CHAPTER X
IN PRISON
At high-noon the next day Lem Lutts was landed at Frankfort, a United States prisoner. This dismal trip represented the first ride Lem had ever made on a railroad. The terrible chagrin and consternation that obsessed him, and the bullying presence of his furiously hated arch enemy made it one that lingered long in his memory.
In the early hours of the trip the revenue officer and his deputy had plied the boy with a torrent of questions in their vain attempt to break him down. This cross-fire finally wearied Burton, as Lem acted like a man deaf, dumb, and blind; and the surly officer desisted with a series of dire predictions, mingled with some exquisite punctuations of choice profanity.
A pall of far-stretching clouds obscured the sky and a film of drizzling rain veiled the atmosphere. Through this thin downpour Burton walked his shackled prisoner to the Federal Building.
After a wait of almost an hour—which added nervous agony to Lem's grim speculations—he was led into the austere presence of the commissioner.
A row of ornate heavy chairs was lined up against the east wall of the high-ceilinged room. Across the room on the west side, the commissioner sat at a long claw-footed table, hemmed about with various other pieces of massive office furniture, while to the left of him a pale, icy blonde woman hammered a typewriter.
On the walls were the portraits of five men, presumably former commissioners.
The whole atmosphere of the chamber was charged with a chill that went to the heart of the prisoner. When they first entered the room the two officers escorted Lem to one of the chairs against the wall. While the deputy remained seated here with Lem, Burton swaggered his damp hulk across the room and halted before the commissioner, his big shoulders slumping awkwardly. Here he stood mopping his sweaty, heavy features.