THE STORY OF THE OCCUPANT OF THE NINTH CELL

"I think," said the visitor, when the Governor had completed the eighth story, "that this man Sarlon made his mistake because he was unacquainted with the district near his prison."

"Precisely—up to a point," admitted the Governor, who was about to add something else, when he was interrupted.

"It is not a mistake I shall make," remarked the visitor grimly. "And I frankly tell you that I am aware one of the Big Five of Scotland Yard has been interesting himself in my movements of late."

"It is no secret that your capture has been much desired," returned the Governor. "It may not be fog that will lead to your undoing at last. It may not be a mistake on your part; but something, somewhere, will happen, I assure you, and you will be caught."

"If it pleases you to think so, please continue in your error," responded the visitor. "In the meantime, now that I have listened to your stories, may I press the question that I came here to put to you? Are you willing to act in either of the two ways I have suggested regarding the condemned man?"

The Governor seemed lost in thought for a moment; but presently he lifted his head and smiled at the man who sat opposite.

"We have still plenty of time to come to a decision on that matter, and your mention of the Big Five has interested me. Most people—that is, most people in the general public—are under the impression that the final details relating to the capture of criminals are in the hands of a Big Four whose headquarters are at Scotland Yard. Now, since you mention a Big Five, I take it that you are including that able officer, Detective Seed?"

"I am. But——"

"Ah, how curious! You know, our thoughts evidently run parallel on quite a number of lines. The fact is that Detective Seed was responsible for the occupant of my ninth cell being in my prison to-night. I do not know if you ever met, or heard of, a most notorious burglar named Sockem?"

"You are not going to tell me that Sockem is in your prison!" sneered the visitor suddenly. "He is dead. I have seen his grave. He was drowned up the Thames."

"That is where you are wrong, I assure you. He was not drowned at all. But he is dead all the same, and it is of the manner of his death that I would like to tell you. The man who occupies the ninth cell was a mere cipher in the story of Sockem's end, but he was an agent for a receiver of stolen property named Eckhardt, of whom I shall have a word or two to say very soon. Mackintosh is the name of this man in the ninth cell—a cautious man who came from Aberdeen, an elder of a Scottish church, an ex-soldier. Ah, well, he is insignificant, but he is in the ninth cell to-night, and to tell you how he came to be there I must tell you the truth of Sockem's final flutter in crime. There are points that will interest you, believe me."

"It interests me to hear that Sockem was not drowned," remarked the visitor. "He was no ordinary man. Pray proceed, but don't make it too long."

"I shall be as short as possible in my recital, but one must do justice to facts as well as to dead men, and I am a stickler for etiquette. Besides, I happen to know more about Sockem than most people, even his friends. To begin with, Sockem was not his name at all. But I am anticipating. Let us first set the stage for the drama."

The Governor leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, as if to recall the story he was about to relate. Only the ticking of the clock sounded in the room.

One must admit [so the Governor began, after a short space] that Jimmy Sockem had pluck. But a burglar cannot always work alone, and when Ben Foss, who had for a long time acted as his "scout," turned to honest ways, Jimmy had either to find another scout or work by himself. He tried to find a helper, and did not succeed. None that he employed on his raids on society was so pliable as Ben Foss. Then he tried working alone. That did not do either, for a second man is useful. You will admit the truth of this.

So, then, one night Jimmy Sockem might have been seen (or, rather, might not have been seen) climbing a water-spout in the West End of London. There were two objects in his mind as he climbed. The first was to get certain jewellery in a flat. The second was to compel Ben Foss to give up honesty and return to lawlessness.

So far as Ben Foss was concerned, there is no doubt that he wanted to be free of Sockem; but, not having the strength of will to defy Jimmy, he shrank from heroic measures. In a word, he was afraid of Sockem.

With his finger-tips on the edge of the window-sill and his left hand grasping the drain-pipe, Jimmy paused for the final effort. He had climbed more than forty feet from the back garden of the block of flats. Someone was down below him. He could hear feet crunching the gravel path with hesitating steps; but the thin fog that rose from the earth was his protection, as ground mist has so often been the protection of London burglars ever since there was London, or fogs.

