The Ghost Club - Page 2

He must have recognized the sound, for he colored and gruffly replied, "I
has me orders, and I obeys 'em."

"Just--er--add this to the pension fund," I put in, handing him a
five-dollar bill. "An interview is impossible, eh?"

"I didn't say impossible," he answered, with a grateful smile. "I said
against the rules, but we has been known to make exceptions. I think I can
fix you up."

Suffice it to say that he did "fix me up," and that two hours later 5010
and I sat down together in the cell of the former, a not too commodious
stall, and had a pleasant chat, in the course of which he told me the
story of his life, which, as I had surmised, was to me, at least,
exceedingly interesting, and easily worth twice the amount of my
contribution to the pension fund under the management of my guide of the
morning.

"My real name," said the unfortunate convict, "as you may already have
guessed, is not 5010. That is an alias forced upon me by the State
authorities. My name is really Austin Merton Surrennes."

"Ahem!" I said. "Then my guide erred this morning when he told me that in
reality you were Marmaduke Fitztappington De Wolfe, of Pelhamhurst-by-the-
Sea, Warwickshire?"

Number 5010 laughed long and loud. "Of course he erred. You don't suppose
that I would give the authorities my real name, do you? Why, man, I am a
nephew! I have an aged uncle--a rich millionaire uncle--whose heart and
will it would break were he to hear of my present plight. Both the heart
and will are in my favor, hence my tender solicitude for him. I am
innocent, of course--convicts always are, you know--but that wouldn't make
any difference. He'd die of mortification just the same. It's one of our
family traits, that. So I gave a false name to the authorities, and
secretly informed my uncle that I was about to set out for a walking trip
across the great American desert, requesting him not to worry if he did
not hear from me for a number of years, America being in a state of
semi-civilization, to which mails outside of certain districts are
entirely unknown. My uncle being an Englishman and a conservative
gentleman, addicted more to reading than to travel, accepts the
information as veracious and suspects nothing, and when I am liberated I
shall return to him, and at his death shall become a conservative man of
wealth myself. See?"

"But if you are innocent and he rich and influential, why did you not
appeal to him to save you?" I asked.

"Because I was afraid that he, like the rest of the world, would decline
to believe my defence," sighed 5010. "It was a good defence, if the judge