THE STORY OF THE OCCUPANT OF THE SEVENTH CELL

The visitor had taken a great interest in the story of Daniel Callow, and when the Governor finished he spoke quietly.

"I would not advise you to put Daniel Callow among your Intellectuals."

"Thank you. I think you are right in your judgment. He shall stay among the Intelligents. I have given you proof that certain men give themselves away under certain circumstances. I will now give you a case where Nature intervened and sent Robert Lyons to the seventh cell."

But for a caprice of Nature (continued the Governor), Robert Lyons would now be facing the scaffold. As it is, he has been for some time in hospital, and it is extremely unlikely that he will ever go outside these walls, or, rather, the confines of the prison, so long as he lives. Such is the sentence for his evildoing that a judge and jury have passed on him.

Lyons was a gamekeeper and odd-job man, and one day, when he was out in the woods, he rested his rifle in the fork of a tree and took careful aim at a piece of granite formed in the shape of a chair that stood out of the scrub five hundred yards across the valley. There was murder in his heart, but it was not the wild, irresponsible desire to slay, which is often associated with the taking of human life, that swayed him. The murder he contemplated was deliberate, cold, implacable.

In studying Lyons we are studying a man who is in many ways different from most men. His design to kill was clever, original, worthy of an Intellectual. As a matter of fact, I have thought that if Lyons had been in another sphere of life he would have made his mark, for he possessed many of the traits of almost genius. After all, brains are no monopoly of wealth or high birth.

Lyons pressed the trigger of his rifle, eased the weapon from his shoulder as soon as he had fired, took a pair of binoculars from his pocket, and focused them.

Above the irregular top of the granite block that took the form of a natural chair—in the locality it was known as the "Wishing Chair," owing to some legend—he had fastened a target of wood shaped to represent a man's head. With the aid of his binoculars he observed that his .303 bullet had passed through this head. The observation convinced him that the way to final accomplishment of his intention was clear. His intention was to put a bullet from his gun through the head of his employer, Professor Roche; and he was going to do it without his hand or finger being nearer the trigger than the width of the valley.

You will perhaps agree (said the Governor, in parenthesis) that within recent years a change has taken place in the methods of criminals quite as much as in their motives. A generation ago murder was usually committed because of some grudge, some grievance, some desire for revenge, or hope of gain. The murdered persons were almost always aware of their enemy, or enemies, and of the cause of the antagonism. In these days the victim is less often aware of having an enemy. Within the last few years the victims have been the friends, the benefactors sometimes, of their slayers in more than fifty per cent. of the murders committed. Does this indicate that humanity is retrograding instead of progressing? No one can answer definitely. Some have said that war revives in man the savage impulse to slay. The question is more complicated than appears on the surface. Why did Robert Lyons wish to slay his employer?

It has become an axiom that to find the culprit of any breakage of the law it is necessary to find the motive. The old Frenchman was not infallible when he said, "Find the woman." The police first seek for a motive, and then trace the person involved. It is all a matter of team-work, all a business of routine. It is a process of elimination. So much for the police and their methods. Let us get back to Lyons and his intention. Motive played a part, as usual, fear another, greed another, and at base these were, singly, small enough, but when combined they were everything.

Professor Roche was one of the savants who are to be found in the backwaters of English life. London is the home of active men. The provinces are as often the home of thinking men. Professor Roche was one of the most retiring, yet one of the most learned, men in this country. He had travelled widely in pursuit of his science. He was an archæologist, naturalist, conchologist. It was he who presented to our best museums the collections that are most prized. He had been all over Europe and America at the invitation of private and public organisations, aiding them in appraising and displaying their treasures. And yet this man, who could have had many honours given him, desired none. He was content to live away from the hub of things, and his pleasure was in his work. His collections were envied by curators of museums, who often begged them on loan. These collections had been gathered from the four corners of the world. Time after time he had been approached, indeed tempted, to sell some of his collections, but he had always refused. It was because Robert Lyons had overheard such a conversation between the professor and the representative of a museum that he became aware of the chance of making something for himself without much effort.