From the street beyond the building he heard the rumble of the traffic, the roar of the buses, the hooting of motor-horns. He listened attentively, hanging, spread-eagled, against the wall like a gigantic beetle. The movements beneath him became blurred and indistinct, then gradually faded away. He was safe.

From his pocket Jimmy Sockem took his favourite and only tool, and dug it into the mortar between the bricks. It was an extra-long horseshoe nail, made of steel, bright and polished, pointed and sharpened like a rapier. On this nail he rested his knee, then his right foot, and finally raised himself and swung over to the sill, on which he knelt.

He withdrew the nail from the mortar and slid it up between the frame of the window and the catch. A sudden twist was all that was required. The window opened. Jimmy put his leg over the sill and stepped into the dark room, drawing the heavy curtains behind him.

He crouched low as his quick ear detected a footstep outside the door. He heard the door open, a light was snapped on, and he saw a silver-haired, elderly man standing on the threshold. He faced Jimmy before the latter had time to hide behind the furniture.

"The cat burglar! Put your hands up!"

Jimmy did not answer the accusation. His eyes were glancing about the room. The elderly man was pointing a revolver towards him.

"You disturbed an alarm when you opened the window," he said quietly. "Put your hands above your head. My man will tie you until——"

It was then that Jimmy attacked. His gloved hands rose as if in obedience to the order, but as his right came up it caught, in its swing, a heavy bronze statuette from a small table and launched the missile with the accuracy of a practised thrower. The crack of the revolver and the crash of the bronze on the elderly man's head were simultaneous.

Both men dropped to the floor; the attacker, because it was his usual stratagem, the other for quite a different reason.

Then, swiftly, one leaped upright. It was Sockem. The man who had fired the revolver was down and out. A great, bleeding wound on his head showed where he had been struck.

Jimmy crept over to where his victim lay and peered at him grimly.

"Serve him right!" he muttered. He was under the impression that he had killed his man, but it did not trouble him—much.

A sound behind him caused him to wheel. He found himself face to face with another man, but this individual did not, to him, constitute an enemy. It was Ben Foss.

"That you, Ben? I done your boss in."

"You've killed him, Jimmy! Why did you come?"

"Anybody else around?"

"No, there was just him and me. An' he was a decent sort."

"I wrote you that I was comin', didn't I? You didn't have the window open. I had to bust the catch."

"I didn't want you to come, Jimmy! I wrote back askin' you not to. I'm on the level now. He fixed the alarm a while ago——"

"And I fixed him, see? Serve him right! You thought your letter would keep me away? What are you standing there shakin' like a jelly for? Let's take the jewellery and get off quick."

"We? You said us?"

"Of course. You're comin' with me. We were pals before we went to Parkhurst, weren't we? We'll be partners again."

"Jimmy, I was tryin' to run straight. I was his servant."

"Huh! Birds like us can't turn over a new leaf. An' don't you try to double-cross me either. You know my name, see?"

Unthinkingly Ben stooped and picked up the bronze, but a shout of derision from Jimmy made him drop it.

"You've done it now, Ben! You've got to come!"

"What do you mean?"

He shrank back with a shudder as the other flung out a gloved hand and pointed to the bronze figure.

"You've put your finger-prints on it! If you stay, the cops will arrest you!"

Ben started at the words, and stretched out his hand for support. His fingers gripped the edge of a table, and a laugh burst from the mocking lips of the burglar.

"An' now you've planted your whole hand on a polished surface! With bloodstains! Oh, Ben, ain't you giving them evidence to hang you?"

"Stop that, Jimmy! I didn't do it!"

"There's the evidence, Ben!"

The two men presented a striking contrast in every particular. Jimmy Sockem was thin, small, dark-skinned, black-haired. The other was above medium height, stoutish, ruddy, bald. Jimmy was cool, alert, waspish. Ben was flurried, confused, lumbering.

"They couldn't say it was me," he rumbled, staring from his hands to the table. "It wasn't me. I've run on the level since I came out of Parkhurst."

