"By the way, there is one cell we managed to get open--I opened it myself."
"I thought you said there was none?"
"There's that one--it's that man Mankell."
"Mankell? Who is he?"
"He came in yesterday. It's that magician."
When they reached the cells, it was easy to perceive that something was wrong. The warders hung about in twos and threes; the noise was deafening; the prisoners were keeping holiday.
"Get me the keys and let me see what I can do. It is impossible that all the locks can have been tampered with."
They presented Mr. Paley with the keys. In his turn he tried every lock in the jail This was not a work of a minute or two. The prison contained some three hundred night-cells. To visit them all necessitated not only a good deal of running up and down stairs, but a good deal of actual walking; for they were not only in different floors and in different blocks, but the prison itself was divided into two entirely separate divisions--north and south--and to pass from one division to the other entailed a walk of at least a hundred yards. By the time he had completed the round of the locks, Mr. Paley had had about enough of it. It was not surprising that he felt a little bewildered--not one of the locks had shown any more readiness to yield to him than to the others.
In passing from one ward to the other, he had passed the row of day-cells in which was situated B 27. Here they found Oliver Mankell sitting in silent state awaiting the call to work. The governor pulled up at the sight of him.
"Well, Mankell, so there was nothing the matter with the lock of your door?"