And so I was introduced to Larry. He was altogether of another type from Maguire. I hardly knew whether he wore the convict stripes or broadcloth when I was looking into that face, so sunny, so kindly, so frank. After all these years I can never think of Larry without a glow in my heart. He alone, of all my prisoners, appeared to have no consciousness of degradation, of being a convict; but met me simply and naturally as if we had been introduced at a picnic.
I told him of my interview with Jim Maguire and his immediate comment was: "Jim ought not to be here; he resisted arrest but he did not kill the officer; he's here for life and it's wrong, it's terrible. I hope you will do something for Jim."
"But what of yourself?" I asked; "you seem to have been outside of the affair altogether. I think I'd better do something for you."
"Oh, no!" he protested, "you can get one man out easier than two. I want to see Jim out, and I don't want to stand in his way. You know I am innocent, and all my friends believe me innocent, and I'm young and well and can stand my sentence; it will be less than ten years with good time off. My record is perfect and I shall get along all right. But Jim is here for life."
I felt as if I were dreaming. I knew it would be a simple matter to obtain release for Larry, who had already been there six years, but no, the boy would not consider that, would not even discuss it. His thought was all for Jim, and he was unconscious of self-sacrifice. He simply set aside what seemed to him the lesser good in order to secure the greater.
"Did you ever make a full statement in court?" I asked.
"No. We were only allowed to answer direct questions in the examinations. None of us were given a chance to tell the straight story."
"So the straight story never came out at any of the trials?"
"No."
Thinking it high time that the facts of a case in which two men were suffering imprisonment for life should be ascertained and put on record somewhere, it then remained for me to interview Evans, and to see how nearly the statements of the three men agreed, each given to me in private six years after the occurrence of the event.