"You've been there, and that's against you, Ben!"

"It was you as did it."

"I'm wearin' gloves. Them finger-prints say it was you!"

"He was a decent boss. I wouldn't 'ave harmed him."

"He's dead, Ben, and can't talk!"

"It was Detective Seed as got me the job."

"I've got a better one for you!"

"I don't want to be your partner again."

"But I came for you! I need a scout!"

"I told Seed I'd run on the level. He said honesty was the best policy."

"It don't pay! As my partner you'd be rich now!"

"Seed knows I'm tryin' to run straight."

"Seed couldn't stop your arrest!"

"I could tell 'em it wasn't me as did this."

"They wouldn't believe you! Your record's bad!"

"But it's the truth that I didn't do it!"

"You daren't say it was me!"

"Why?"

"Because I'd kill you if you did! See?"

Ben groaned. He knew that this little, dark-skinned man would carry out his threat. He was in a cleft stick, but he fought feebly at his last ditch, his heavy mind clinging to the central fact that was his only hope.

"I didn't do it! I didn't do it! Supposin' you went away, I'd not mention your name!"

"Then they'd hang you! Come on, get the swag and we'll be off."

"No, no. They wouldn't hang me! I don't want to be your partner again!"

"I need you. I'll make you come!"

"You can't."

"All right. Listen!"

Footsteps were coming along the corridor outside the front door of the flat. The bell tinkled. Someone was seeking admittance.

"That's settled it, Ben," whispered Jimmy in a hoarse voice. "That's a cop. I heard one down in the garden. He's come up here to get me. They know I usually go out by the front door."

"Well?"

"He's tryin' this door first. Then he'll go up to the flat above, maybe. All I have got to do is open that door and invite him in. I can say you killed your boss to collar the swag for yourself. My word's as good as yours. Your finger-prints! You'd swing, sure! They couldn't hang me, see?"

"Jimmy!"

"Get the stuff together quick and we can hop off. I'll wipe out the prints while you collect. Hurry! Or else——"

"I'm beat!" groaned Ben. "I'll come, you fox!"

Thus this smaller man of the two, the greater criminal, constituted himself the leader, the counsel, the judge of both. He triumphed in that he was able to make his very crimes of use to him. In other men their misdeeds would have been an anchor, a drag on their brains, clogging their thoughts and chaining them with unseen manacles. In him these considerations were absent. He was most dangerous when he was cornered.

Who was this man? His real name was not English, though he was a native of Limehouse. He was the son of a Japanese waif who, after having been a housebreaker in Tokio, took to the sea because his own country sought to punish him for lawlessness. Before he had been a housebreaker this father had been a fireman. The change from the one profession to the other is not so strange as it might appear. The Japanese fire brigades are famed for their acrobatic skill. They can climb to dizzy heights, bearing ladders on their shoulders; they can leap from one point to another with a daring that can only be acquired after long practice. This man had become a burglar owing to the temptation offered after the Tokio earthquake some years ago.

He joined the Gorotsuki, the thieves' brotherhood. This organisation gave endless trouble to the authorities of Tokio and Yokohama and other cities. These men disdained to use gloves, jemmies, or flashlamps. They depended on their swift action and their daring. Their movements were like lightning. Many of these men ultimately came to England. Jimmy Sockem's father was among them.

When this individual came to England he mated with a woman of the East End. When they presented the world with a son they added another criminal to the population. This son, who inherited peculiarities from both parents, in fact owed them nothing socially valuable save life. He seemed to duplicate his father in everything—certainly in wickedness. He lived about the docks, he climbed rigging, he stole from seamen as well as from his own companions. None could compete with him in ability. His inventiveness was as great as his sense of honesty was deficient. He could swarm up water-pipes like a monkey, and he challenged the seamen of sailing-ships to go to the top of the masts before he was in his teens. Fortunately—or unfortunately—he was never caught, or he might have been sent to Borstal.

In this youth a psychologist would have observed the meeting of the Orient and the Occident. He had never been to Japan, yet he was more Japanese than English in habit. Once or twice he went voyages in sailing-ships to the European countries, but he objected to the sea because he was confined to shipboard. He ultimately declined any offer to leave London. He became the first "cat" burglar.