Lyons acted as gamekeeper and handyman on the small estate. His duty was, among other things, to keep poachers away, and allow the wild life of the land to live to its natural fullness, so that the professor might study the habits of the creatures living above, on, deep in the earth. He accompanied Professor Roche on many tours, for he knew the ways of hares, squirrels, field animals, as well as he knew the ways of birds. He knew them from the woodsman's point of view, while the professor knew them from the scientific angle. Squirrels came to feed out of his hand, rabbits did not budge when he passed, rooks looked down on him from their nests unafraid. It was to be expected that such a sanctuary for wild life would attract poachers bent on killing where killing was profitable as well as easy.

One step leads to another. Lyons was the man who made the cases in which the professor's specimens were kept. It was he who, under the professor's directions, arranged the preserved butterflies of many countries, the humming-birds of the Amazon, the rare shells of the tropics, the eggs of a thousand wonderful species.

At first the value of the exhibits loomed only faintly behind their beauty. The conversation he had overheard turned his thoughts from the beauty to the value. He lacked the scientific enthusiasm which is above the consideration of money, and gradually he began to compare himself, a humble gamekeeper, with the wealth which he handled. He ended by coveting.

He took another step. The professor did not miss the humming-bird Lyons put into his pocket and sold in London on one of his occasional trips to town. He found it comparatively easy to sell when he had satisfied the dealer that Professor Roche had commissioned him to dispose of the rare curio. He named a price and stuck to it. The dealer saw this man knew values, and paid the price.

Other specimens went the same way, to other dealers. It was easy to say that the professor was getting rid of a few specimens quietly in order to obtain ready money, but this could not go on indefinitely. Lyons was perfectly aware of this, but he was already involved and could not turn back.

There was one shell in the professor's collection which had attracted the attention of Lyons more than anything else. It nestled in a bed of plush, and was about six inches long, pale ivory in colour, overlaid with wonderful mosaic markings, and had a slender, tapering spire. Its label gave its name as "Glory of Coram—very rare." Lyons took the trouble, when in London, to find out that there were not half a dozen such shells in the world's museums. It was valued at many hundreds of pounds. Might he not take this as a final toll? He took it.

Crime is like a steep incline. The criminal starts slowly, gathering speed and daring as he descends. This speed and daring are largely generated by the momentum of descent. At a given distance down the slope, stoppage is impossible without danger of a crash. Robert Lyons had reached this distance.

The dealer in London to whom he took the shell examined it for a long time. He asked questions. Had Lyons been more business-like he would have known that rare shells are not sold over counters without the buyer's protecting himself by negotiation and written statements. He listened to the dealer telling him that he must have a note from the professor authorising the sale.

"Give me a note and I'll get his signature," he said. The dealer gave him a typewritten note—such a one as is generally kept for reference when curios change hands. Robert Lyons left the shop, and returned to his home that evening realising that he had thrown a net about his own feet.

His position was now one of peril. He had stepped beyond the bounds of petty theft. He spent a considerable part of that night in his little cottage trying to forge the professor's signature. His hand was clumsy, and could not form the letters well. He knew his forgery would be detected at once. As he sat pondering the situation the great idea came to him. He would get the signature, and make it impossible for the professor ever to say that he had been forced to sign.

Curiously enough, he never thought of returning the Glory of Coram to its case. In this he was like the majority of criminals, whose brains do not harbour a thought of retreat. They must go on, driven by some force of their own making against which they cannot strive. If he retreated, there would be inquiries, and his other thefts would come to light. The dealer would probably write to Professor Roche, for the Glory of Coram was a treasure not often put into the market. All this meant prison, humiliation, the brand of the broad arrow. By the unusually cunning plan that had come to him Robert Lyons saw that the only other way was to blot out the life of Professor Roche.

This alternative may seem to rational people to be an enormity. Is it any more so than the decision of the murderer to kill the girl who expected to marry him, so that he might marry another? Or more heinous than the poisoning of an old woman to gain the few hundreds of pounds for which her life was insured? Lyons, like other criminals, did not balance his proposed crime by the material gain it would bring him. He balanced it by his own safety.

