On either side of Number 46 were typical white-painted and carbolic-scented cells—one occupied by an intoxicated woman who snored raucously on her narrow cot, the other by a wretched hag who clung to the bars of her door with filthy fingers and leered at me as I passed. Between the two was a spot as out of place in those surroundings as a flower-bed would seem on the stern brow of an Alpine glacier.
Mrs. Brandow, the newspapers had told the world, was not only a beautiful woman, but a woman who loved beauty. She had spent six months in Fairview awaiting her trial. All the members of the "good family" Mr. Hurd had mentioned had died young—probably as a reward of their excellence. She had no intimate friends—her husband, it was said, had made friendships impossible for her. Nevertheless, first with one trifle, then with another, brought to her by the devoted maid who had been with her for years, she had made herself a home in her prison.
Tacked on the wall, facing her small, white-painted iron bed, was a large piece of old Java print, its colors dimmed by time to dull browns and blues. On the bed itself was a cover of blue linen, and the cement floor was partly concealed by a Chinese rug whose rich tones harmonized with those of the print. Over the bed hung a fine copy of a Hobbema, in which two lines of trees stretched on and on toward a vague, far-distant horizon. Near this a large framed print showed a great stretch of Scotch moors and wide, empty skies. A few silver-backed toilet articles lay on a small glass-covered hospital table. Against this unlooked-for background the suspected murderess, immaculate in white linen tailor-made garments, sat on a white-enameled stool, peacefully sewing a button on a canvas shoe.
The whole effect was so unprecedented, even to me after a year of the varied experiences which come to a New York reporter, that my sense of the woman's situation was wiped out by the tableau she made. Without intending to smile at all, I smiled widely as I entered and held out my hand; and Mrs. Brandow, who had risen to receive me, sent back an answering smile, cool, worldly, and understanding.
"It is a cozy domestic scene, isn't it?" she asked, lightly, reading my thoughts, "but on too small a scale. We're a trifle cramped. Take the stool. I will sit on the bed."
She moved the stool an inch, with a hospitable gesture which almost created an effect of space, and sat down opposite me, taking me in from head to foot with one straight look from black eyes in whose depths lurked an odd sparkle.
"You won't mind if I finish this?" she asked, as she picked up her needle. "I have only two more buttons."
I reassured her, and she bit off a piece of cotton and rethreaded her needle expertly.
"They won't let me have a pair of scissors," she explained, as she began to sew. "It's a wonder they lend me a needle. They tell me it's a special privilege. Once a week the guard brings it to me at this hour, and the same evening he retrieves it with a long sigh of relief. He is afraid I will swallow it and cheat the electric chair. He needn't be. It isn't the method I should choose."
Her voice was a soft and warm contralto, whose vibrations seemed to linger in the air when she had ceased to speak. Her manner was indescribably matter-of-fact. She gave a vigorous pull to the button she had sewed on and satisfied herself of its strength. Then she bit the thread again and began to secure the last button, incidentally chatting on, as she might have chatted to a friend over a cup of tea.