His mind was a moral chaos. In this he resembled his father, who died in a brawl; and he revered his father's memory with Japanese tenacity. His father had found no refuge in his own land, and had never adapted himself to the point of view of the West, being incapable of such adjustment. He had objected to all law because it was a restraint. The only law he bowed to was the law of the jungle. The result was that his son, Jimmy, was not so much his son as he was a cub.

Strangely enough, the West that was in Jimmy Sockem aided him to outrage its ideas of conduct. The English strain in him struggled vaguely in his youth to assert itself above the abnormalities of the old inkyo tradition, but it was smothered because the latter were the stronger. The mind-substances of his parents could not blend in him. They warred.

Because of his mixed blood he became the object of indiscriminate charity administered by emotional people who visited Limehouse. He was invited to the West End houses, and there exhibited as an example of race blending. As a boy he did not object to this; he was rather proud of it. But as he grew he saw the gulf between the East End and the West End. He could not reason things which, to him, were unreasonable. He flung a bridge across the gulf with Eastern fixity of purpose. As a burglar he might take what he could never otherwise handle. He left the shipyards and became a night marauder. The boy had become a man.

The name which his father handed down to him was lost in the tempest of his activities. That name was Sok-Emm; but, with that remarkable facility which the East End possesses for making a nick-name proclaim a man's character, his companions had extracted its foreign meaning and had endowed it with a grim, local significance. Sok-Emm to them was nothing. Sockem was everything. The word preserved his pitiless savagery. His career was marked with episodes of jungle ferocity. Physically he was an engine of destruction. Mentally he was cunning as a leopard. He had been guilty of maiming, and was suspected of murder. But he had brought into human life that quality of elusiveness, that protective resemblance to surroundings, which makes it difficult to tell where the forest ends and the tiger begins. Both physically and mentally he had the characteristics of a chameleon. In a word, he was a monster.

With all his cleverness, however, he had been caught. Ben Foss had been his partner, the man who acted as scout on big jobs. It was Foss who hung about mansions, hotels, shops, when a burglary was planned. It was Foss who collected the information necessary before the blow was struck. When all was ready, Sockem struck the blow. But on their previous expedition he had struck too quickly. Both he and Foss had made a mistake. They had been captured and sent to prison.

Foss, because he was not so dangerous as Sockem, had been given a shorter term, but the grind of prison life had wrought changes in both. Foss had been shaken to the roots of his pliable nature. He had emerged from his confinement with his nerve broken, a scared man. His mentality could take punishment up to a certain limit before it collapsed. The sentence exceeded this limit. Repentance had come through fear.

On Jimmy Sockem the prison life had had another effect. He had gone to his cell snarling. He came out silent. His spell, which would have broken ordinary men, hardened him. While still enduring the punishment society had inflicted on him, he planned future crimes against society. He did this out of a twisted idea that clamoured for revenge.

Foss was clay when he went to prison. Like some clay subjected to pressure, he at first rebelled. The clay became brick. The limit of resistance to the pressure was reached and passed. The brick broke into fragments of rubble.

Sockem endured the pressure without breaking. He was like the one-celled animals called protozoa. He became flint.

Having fixed his purpose, he sought the old partnership when he re-entered the world. He wanted to lose no time in carrying out his war against organised order. But Ben Foss had shrunk from his old habits; he had obtained a post as manservant to a wealthy connoisseur of objets d'art, a bachelor and a philanthropist. To steal from this man became doubly attractive to Sockem.

It is not every burglar who can be a "cat." It is not every "cat" who can be a burglar. Sockem could be both—and more. He could be a murderer with the same lack of compunction as he could be a thief. The one idea which dominated his acts supplied at once the excuse and the reason for his cold ruthlessness.

At first he had suspected Foss of taking the position in the flat so that he could steal its treasures easily, but the truth was now clear. Foss was no longer his partner; he was a danger unless he was involved. Fear of prison had to be overcome by fear of something else. To save himself, he had to make Foss a criminal once more.

