The chairman rapped sharply upon the table.
“I utterly fail to see what all this has to do with the matter under investigation,” he protested irritably. “We are not trying this man’s case. The courts have passed upon that. He is just like all the rest. Any one of them is ready to swear on a stack of Bibles that he is innocent. Let’s get on with this investigation.”
The convict bowed silently and turned toward the door beyond which the guards were waiting to conduct him back to his cell. A hand upon his arm detained him.
“Mr. Chairman,” said Blalock, the member who had questioned the prisoner, “I request that this man be permitted to go on with what he was saying. I shall have no more questions to ask. You were saying”—he prompted the man beside him.
“I was saying that I was innocent,” resumed the convict. “I was about to add that not even a man who is guiltless of wrongdoing would be able to withstand the terrors of solitary for any length of time. You, for instance, are a physician, a man of sterling reputation against whom no one ever has breathed a word. Yet I doubt that you could endure several hours in the dark cell. If you would only try it, you would know for yourself that I have spoken the truth. Gentlemen, I beg of you to do all in your power to abolish the dark cell. Men can stand just so much without cracking, and if you will dig into the facts you will find that nine times out of ten it is men broken in ‘solitary’ who are responsible for the outbreaks in prison. That is all.”
He bowed respectfully and was gone.
“CLEVER TALKER, that fellow,” commented the secretary of the commission, breaking the silence. “He almost had me believing him. Who is he, Blalock? You had him summoned, I believe.”
The physician nodded.
“I confess it was as much from personal interest in the man as from any hope that he might give valuable evidence here,” he said. “He surprised me with his outburst. He is a clever talker. Ellis is his name—Martin Ellis—and he comes of a splendid and well-to-do family. University graduate and quite capable of having carved out a wonderful career. But he was idolized at home and given more money than was good for him. It made him an idler and a young ne’er-do-well. But whatever he did he did openly, and I never heard of anything seriously wrong until he was convicted of the crime which brought him here.”