“Have you the money?”
“Every penny of it is safe,” was the reply. “And there is fifteen hundred pounds for a true friend.”
The bait was tempting, and the jailer confessed he was in need of money. If he could get that amount, he undertook to allow Keogh’s brother, Sylvester, to pass through his rooms, bring with him a rope ladder, the key being left in the cell, and so the prisoner could escape at midnight. But William would not hear of his brother being brought into the plot, and suggested as an alternative that he, William, should get sick of jail fever, then a very common and often fatal disease; that he should appear to die of it, and be sent out in a coffin.
The jailer caught at the suggestion, but said there must be a real corpse, for there would have to be an inquest; and, he added, that in that case there would only be a thousand pounds for himself as the remaining five hundred should be divided amongst necessary accomplices on whom he could rely.
Accordingly Keogh feigned illness, and made himself really sick by the use of drugs with which the jailer supplied him. The prisoners in the cells at either side of him were removed, to be away from the contagion of the jail fever, from which Keogh was supposed to be suffering. At length he was reported dead, and the night of his supposed death the jailer introduced into his cell a corpse which had been dug up out of the hospital fields. This was placed in Keogh’s bed and the latter was let out on the high road. The inquest was held and verdict found, the jury not taking the trouble to view the corpse, deterred from so doing by fear of infection, and the brother Sylvester, the better to keep up the deception, attended the funeral. William Keogh married a laundress in Paris and died about the year 1769, having by his gallant conduct atoned for the crime of his youth, and he had the happiness of knowing that he had not only obtained the forgiveness, but had also earned the gratitude of the man he had wronged.