He stood watching Ben as the latter moved about the room, collecting what valuables were worth taking and handing them to Sockem. The latter was as cool as ice. The door-bell tinkled once more. Sockem smiled, and stepped over to a gramophone, selected a record, and set the instrument going.

"Hurry!" he whispered. "That will blind him for a minute."

He wiped the bloodstained bronze with his handkerchief and took the marks off the polished table.

To Foss the whole affair seemed a kind of dream. He moved as he was ordered, doing as he was bid without protest. He had once more surrendered what remained of his personality into the hands of his master in crime; he had again become the jackal to the lion. Fear had driven him towards crime as it had driven him away from it.

They left the light burning and the gramophone playing. The door bell was ringing as they slid over the window-sill. Everything had been done swiftly, deftly, as experts work. Sockem had provided for emergencies. Half way down the drain-pipe they swung across a branch pipe that brought them to the roof of a smaller building. From this they landed into a side-lane.

They were gone some way along the main road, through the thick fog, when Foss found his tongue.

"Where are we going? The cops will come to the old place."

"I've found a new one."

They walked out of the fog into Waterloo Station. Something of the old thrill of bravado stirred in Foss's blood as they passed close to the platform policeman. He experienced the old elation, or a hint of it, as they mingled with the theatre crowds on their way home. Who could trace them in the surge of hurrying figures? Who would pick up the trail which the fog had covered?

At the booking office, Sockem bought a ticket for Foss and handed it to him. Foss saw the name of a riverside station on the slip of cardboard.

"Jimmy, why are we goin' there?" he asked in surprise. He had expected a ticket for Southampton.

"You'll see," replied Jimmy grimly.

They journeyed with other passengers, and emerged at their destination in a heavy drizzle. The fog had given way to rain. The drizzle gave way to heavy torrents as they trudged along a country road. In an hour they had struck off the road into a lane. A few minutes brought them to the bank of the river.

In spite of the questions that Foss constantly asked, Sockem did not answer. His mind was filled with one object. He began to search among the bushes by the bank. At last he found what he wanted. It was a rope hitched to a sapling. He unhitched the rope and began to haul it in. A dinghy came out of the misty rain and bumped against the bank.

"Get in, Ben."

Drenched and sodden, Foss obeyed and sat down in the stern. Sockem took the oars and pulled out into the stream. Practised rower as he was, he made no noise with the oars as he pulled against the tide. The rain was coming down in torrents when he ceased rowing and turned to peer through the thick atmosphere.

"Here we are!" he announced triumphantly. "Our place!"

"What is it?"

"A house-boat. Hold on to the stage. Bill Hemsey ought to be here."

In another moment they were alongside the dark river dwelling. They landed on the floating stage, and Sockem tied the boat to a rail, then led the way inside, opening the door with confidence. He knew his way.

"Bill Hemsey hasn't got back yet," he said. "He is coming—ought to have been here now. He was getting stuff on his own. I put him up to a job."

Hemsey was one of a small gang who kept more or less close company with Sockem—a snatch-thief who posed as a sportsman.

"Ain't this safe?" Sockem cried, as he lit a lamp in the centre of the apartment. "It's one of them boat-houses used in summer, but left to itself during the winter. Wasn't it a good idea?"

"It was, if it's safe."

"Nobody comes, I tell you. I've watched this place for weeks. It's derelict. I boarded up the windows so's the light won't show. Hemsey is coming to-night, too. And Mackintosh, who gathers the stuff for Eckhardt, the fence, is due to-morrow. We're safe as houses. You can't tell me how to cover our tracks. Look!"

He pointed to a ring in the floor at their feet.

"My safe! The river hides our loot."

He bent and pulled at the ring. One of the floorboards came away. On its under side a large screw hook had been fixed, and from this hook a thin rope hung down into the black depths. Sockem hauled at the rope. A sack, dripping with water, came into view.

"Put the stuff in the sack," he said, grinning.

They deposited the goods they had brought into the canvas sack, where other valuables were already placed, and Sockem lowered it again and slammed the floorboard. There was a flush of pride on his face as he stood up.

