He had a handkerchief, a fine linen handkerchief with a hemstitched
border and a monogram on it, in the upper breast pocket of his buttoned
coat. He tried to reach it. His hands went up, twisting awkwardly like
crab claws. The fingers of both plucked out the handkerchief. Holding it
so, Mr. Trimm mopped the sweat away. The links of the handcuffs fell in
upon one another and lengthened out again at each movement, filling the
room with a smart little sound.
He got the handkerchief stowed away with the same clumsiness. He raised
the manacled hands to his hat brim, gave it a downward pull that brought
it over his face and then, letting his short arms slide down upon his
plump stomach, he faced the man who had put the fetters upon him,
squaring his shoulders back. But it was hard, somehow, for him to square
his shoulders--perhaps because of his hands being drawn so closely
together. And his eyes would waver and fall upon his wrists. Mr. Trimm
had a feeling that the skin must be stretched very tight on his jawbones
and his forehead.
"Isn't there some way to hide these--these things?"
He began by blurting and ended by faltering it. His hands shuffled
together, one over, then under the other.
"Here's a way," said Meyers. "This'll help."
He bestirred himself, folding one of the chained hands upon the other,
tugging at the white linen cuffs and drawing the coat sleeves of his
prisoner down over the bonds as far as the chain would let them come.
"There's the notion," he said. "Just do that-a-way and them bracelets
won't hardly show a-tall. Ready? Let's be movin', then."
But handcuffs were never meant to be hidden. Merely a pair of steel
rings clamped to one's wrists and coupled together with a scrap of
chain, but they'll twist your arms and hamper the movements of your body
in a way constantly to catch the eye of the passer-by. When a man is
coming toward you, you can tell that he is handcuffed before you see the
cuffs.
Mr. Trimm was never able to recall afterward exactly how he got out of
the Tombs. He had a confused memory of a gate that was swung open by
someone whom Mr. Trimm saw only from the feet to the waist; then he and
his companion were out on Lafayette Street speeding south toward the
subway entrance at Worth Street, two blocks below, with the marshal's
hand cupped under Mr. Trimm's right elbow and Mr. Trimm's plump legs
almost trotting in their haste. For a moment it looked as if the
warden's well-meant artifice would serve.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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