Part 3 (1/2)
”So many of them become religious on the edge of the drop simply out of funk--nervous collapse and a sort of clutching at a chance in the next world. They often struggle and call out when they're being pinioned.
It's impossible to give them any sort of anaesthetic.”
”Is that done then? I didn't know.”
”It's not talked about, of course, sir. It's quite unofficial and it's not generally known. But we nearly always give them something if it's possible, and then they know nothing of what's happening.”
Sims nodded. ”The best way,” he said sadly, ”the lethal chamber would be better still.”
There was a momentary silence between the two men. The prison doctor felt instinctively that his distinguished visitor shrank from the ordeal before him and was bracing himself to go through with it. He was unwilling to interrupt such a famous member of his profession. It was an event to meet him, a thing which he would always remember.
Suddenly Sims rose from his chair. ”Now, then,” he said with a rather wan smile, ”take me to the poor fellow.”
Dr. Marriott opened the door and made a sign to the waiting warder.
Together the three men went to the end of the pa.s.sage.
Another door was unlocked and they found themselves in a low stone hall, with a roof of heavily barred ground gla.s.s.
There was a door on each side of the place.
”That's the execution room,” said Dr. Marriott in a whisper, pointing to one of the doors. ”The other's the condemned cell. It's only about ten steps from one to the other. The convict, of course, never knows that. But from the time he leaves his cell to the moment of death is rarely more than forty-five seconds.”
The voice of the prison doctor, though very low in key, was not subdued by any note of awe. The machinery of Death had no terrors for him. He spoke in a matter-of-fact way, with an unconscious note of the showman.
The curator of a museum might have shown his treasures thus to an intelligent observer. For a second of time--so strange are the operations of the memory cells--another and far distant scene grew vivid in the mind of Morton Sims.
Once more he was paying his first visit to Rome, and had been driven from his hotel upon the Pincio to the nine o'clock Ma.s.s at St. Peter's.
A suave guide had accompanied him, and among the curious crowd that thronged the rails, had told in a complacent whisper of this or that Monsignore who said or served the Ma.s.s.
Dr. Marriott went to the door opposite to the one he had pointed out as the death-chamber.
He moved aside a hanging disc of metal on a level with his eyes, and peered through a gla.s.s-covered spy-hole into the condemned cell.
After a scrutiny of some seconds, he slid the disc into its place and rapped softly upon the door. Almost immediately it was opened a foot or so, silently, as the door of a sick-room is opened by one who watches within. There was a whispered confabulation, and a warder came out.
”This gentleman,” said the Medical Officer, ”as you have already been informed by the Governor, is to have an interview with the convict absolutely alone. You, and the man with you, are to sit just outside the cell and to keep it under continual observation through the gla.s.s.
If you think it necessary you are to enter the cell at once. And at the least gesture of this gentleman you will do so too. But otherwise, Dr.
Morton Sims is to be left alone with the prisoner for an hour. You quite understand?”
”Perfectly, sir.”
”You antic.i.p.ate no trouble?--how is he?”
”Quiet as a lamb, sir. There's no fear of any trouble with him. He's cheerful and he's been talking a lot about himself--about his violin playing mostly, and a week he had in Paris. His hands are twitching a bit, but less than usual with them.”
”Very well. Jones will remain here and will fetch me at once if I am wanted. Now take Dr. Morton Sims in.”
The door was opened. A gust of hot air came from within as Morton Sims hesitated for a moment upon the threshold.
The warm air, indeed, was upon his face, but once again the chill was at his heart. Lean and icy fingers seemed to grope about it.