"And supposin' the cops come here, what would they find?" he demanded. "All they could give us is a week or two for breaking into the boat. We could say we came for shelter. Who'd think that thousands of pounds' worth of stuff was swinging in the bilge below our feet? Most of these craft collect water in winter."

He laughed and slapped Foss on the shoulder.

"And Bill Hemsey is coming with more to-night. He ought to have been here now. You know Bill, don't you?"

"I remember him," said Foss. "What's he after?"

"Money. Ready money. He's getting the rents of a certain party. The money and what we've got will make the biggest haul we've made yet. The money will take us abroad. What are you looking so dismal about?"

"Seed told me honesty was the best policy," mumbled Foss hesitatingly. "I gave him my word——"

"That don't matter, Ben. You've joined me now. And I want you to start work to-morrow. Bill will bring us news."

"What do you want me for?"

"Same as you did before. Scouting. There's a village less than a mile off. You'll fetch us grub until the coast is clear."

"But if I'm caught?"

"Then Bill or I will go. If you're caught we'll know the cops are about."

The truth was out, and the shock of it drilled through Foss. Alternately he had been swayed between fears of capture and the possibility of escape. Now he saw that he was being made use of. He was the shield, the protection, the bait, the foil. A sick smile passed over his face.

"You needn't get caught unless you're careless," said Sockem, as he wrung the water from his coat. "And we'll be rich now. I'll tell you why I came to the flat. They said you had reformed."

"Who said it? I promised Seed——"

"Oh, Hemsey told me. And I needed you as a scout. You know my ways, and I know yours. See? And Mackintosh, the agent for the fence, is due to-morrow to make a deal. He's a Scot, is Mackintosh. Works for Eckhardt, the big fence. We'll get away maybe to-morrow night. You'll get your share."

"How much?"

"We'll see what Mackintosh gives us for the stuff."

"And after that?"

"He is arranging a passage to Cherbourg for me. You, too, can come. We'll get a ship for America there. There's enough in that sack to keep us for years. You couldn't make that amount in a lifetime by honesty, see?"

There was a scanty store of provisions, which had been brought by Sockem, in the house-boat, and they ate a cold, frugal supper in silence. Then they retired for the night. The only bedding available was a couple of old mattresses which had been left by the owner of the house-boat. There were no blankets or coverings, but to men who had been in prison this was not a great hardship.

Sockem occupied a small room on one side of the alleyway; Foss had one opposite. The lamp was extinguished. Only the beating of the rain on the roof above their heads and the swish of the river broke the stillness of the night.

But, if Sockem slept well, the reverse was true of Foss. He lay tossing on his mattress, tormented and restless. The silence and the darkness brought fears that grew big and fantastic. He wanted to go back. He remembered the vow he had made to the detective who had obtained the job for him. He remembered the kindnesses of his late employer. He remembered the security with which he had gone to bed in the flat—security because he was not being hunted, because he was not opposing the law, but was protected by it.

The hours passed slowly. The rain increased. It fell with relentless monotony, lashing on the house-boat and streaming down the windows. The structure swayed with the fury of the rising wind. The tide cradled it violently. Dawn broke grey and dull. And there was no sign of Mackintosh, or of Bill Hemsey.

Sockem was in the kitchen when Foss rose and joined him.

"Can't think what's keeping Bill Hemsey," growled Sockem. "He promised to be here. Anyway, Mackintosh will come. Bill, too, after the rain."

They broke up some chairs for firewood and started a fire in the stove. The atmosphere was cold and clammy. The roof leaked.

"We ain't got any grub, Ben. Our supper was the last I had. You'll have to go out and get something. Bill was to bring some eats. He's got a girl. That's where he was going after his stunt. Girls are the devil. Well, you've got to go."

Foss moved to the landing-stage sullenly, with the intention of looking for the boat they had moored the previous night. It was not there. He looked across the tumbling river. Over by the opposite bank, fifty yards down, the boat was caught by a fallen tree. It had been swept away by the rising river, which during the night had reached flood point. The water was overflowing the banks, and swirling down in a heavy, brown billowy mass. The house-boat was tugging at the chains that moored it. They were marooned.

