“Evidently; for that was several months ago, and he is still in command of the prison guard; which wouldn’t be the case, of course, if even a hint of my visit to El Torro had reached the ears of Portiforo.”
“So he is still in charge of the prison guard!” murmured the Camera Chap, inwardly resolving to make the acquaintance of Captain Ernesto Reyes at the earliest possible opportunity. “Do you mean to say that he took you all over the prison—even to the cell in which they’ve got Felix locked up?” he continued wonderingly. “Surely it would have been an easy matter for him to avoid showing you that particular cell.”
The girl laughed. “He didn’t find it so easy. He did attempt to hurry me past that cell, but, to borrow your own expression, he couldn’t get away with it. I peeped through the hole in the panel before he had a chance to stop me.”
“The hole in the panel?”
“They have put sheets of tin over the bars of President Felix’s dungeon to prevent anybody in the corridor from getting a glimpse of him,” the girl explained. “But the tin had rusted, and there was a tiny hole in one corner which evidently had escaped the attention of the prison officials. It was through this hole that I got my peep at the unfortunate man.”
“How did you know he was in there?” the Camera Chap queried.
“I didn’t know, of course. I merely guessed it. As soon as I saw that covered door it flashed through my mind that it would most likely be the place where they would have him. And Captain Reyes’ manner confirmed my suspicions. When I inquired of him why the door of this cell was covered with sheets of tin instead of being grilled like all the other doors on that gloomy corridor, he became perceptibly nervous. He explained that the cell was unoccupied, and was used as a storage room; but while he was talking I heard the sound of somebody coughing behind that screened door, and I knew that he had lied to me. Captain Reyes heard it, too, but evidently he was in hopes that it had escaped my ears, for he tried to hurry me away by telling me that he had something exceedingly interesting to show me in another part of the prison. But I broke away from him and stepped close up to the door. It was then that I discovered the tiny peephole which the rust had eaten in one part of the tin, and before he could stop me I had put my eye to it.”
“And you saw?” The Camera Chap’s voice was tense with eagerness.
Virginia shuddered slightly. “I saw a man seated at a rough wooden table reading a book. Just at that moment he happened to look up, and I got a good view of his face. He had changed terribly since I had last seen him. His hair was snowy white, his face was pitifully thin, and looked as if it didn’t have a drop of blood in it. His eyes were sunken. But it was President Felix; I am absolutely positive of that.”
The Camera Chap’s face was grim. “You say that he was reading. Was his cell light enough for that?”