After he had satisfied himself that his rifle was capable of carrying out his plan he threw it over his shoulder, crossed the valley, and took down the target, all bullet-marked, and trudged back to his cottage. He put his rifle in a cupboard and took out an older weapon, which he stacked in the porch. This was part of his plan also. He had bought the newer rifle in London some days previously, and had brought it home after dark. It was of different bore from his old piece, which everybody in the neighbourhood knew he possessed.

He brought out some pieces of wood, and a saw and hammer and nails. He measured the pieces carefully, and was busy at the work of carpentry when he heard a footfall approaching. He looked up. Professor Roche was coming up the gravel path to his cottage.

"I heard your gun go off over by the valley, Lyons," said the professor. "Shooting at anything?"

"It's them poachers, sir," replied Lyons, with an upward glance from under his shaggy brows. "It wasn't my gun that went off. Here it is here, loaded up, but I never see the poachers or I'd fire."

"Not at them, I hope, Lyons."

"No, sir, above their heads, just to give 'em a fright. They've been poaching over by the Wishing Chair."

"What are they after this time, birds or hares?"

"Anything they can get, sir."

"I'd have got the police to help you, Lyons, if you weren't against it——"

"Never mind the police, sir. I can manage. When are we goin' over to continue the excavations?"

"I was hoping to go to-day."

"Make it to-morrow, sir. I'll spend the day clearin' out the poachers, and we won't be disturbed to-morrow."

"All right, Lyons."

The professor was looking dreamily at the pieces of wood which Lyons was fitting together carefully into a curious shape.

"What's that you are making, Lyons?"

"A cradle, sir."

"A cradle?"

"Yes, for my gun. The fore-end has warped through being laid on the damp ground, and that affects the barrel. I'm making a cradle so I can keep it off the ground when I'm resting, while I watch for poachers."

The professor nodded and walked away slowly, his head bent and his hands behind his back. Lyons was well aware that his explanation had not been followed, for the professor was always thinking of his specimens and had little interest in anything else.

When he had gone, Lyons bent over his task and worked fast. The cradle was finished by midday, and he went indoors to prepare his dinner. When dinner was ready he laid it on the table and piled a handful of nuts on a plate beside it. Then he stepped into his inner room and brought out a box two feet long by one foot high. He laid the box on the floor and shut his front door. When he sat down at the table he flicked open the lid of the box. A squirrel jumped out.

"Hullo, Brownie," said Lyons. "I reckon I've starved you about enough for the job. Keep away from that plate of nuts."

The squirrel had leaped to the table, but a blow from the hand of the gamekeeper sent it flying to the floor. It ran about the place, poking into corners, mounting the chairs, and always turning its little, sparkling eyes towards the table where the nuts were piled temptingly.

Robert Lyons ate his dinner slowly, watching the squirrel all the time. Every time it came on the table he threw it off. When it jumped on his knee and poked its head upward towards his plate he allowed it to sniff the dinner; but when it tried to steal a morsel he threw it to the floor. This went on for quite a long time.

After dinner, Lyons rose and put the remains of his dinner and the plate of nuts into a cupboard, taking one or two loose nuts in his hand. With these he tempted the squirrel repeatedly, making it believe that he was giving it one, and drawing away the prize when the animal ventured to seize it.

There was something pathetic in the small eyes of the squirrel when this was repeated several times. At last Lyons changed his method of teasing the hungry thing. He tied a nut to a piece of string and let it hang from the table. Every time the squirrel dashed for it he drew it away. Finally he took the squirrel and put it into his capacious coat pocket, lifted his new gun and cradle, and went out, locking the door behind him.

He walked straight down the valley until he came to a spot opposite the Wishing Chair. Near it was a large mound of earth which had been newly dug up. The professor had been making excavations in search of fossils, Lyons doing the digging while the savant searched.