"We can't get any grub, Jimmy. We're too far from the banks."

Something like dismay came into Jimmy Sockem's eyes.

"I broke down the shore gangway," he muttered. "It spanned a dozen yards from the bank."

"We're twice that distance now, Jimmy."

"Can you swim?"

"No. Can you?"

"No."

A silence fell on them, broken at last by Sockem.

"It means we'll wait here until the fence comes. He'll find the boat and bring it along."

They went back to the sitting-room, where two aged cane chairs remained. These Sockem broke up and burned in the stove. They picked the last crumbs off the supper-plates. Sockem took his horseshoe nail from his pocket and began to sharpen it on a small hone. He hummed a tune as he worked. The rain became heavier than ever.

By midday the river had risen still more. Not a sign of anything living appeared along the streaming banks. Drip, drip, drip; slash, slash, slash; rumble, rumble, rumble—the first from the leaking roof, the second from the whipping rain, the third from the rising river—these were the only sounds that came to the two men in the house-boat; these, and the constant honing of his large steel nail, which Jimmy Sockem kept up until the weapon shone like a knife-blade.

No receiver of stolen property came that day. They went to their mattresses hungry, cold, miserable. They no longer spoke to each other. The rain increased. The wind rose to the strength of a gale. When they woke the next morning the waters were crested with small breakers. The rain was worse than ever. The roof leaked everywhere.

The second day passed as the first, the third came as the second. They looked out and saw, not a river, but a real flood. The water had spread into the adjoining meadows, and had formed a huge lake, which was ever increasing. Their boat had been driven away in the spate. In the midst of this desolation the house-boat floated, dragging at its foundations, its stage under water. The two men were helpless.

That day Sockem fished up the sack of loot and went over the valuables like a miser counting his hoard. Foss, who watched him in silence, saw the water ooze in under the floorboards. The truth struck him like a blow. The rising river was driving them from their shelter.

The afternoon made this definite; both of them saw it. Foss had reached the limit of his endurance. Sockem was now tigerish and unapproachable. Cowed and afraid though he was, Foss spoke his thoughts.

"Seed said honesty was the best policy. It is true."

"It is a lie," thundered Sockem. "Is not this sack proof I am right? I can break any law I wish to. We are rich."

"We are poor. We are starving."

"That is your fault. I have supplied the loot that makes us rich. You must supply the food to keep us till the floods go down. I have been thinking. You have to be driven. I shall drive you."

"How?"

"You are the scout. Why don't you scout? You must be forced. Listen. I am going to make a raft from the timber of this house. On that raft you will pole your way to the village and bring back food."

"I daren't. I should be drowned."

"If you don't go I shall kill you."

His face assumed the horrible cunning peculiar to his nature, and he stretched out his hand for the shining, dagger-like nail which lay on the table.

"Why don't you go yourself?" cried Foss in desperation.

"Because I must not. Seed knows I climbed to the flat that night I killed your boss. It was he who came to the door. I heard him in the garden as I climbed. He has been on my heels for days. You can go for food. You must. Or else——"

He shrugged his shoulders and turned to the work he had indicated. He worked with savage ferocity while Foss watched him, shivering and biting his lip. He was scared. He saw Sockem, by prodigious efforts, and with the aid of a hammer taken from the kitchen, beat down a large section of the wall. It fell across the flooded staging, and lay ready to be launched.

"That's my job finished," announced Sockem. "It is up to you. Go—or say your prayers."

He laughed wolfishly and went to his room, banging the door and bolting it.

Foss was alone with his thoughts. His thoughts chilled and roasted him alternately. It was death to go and death to remain. Dusk had fallen. Away in the distance he saw the twinkling lights of the village. The rain had slackened, but the river rushed wildly on its course.

An hour passed. The darkness deepened. Foss stirred. An idea had come to him. He crept towards the room in which Sockem had locked himself and listened at the keyhole. From the room came regular breathing. Sockem was sleeping, tired out with his labour.

