The Ghost Club

AN UNFORTUNATE EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF NO. 5010

Number 5010 was at the time when I received the details of this story from
his lips a stalwart man of thirty-eight, swart of hue, of pleasing
address, and altogether the last person one would take for a convict
serving a term for sneak-thieving. The only outer symptoms of his actual
condition were the striped suit he wore, the style and cut of which are
still in vogue at Sing Sing prison, and the closely cropped hair, which
showed off the distinctly intellectual lines of his head to great
advantage. He was engaged in making shoes when I first saw him, and so
impressed was I with the contrast between his really refined features and
grace of manner and those of his brutish-looking companions, that I asked
my guide who he was, and what were the circumstances which had brought him
to Sing Sing.

"He pegs shoes like a gentleman," I said.

"Yes," returned the keeper. "He's werry troublesome that way. He thinks
he's too good for his position. We can't never do nothing with the boots
he makes."

"Why do you keep him at work in the shoe department?" I queried.

"We haven't got no work to be done in his special line, so we have to put
him at whatever we can. He pegs shoes less badly than he does anything
else."

"What was his special line?"

"He was a gentleman of leisure travellin' for his health afore he got into
the toils o' the law. His real name is Marmaduke Fitztappington De Wolfe,
of Pelhamhurst-by-the-Sea, Warwickshire. He landed in this country of a
Tuesday, took to collectin' souvenir spoons of a Friday, was jugged the
same day, tried, convicted, and there he sets. In for two years more."

"How interesting!" I said. "Was the evidence against him conclusive?"

"Extremely. A half-dozen spoons was found on his person."

"He pleaded guilty, I suppose?"

"Not him. He claimed to be as innocent as a new-born babe. Told a
cock-and-bull story about havin' been deluded by spirits, but the judge
and jury wasn't to be fooled. They gave him every chance, too. He even
cabled himself, the judge did, to Pelhamhurst-by-the-Sea, Warwickshire, at
his own expense, to see if the man was an impostor, but he never got no
reply. There was them as said there wasn't no such place as
Pelhamhurst-by-the-Sea in Warwickshire, but they never proved it."

"I should like very much to interview him," said I.

"It can't be done, sir," said my guide. "The rules is very strict."

"You couldn't--er--arrange an interview for me," I asked, jingling a bunch
of keys in my pocket.