Robert Lyons went straight to the tree from which he had fired the shot in the morning. He fitted the cradle he had made into the fork, hammered it down with a few nails, laid his rifle in the cradle, and sighted it for the Wishing Chair.

Next he took a nut from his pocket, and tied it with a piece of twine to the trigger of the gun so that it dangled in the desired position. He then brought the squirrel out, and let it see the nut and play with it; but when the little animal made any attempt to bite it, Lyons drew it out of reach. He held the squirrel in his hands all this time.

After some time he descended the slope into the valley and climbed to the Wishing Chair. He sat down in the stone seat. Once more he brought the squirrel out of his pocket. But this time he did not tease it. He set it on the ground and let it go. As soon as it bounded off he ran after it. He knew where it was going.

The squirrel led him back to the spot where he had left his rifle. When he arrived, the animal was seated on its haunches nibbling at a nut, and the loop which dangled from the trigger of the gun was empty. Lyons examined the rifle. The spring had been released. He tested the sights without touching the weapon. The aim was truly laid for the Wishing Chair.

He took another nut from his pocket, offering it to the brown squirrel. It came timidly, but the gamekeeper did not tease any more. He let the squirrel take the nut and eat it, as he held it in the crook of his arm. When it was finished with the nut, he returned it to his pocket and went back home. He left the rifle in the cradle fastened to the tree-fork.

It had taken Robert Lyons a week to train the squirrel to run across the valley from the Wishing Chair to the spot where the rifle was now placed; and he had accomplished the training by the method which is the first to break-in any animal—starvation. Who would ever suspect such a death-trap?

Robert Lyons was up early next morning to meet his employer. The latter came down to the cottage soon after breakfast, and was pleased to see that the gamekeeper had every tool in readiness for their excavations. They proceeded to the site at once.

Lyons did not talk as they marched ahead. The morning was dull, the sky was heaped with cumulus clouds, the wind was rising.

"I'm afraid it isn't too promising for work, Lyons," said the professor as they descended into the valley. "If it rains, we can return and arrange some specimens indoors."

"We'll see," replied Lyons, grimly smiling to himself. "This is the very weather for poachers."

"Do you think they'll be about?"

"Maybe. We'll see."

They reached the Wishing Chair on the top of the hill, and Lyons threw down his tools. The professor sat down on the stone seat, as was his habit, and drew out a handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his face. It had been a stiff climb up the slope.

Lyons stepped behind the Wishing Chair, pretending to look at the landscape beyond; but his hands fumbled about his waist. In a moment he had uncoiled a length of thin rope, at the end of which was a running noose. Before the innocent professor was aware, the noose was thrown over his shoulders and the gamekeeper circled him twice, tying him to the stone seat. Professor Roche was a prisoner.

He tried to rise, shouting to Lyons to loosen the rope, shouting indignant orders, but Lyons did not heed his employer's words. His face had become grim and dark, and his jaws were set as if clamped by iron braces.

"If you howl, I'll gag you," he said viciously. "It's time we had a talk. You're going to sign this first."

He shoved under the bewildered professor's nose the typewritten declaration which the dealer had given him.

"What's all this? What's the meaning of this treatment, Lyons? I cannot see what is written on the paper——"

"I'll read it to you."

Robert Lyons read it, slowly and distinctly. It was to the effect that the Glory of Coram, being the property of Professor Roche, was being offered for sale by that person, who was willing to take a certain sum for it.

In vain the professor protested that this was robbery with violence; the look in the grey eyes of the gamekeeper proved that both men were in a new situation just then. Their past knowledge of each other was gone for ever, and in its place was something terrible and menacing. The professor sat very still, staring across the valley, trying to convince himself that he was not dreaming. He found out soon enough. Lyons hit him savagely in the face.

"Sign!" he cried.

"I haven't a pen."

"But I have. It is your own fountain one. I brought it on purpose."

"I missed it a week ago," murmured the professor thoughtfully. "Is it only the Glory of Coram you wish, Lyons?"