Foss went back to the raft. His idea was to take his chance with the floods. He repented having given in to Sockem. Why should he not try to save himself and leave this savage to his fate?

He had laid hold of the raft when a glimmer of light pierced the darkness far down the river. He looked, and saw it become bigger. It was a light from a boat. Already he heard the "chug-chug" of a motor. Someone was coming up in face of the racing tide—evidently rescuers out to aid river-dwellers caught in the storm.

Here was a chance indeed! He could escape from the terror that was Sockem. He would go to Seed and explain all. He would ask for protection against Sockem's vengeance. Seed knew he had tried to run straight. Honesty was the best policy. If a man was honest he need never have these fears and despairs that had gripped him and terrorised him since Sockem had come back for him.

The boat was now almost level with the house-boat. It would pass without seeing him. With a cry he thought of a way out.

He ran to the kitchen and took the lantern, lighting it hurriedly. Then he came back to the stage, waving it to and fro. But the waters drove him in again, lashing against his legs. He dared not shout lest he wakened Sockem. A voice came over the floods.

"Keep steady! Give us a chance to get you!"

Ah, the light must be steady! Foss dashed back to the kitchen. On the table was the long, steel nail, Sockem's one tool. He picked up the hammer and ran out to the staging again. Muffling the head of the nail in his handkerchief, he drove it into the wooden wall. It sank through, met an obstruction half way, but a blow fixed it securely. He hung the flickering lantern on the nail and waited.

The boat came towards him. Its motor chugged so loudly he was afraid Sockem would hear. Out of the darkness the boat glided, and a man sprang on to the submerged staging.

"Hullo! Floods held you prisoner—Foss!"

The man who had spoken was Detective Seed.

He took hold of Foss's shaking frame and looked into his scared eyes.

"Steady up, Foss! You're all right with us! Have you found Sockem?"

Ben gulped hard, but his tongue could not utter words. His hand jerked towards the room behind him.

"All right, Foss, you've had a hard time, but we're the river police," said Seed quickly. "Lucky Sockem didn't kill you. I suppose he's barricaded himself in. By the way, your boss told me you had gone after the burglar——"

"Ain't he dead?"

"No, but he got a bad rap on the head. He's recovering all right. He knows you're straight. Well, we've caught Sockem's receiver of goods, Mackintosh. We got him as we were coming up. He's confessed that Sockem was here, but we'd have passed you but for your lantern. I knew Sockem had a nest on the river. Don't worry. We've got him now."

He drew a revolver and approached the door of the room, and at his heels went two men from the motor-boat. They burst the lock open. One man switched on a flashlamp.

"Get up, Jimmy Sockem! I'm arresting you for burglary——Ah!"

Seed moved forward suddenly, and looked at the prone figure in the narrow bunk.

"Look!" he cried, pointing to the wall against which Sockem's head rested.

The long, shining horseshoe nail which had been driven through the wooden partition had caught Jimmy Sockem as he slept, and had penetrated to his brain.

The Governor bent forward as he finished his story and tapped the edge of his desk with his forefinger.

"So you see that Jimmy Sockem was not drowned. He was buried in the East End, and I don't doubt that you have seen his grave. As he had no relatives, the police paid for his funeral, after an inquest had been held very quietly. The verdict was 'accidental death.' And Ben Foss went back to his job. He has never again been tempted, or bullied, back to lawless ways. As for Mackintosh, the agent for Eckhardt, the receiver of stolen goods, I think I have already informed you that he is just now occupying the ninth cell below us."

The visitor remained silent for some time, thinking over what he had heard.

"I suppose I ought to be thankful to you," he remarked, "for telling me the real nature of the famous 'cat's' end. The story current in certain circles is that he was drowned in his bunk during the flood. But there is one point which your narrative leaves undetermined."

"What is it?"

"Why was it that Bill Hemsey did not come to the house-boat when he was expected?"

"Ah," smiled the Governor, "that is still to be explained, and in order to elucidate that matter I now propose to give you the story of the occupant of the tenth cell, who is none other than Bill Hemsey himself."