A Prince to Order

by Charles Stokes Wayne

XVII

The realisation that he was a prisoner aroused in Carey Grey a spirit of revolt. He thought that he had calculated the cost. He had foreseen that his confession would bring about complications, and had counted on perhaps a long and trying investigation, but he had not imagined that he would be deprived of his liberty pending the question’s settlement. The fact that he had been honest should of itself, he argued, have entitled him to consideration; but his frankness had been misjudged and his candour rewarded with punishment.

Smarting under the indignity, he wrote a witheringly sarcastic note to Count von Ritter, and demanded that the guard should see to its expeditious delivery. At the end of an hour he received a brief reply:

“The Chancellor,” it read, “regrets deeply that he is unable to aid Mr. Grey. The Chancellor repeated his interview of the early evening to His Highness, the Prince Regent, and it is by His Highness’s command that the present temporary restraint exists.”

Thereupon Grey set about devising some means of escape; but the barred windows and the armed guard, which, he learned from Johann, was not alone at his door but on the landings above and below and surrounding the Tower as well, were seemingly insurmountable obstacles. He thought of bribery, and as an entering wedge endeavoured to have a note taken to Miss Van Tuyl, offering a sum of money out of all proportion to the service, but the offer was phlegmatically declined.

It was very late before he threw himself upon the great high bed in the dingy bedchamber and tried to snatch a few hours’ sleep; and he was up again at dawn. But if his slumber had been brief, Johann’s had even been briefer. He had spent hours in conversation with the soldier in the passage, and he had gathered at least one fact of interest, if not of importance—there were other prisoners on the floor above. How many, he was unable to learn, and of the strength of the guard he was also uninformed. There would be a change, though, at seven o’clock, and then it would be possible to ascertain.

From the window of the library which was over the Tower door the approach of the relief and the departure of the night watch could be seen. The bars were too close to permit of a head being thrust between them, but the barracks were at some distance from the Palace, and the route, Johann said, lay diagonally across the uppermost terrace in full view of this particular window. There Grey watched, and promptly at seven, as the bell in the Bell Tower on another corner of the quadrangle clanged the hour, a cornet sounded and seven armed infantry men came marching over the stone pavement. That, he concluded, meant one man on each of the three landings and four men on guard below. Not counting the guard on the floor above, there were six against two, and escape under these conditions appeared hopeless. If, however, the prisoners on the floor above could be communicated with and a plan of concerted action agreed upon there might be a fighting chance of success. But the question was, how to reach them. The ceilings were high and the floors thick, and to invent and execute a code of signals by rapping would be a tedious and not at all promising undertaking. Nevertheless Grey was more than half inclined to try it. By piling one piece of furniture on another the ceiling could be reached readily enough, and by giving each letter of the alphabet its number it would be possible to hammer out words. Those above might not be able to hear or, hearing, might not be clever enough to understand, but the American was desperate, and, notwithstanding the odds against him, he determined after some little consideration to make the effort.

Upon a large table in the centre of the salon he and Johann lifted a smaller one which they brought from the library, and upon this in turn they placed a chair. To the top of this edifice Grey climbed, armed with a heavy walking-stick, with which he began a series of regular and irregular blows upon the heavy oaken panelling which ceiled the room. Having continued this for something like three minutes without intermission, he paused in the hope of some response. But none was forthcoming, and he repeated the signalling with increased vigour. When he halted again there was a distinct reply—an exact reproduction, in fact, of his rhythm—and the serious, anxious expression he had worn gave way to one of relief, if not indeed of triumph.

His next move was to repeat in strokes the entire alphabet, beginning with one for A, two for B, and so on. This was a long and rather laborious operation, but when he had finished he was given the prompt gratification of an alert understanding from those above, for immediately taking the cue, the answering thuds spelled out the word “window,” and turning his glance in the direction of the barred casement he saw hanging there, at the end of an improvised string made of torn and tied strips of linen, a fluttering piece of paper.