.

“I have not worried very much about the expedition,” she said, “because I thought that my father’s map was sufficiently accurate to lead them to this fabulous river. The Colonial Office officials, whom my brother saw, took this view also.”

“Why did he see them?” demanded Amber.

“To get the necessary permission to prospect in British territory--it is a Crown possession, you know. After my brother had arrived in Africa, and I had received a cable to that effect, I had an urgent message from the Colonial Office, asking me to take the chart to Downing Street. I did so, and they made a careful examination of it, measuring distances and comparing them on another map.”

“Well?”

“Well,” she shrugged her shoulders, “the expedition is futile: if the River of Stars is not in Portuguese territory, it has no existence at all.”

“Isn’t it in British territory?”

“No, it is well over the border-line that marks the boundary between British and Portuguese West Africa.”

Amber was puzzled.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“Wait,” she went on rapidly, “I have not told you all, for if my father’s map is true, the River of Stars is a fable, for they definitely located the spot indicated in his map, and there is neither forest nor river there, only a great dry plateau.”

“You told them about the false compass?”

“Lambaire was very frank to me before Francis sailed. He showed me the false and the true and I saw for myself the exact deflection; what is more, I took careful notice of the difference, and it was on this that the Colonial Office worked out its calculations. A cable has been sent to stop my brother, but he has already left the coast with the two men and is beyond the reach of the telegraph.”

“Have you got the map with you?”

She took the soiled chart from her bag and offered it to him. He did not take it, for his hands were still behind him, and suddenly she understood why and flushed.

“Open it and let me see, please.”

He studied it carefully: then he said, “By the way, who told the Colonial Office that I knew all about this business--oh, of course, you did.”

She nodded.

“I did not know what to do--I have lost my father in that country--for the first time I begin to fear for my brother--I have nobody to whom I can appeal for advice....”

She checked herself quickly, being in a sudden terror lest this thief with his shaven head and his steel-clamped wrists should discover how big a place he held in her thoughts.

“There is something wrong, some mystery that has not been unravelled: my father was a careful man and could not have made a mistake: all along we knew that the river was in British territory.”

“The boundary may have been altered,” suggested Amber. But she shook her head.

“No, I asked that question: it was demarcated in 1875, and has not been altered.”

Amber looked again at the map, then at the girl.

“I will see you to-morrow,” he said.

“But----” She looked at him in astonishment.

“I may not be able to get permission to-morrow.”

A key turned in the lock and the heavy door opened slowly. Outside was the governor with a face as black as thunder, the chief warder and Fells.

“Time’s up,” said the governor gruffly. Amber looked at the detective and nodded; then called authoritatively to the prison chief.

“Take these handcuffs off, Cardeen,” he said.

“What----!”

“Give him the order, Fells,” said Amber, and the detective obediently handed a paper to the bewildered man.

“You are suspended from duty,” said Amber shortly, “pending an inquiry into your management of this gaol. I am Captain Ambrose Grey, one of His Majesty’s inspectors of prisons.”

The chief warder’s hands were shaking horribly as he turned the key that opened the hinged bar of the handcuffs.