The Man Behind the Bars

by Winifred Louise Taylor

"Now I could hardly remember afterwards how it all occurred. There was no time to think. I was helpless as a baby in the position in which I was held. There is no time for reflection in a struggle like this. He was holding me and I was struggling to get away. I told him several times to let go or I'd shoot. I was nearly crazy with excitement and it was simply the animal instinct of self-preservation that caused me to fire the shots.

"I was so weak when I got outside that in running I fell down two or three times. That night in Chicago I was in hopes the man was only wounded, and in that case I had determined to quit the business. When I read the account in the papers next morning all I can say is that, although I was in the city and perfectly safe, with as little chance of being discovered as if I were in another planet, I would have taken my chances—whether it would have been five or twenty years for the burglary—if it were only in my power to do the thing over again. I did not much care what I did after this. I thought I could be no worse than I was.

"In a few months I was arrested and got five years for a burglary in ——. I read what I could of the trial from what papers I could get; and for the first time I saw what a deadly web circumstances and the conceit of human shrewdness can weave around an innocent man.

"The trial went on. I did not open my mouth. I knew that if I said a word and went into court fresh from the penitentiary I would certainly be hanged, and I had not reached a point when I was ready to sacrifice my life for a stranger.

"In the feverish life I led in the short time out of prison I forgot all about this, until I found myself here for ten years and then I thought: there is a man in this prison doing hard work, eating coarse food, deprived of everything that makes life worth having, and suffering for a crime of which he knows as little as the dust that is yet to be created to fill these miserable cells. I thought what a hell the place must be to him.

"No one has worked this confession out of me. I wish to implicate no one, but myself. If you will not believe what I say now, and —— stays in prison, it is likely the truth will never be known. But if in the future the man who was with me that night will come to the front, whether I am alive or dead, you will find that what I have told you is as true as the law of gravitation. I was never in the town of —— before that time or since. I did not know whom I had killed until I read of it. I do not know —— (Brett) or any of his friends. But I do know that he is perfectly innocent of the crime he is in prison for. I know it better than any one in the world because I committed the crime myself."

The position of Brett was not affected in the least by this confession, though his family were doing all in their power to secure his release. The case was considered most difficult of solution. The theory of delusion on Shannon's part was advanced and was accepted by those who believed Brett guilty, but received no credence among the convicts who knew Shannon and the burglar associated with him at the time the crime was committed.

I had never sought the acquaintance of a "noted criminal" before, but this case interested me and I asked to see Shannon. For the first time I felt myself at a disadvantage in an interview with a convict. A sort of aloofness seemed to form the very atmosphere of his personality, and though he sat near me it was with face averted and downcast eyes; the face seemed cut in marble, it was so pale and cold, with clear-cut, regular features, suggesting a singular appropriateness in his being known as "The Greek."

I opened conversation with some reference to the newspaper reports; Shannon listened courteously but with face averted and eyes downcast, and then in low, level tones, but with a certain incisiveness, he entered upon the motive which led to his confession, revealing to me also his own point of view of the situation. Six years had passed since the crime was committed, and all that time, he said, he had believed that, if he could bring himself to confess, Brett would be cleared—that during these six years the murder had become a thing of the past, partially extenuated in his mind, on the ground of self-defence; but when he found himself in the same prison with Brett, here was a result of his crime, living, suffering; and in the depths of Shannon's own conscience pleading for vindication and liberty. As a burden on his own soul the murder might have been borne in silence between himself and his Creator, but as a living curse on another it demanded confession. And the desire to right that wrong swept through his being with overmastering force.