"Is there anything more you'd like to give me?" sneered Lyons. "I've had a few things out of the cases lately, but you haven't missed 'em."

"You have been stealing my goods?"

"And selling 'em, professor. When I sell the shell I'll have as much money as I need."

"But if I sign this it is still possible that you will repent it. The money will be paid into my bank——"

"It won't. It will be paid into my hand. I've made all that secure. It will be paid by to-night."

"But you will be caught as soon as I give the alarm!"

"You will not give an alarm."

"No?"

"You will be dead. They'll find you to-morrow, maybe. Who is to prove that poachers haven't been here to-day?"

A shiver passed through the professor's frame. He raised his head and looked about for aid. All was bare, wild country, the nearest house being his own home, over two miles off. Up the valley the rising wind came steadily, increasing in volume every minute. The huge clouds above were driving from the southwest. That meant rain.

"Do you intend to kill me?" he asked, after a pause. There was a hint of the scholar's curiosity in his question.

"I do."

"Might I ask how?"

"Since it won't help you, I'll explain," said Lyons, "but you got to sign that slip first."

The professor gravely took the pen and signed. His hand shook a little, and the paper fluttered on his knee, but his face was serene as he handed the sheet back to Lyons. The latter held the signature to the wind until it was dry, then pushed it into his inside pocket. With his eyes on Professor Roche, he brought the squirrel from his coat pocket and held it aloft.

"This little fellow is going to kill you," he said. "He's the one who is going to clear away every clue. Ain't you, Brownie?"

"This is very curious," said Professor Roche. "How is he going to do it?"

"This way. Over the valley, in that clump of trees, is a rifle, loaded and laid straight for your head. It is five hundred yards away. The bullet in that rifle is a .303, which will kill at a much greater distance. Hanging from the trigger is a nut. This squirrel is going to snatch that nut. You won't have any pain, I assure you. I've had a target often enough where your head is."

"Then you will hang," said the professor.

"I won't. The rifle will be buried in the valley within an hour of it being fired. My own gun isn't a .303. Everybody in the house knows that you and I are working at these excavations. Our trail shows we came here. I have worked it all out."

The wind was coming in gusts, so that Lyons, who was standing to leeward, had to bend forward to hear the professor's reply to his boast. To his surprise, the professor merely wrinkled his brows and bent his head. Lyons placed the squirrel on the ground ready to let him free. Professor Roche's voice spoke.

"Have you laid the rifle true for me, Lyons?" he asked. "Are you sure?"

"True and straight, as I have laid it every day for a week. You can't escape the bullet."

He threw the squirrel from him with a savage laugh.

"Say your prayers!" he cried. "Nothing can save you now!"

The professor's eyes were on the disappearing squirrel, now bounding towards the clump of trees in which the gun-trap was hidden.

"Lyons," he said, "I have no prayers to say, but since you bound me in this natural Wishing Chair I have been wishing—and thinking. I believe my wish will come true. Come nearer to me. The wind makes it difficult to talk."

Lyons moved from the windward to the leeward side of the chair. He admired the gameness of the old professor.

"What is it you want to say?" he asked. "Hurry! The rifle will go off any moment."

"One of the things I have studied, Lyons, is the question of velocity. We have been having good weather of late——"

"What are you talking about?" roared Lyons. "Gone mad, eh?"

"Not quite, Lyons. Stand a little nearer and listen closely. I have had my wish. The wind is very strong. Hark!"

From the clump of trees across the valley the crack of a rifle broke out, and a tiny puff of smoke arose swiftly. Robert Lyons jumped back from the Wishing Chair, but as he leapt something smote him in the chest and stretched him unconscious on the ground.

Professor Roche was able to undo the fastenings that bound him, and he went for the police, who took Lyons to hospital. He has just been tried, and sentenced to imprisonment for life. It was indeed a wonder he was not killed by the bullet he intended for the professor.

You see, the wind always takes a bullet off the target at five hundred yards' range. Three feet at that distance is an average wind allowance.

Robert Lyons had forgotten the rising wind.