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But I had other things to think about. I looked up at that grim,
gray building. Behind one of those little barred windows was the
Professor. I should have been angry at Andrew, but somehow it all
seemed a kind of dream. Then I was taken into the hallway of the
sheriff's cottage and in a minute I was talking to a big,
bull-necked man with a political moustache.
"You have a prisoner here called Roger Mifflin?" I said.
"My dear Madam, I don't keep a list of all our inmates in my
head. If you will come to the office we will look up the records."
I showed him the Governor's card. He took it and kept looking at it
as though he expected to see the message written there change or
fade away. We walked across a strip of lawn to the prison building.
There, in a big bare office, he ran over a card index.
"Here we are," he said. "Roger Mifflin; age, 41; face, oval;
complexion, florid; hair, red but not much of it; height, 64
inches; weight, stripped, 120; birthmark...."
"Never mind," I said. "That's the man. What's he here for?"
"He's held in default of bail, pending trial. The charge is attempt
to defraud one Helen McGill, spinster, age..."
"Rubbish!" I said. "I'm Helen McGill, and the man made no attempt to
defraud me."
"The charge was entered and warrant applied for by your brother,
Andrew McGill, acting on your behalf."
"I never authorized Andrew to act on my behalf."
"Then do you withdraw the charge?"
"By all means," I said. "I've a great mind to enter a counter-charge
against Andrew and have _him_ arrested."
"This is all very irregular," said the sheriff, "but if the prisoner
is known to the Governor, I suppose there is no alternative. I
cannot annul the warrant without some recognizance. According to
the laws of this State the next of kin must stand surety for the
prisoner's good behaviour after release. There is no next of kin...."
"Surely there is!" I said. "I am the prisoner's next of kin."
"What do you mean?" he said. "In what relationship do you
stand to this Roger Mifflin?"
"I intend to marry him just as soon as I can get him away from here."
He burst into a roar of laughter. "I guess there's no stopping you,"
he said. He pinned the Governor's card to a blue paper on the desk,
and began filling in some blanks.
"Well, Miss McGill," he went on, "don't take away more than one of
my prisoners or I'll lose my job. The turnkey will take you up to
the cell. I'm exceedingly sorry: you can see that the mistake was
none of our fault. Tell the Governor that, will you, when you see
him?"
I followed the attendant up two flights of bare, stone stairs, and
down a long, whitewashed corridor. It was a gruesome place; rows
and rows of heavy doors with little, barred windows. I noticed
that each door had a combination knob, like a safe. My knees felt
awfully shaky.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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