[THE STRANGE OCCURRENCES IN
CANTERSTONE JAIL.]
CHAPTER I.
MR. MANKELL DECLARES HIS INTENTION OF
ACTING ON MAGISTERIAL ADVICE.
Oliver Mankell was sentenced to three months' hard labour. The charge was that he had obtained money by means of false pretences. Not large sums, but shillings, half-crowns, and so on. He had given out that he was a wizard, and that he was able and willing--for a consideration--to predict the events of the future--tell fortunes, in fact. The case created a large amount of local interest, for some curious stories were told about the man in the town. Mankell was a tall, slight, wiry-looking fellow in the prime of life, with coal-black hair and olive complexion--apparently of Romany extraction. His bearing was self-possessed, courteous even, yet with something in his air which might have led one to suppose that he saw--what others did not--the humour of the thing. At one point his grave, almost saturnine visage distinctly relaxed into a smile. It was when Colonel Gregory, the chairman of the day, was passing sentence. After committing him for three months' hard labour, the Colonel added--
"During your sojourn within the walls of a prison you will have an opportunity of retrieving your reputation. You say you are a magician. During your stay in jail I would strongly advise you to prove it. You lay claim to magic powers. Exercise them. I need scarcely point out to you how excellent a chance you will have of creating a sensation."
The people laughed. When the great Panjandrum is even dimly suspected of an intention to be funny, the people always do. But on this occasion even the prisoner smiled--rather an exceptional thing, for as a rule it is the prisoner who sees the joke the least of all.
Later in the day the prisoner was conveyed to the county jail. This necessitated a journey by rail, with a change upon the way. At the station where they changed there was a delay of twenty minutes. This the prisoner and the constable in charge of him improved by adjourning to a public house hard by. Here they had a glass--indeed they had two--and when they reached Canterstone, the town on whose outskirts stood the jail, they had one--or perhaps it was two--more. It must have been two, for when they reached the jail, instead of the constable conveying the prisoner, it was the prisoner who conveyed the constable--upon his shoulder. The warder who answered the knock seemed surprised at what he saw.
"What do you want?"
"Three months' hard labour."
The warder stared. The shades of night had fallen, and the lamp above the prison-door did not seem to cast sufficient light upon the subject to satisfy the janitor.