Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 14, No. 68, July 1949

Condemned! by Francis Beeding[5]

In 1920 John Leslie Palmer, dramatic critic and editor, joined the Permanent Secretariat of the League of Nations, at Geneva. The Secretariat, unhappily, proved far from Permanent. But Mr. Palmer met another member of the Secretariat, a famous man-about-continent bearing one of the most distinguished English-sounding names we have ever heard outside a “serious” novel — Hilary Aidan St. George Saunders. (And that reminds us, quite irrelevantly, that Robert Louis Stevenson, who had an exceptional flair for le nom juste, once wrote to Sir James M. Barrie that Stevenson’s uncle “has simply the finest name in the world, Ramsay Traquair.”) Anyway, Messrs. Palmer and Saunders discovered that they had many things in common, besides wording for the League of Nations: they were both Oxford men; they both had literary leanings; and they both had a particular weakness for “full-blooded, high-sounding and richly melodramatic carryings-on.”

In a phrase, they both lilted detective stories. Thus was born the pseudonym of “Francis Feeding,” and under that name Messrs. Saunders and Palmer have produced “many superior mystery novels” — including DEATH WALKS IN EASTREPPS (which Vincent Starrett has ranked as “one of the ten greatest detective novels”), THE HOUSE OF DR. EDWARDES (which has more than once been the basis of a moving picture), and that series of books with the most ambitious of all continuity-titles, THE ONE SANE MAN, THE TWO UNDERTAKERS, THE THREE FISHERS, THE FOUR ARMOURERS, THE FIVE FLAMBOYS, THE SIX PROUD WALKERS, THE SEVEN SLEEPERS, and ad (we fervently hope) infinitum.

And now we give you Francis Feeding s finest performance in the short story field — the pathetic tale of Bert Higgins, an innocent man, waiting in the death house for a last-minute reprieve. You will find an Ambrose Bierce quality in the story, too; indeed, though we do not know what English prison Francis Beeding had in mind, the story might have been called “An Occurrence at Pentonville.”

Bert Higgins pulled on his trousers and looked round for his collar and tie.

It was quite comfortable in the condemned cell, but dark. There was a fire in the grate and that, in itself, was a luxury to which Bert Higgins was not accustomed.

These were his own clothes — the double-breasted blue serge suit in which he had been tried. They had taken it away from him after sentence and given him prison — clothes. But today they had given it back to him.

This meant, of course, that the reprieve had come at last. It must have arrived during the night. But he could not go out into the street, reprieve or no reprieve, without a collar and tie.

“Collar,” he said, “where’s my collar, Joe?”

Joe was a nice fellow — nicer than the other warder, Mike.

Joe turned away, a little awkwardly, and stared at the window which, since it was of frosted glass, was not of much use as a peep-show.

“You won’t be needin’ them,” he said.

“Not needin’ them?” Bert began to protest.

Then he stopped and smiled.

Joe, of course, was under a false impression. Joe believed that he, Bert Higgins, was going to be hanged. That, however, was absurd. It simply wasn’t done. Only criminals were hanged. He was not a criminal. He was innocent. He hadn’t done it and a man was never hanged if he hadn’t done it.

“Anything you fancy for breakfast, Bert?”

It was Joe speaking. He had a face as long as a yard measure. Bert, in his superior knowledge of English justice, smiled at him reassuringly.

“Breakfast,” he said. “I don’t mind ownin’ I feel a bit peckish. Could they run to a steak and chips, d’ye think?”

Joe looked at him a moment.

“I’ll see what we can do, mate,” he answered and went to the little trap in the door which he slid back, saying a word to someone outside.

“It will be along in ten minutes,” he announced, turning away from the door.

“That’s prime,” said Bert. “Got a fag about you, Joe?”

Warder Joe silently produced a packet of Gold Flakes. Bert lit up, and bent to lace his boots.

Why didn’t they hurry up with that reprieve? It was cruel to keep a fellow waiting. Suppose, for example, he had been one of those nervous chaps. He would be carrying on something dreadful now, imagining things. It was past eight o’clock already — not quite another hour to run.

Bert smiled again. He hadn’t done it. They couldn’t hang him because he hadn’t done it. The reprieve was bound to come.

Mechanically he put on his vest. What would he do first, on leaving the prison? It was no use going home. Amy was dead. That was the only thing that had really troubled him at all through the business of the trial — a much worse thing than anything that had happened since his arrest, much worse than when the old geezer in the wig and red robes had put that silly bit of black cloth on his nap-per and told him he was going to be hanged by the neck.

There was no getting over it. He loved Amy. Always had. And he would miss her cruel. It wasn’t her fault if she was a bit flighty. She could not help being flighty any more than he could help having his pint and then some more at the Goat and Compasses. Besides, there had never been anything wrong, really. Not what you would call wrong. And naturally, with her that pretty, she had her temptations.

Pretty, indeed. Amy was lovely, like a rose from Coven t Garden, a whole bunch of roses. That parson chap who had married them had said he had never seen a ’andsomer couple, and as this thought passed through his mind, Bert stopped in front of the mirror and began, with great care and a comb wetted in the basin, to arrange his hair.

He had won Amy, won her fair and square, from the lot of them — including George, who would soon be standing where he, Bert Higgins, stood that day. For George had done it and there would be no reprieve for George.

George had begun by taking them out, both of them, to the pictures and to a little fish and chips afterwards.

So it had gone on till one day he had come back from looking for a job of work to find George and Amy in the parlor together. Sitting on the sofa, they were, and there had been words with Amy about it that evening and Amy had been saucy and he had smacked her face and she had thrown the saucepan at him, and the biggest black eye you ever saw had begun to sprout where the saucepan had hit him. But when Amy had seen it next day she had cried and kissed him and gone out and got a bit of meat to put on his eye. And he had said they ought to eat it and they had laughed together. Quick-tempered Amy was... had been.

A sob rose in his throat, but he gulped it down and at that moment the door of the cell opened.

It was Mike with the breakfast.

Bert sat down and began to peg away. But his mind was not on the food though the steak tasted good. He had started to think again of his final quarrel with Amy, not about George, this time, but something quite silly — the sort of thing people quarrel about in music halls. He couldn’t even remember what it was. Yet he would never forget that Saturday evening as long as he lived — not as long as he lived.

Well, he was only twenty-four. No reason why he should not live till seventy — after the reprieve.

Amy had been violent again and he had raised his hand, but he hadn’t meant to strike her. This time she had thrown the coffee-pot. But it had missed him and hit the wall and made a hell of a clatter. And he turned on his heel and walked straight out into the fog.

That was the first misfortune. No one had seen him leaving the house.

He had made his way to the Goat and Compasses. But it had taken him some time, for the fog had been so thick. There he had taken a drink and what with one thing and another... well, he had taken several drinks and his pal, Harry, being sympathetic, had poured gin in his beer and suggested he should go home and give Amy a good walloping.

“Bert,” he had said, “what she wants is a firm ’and.”

So he had started back home meaning to give Amy what she wanted. But it had taken him half an hour to get home.

Half an hour to go from the Goat and Compasses to West bury Terrace when it was only five minutes’ walk.

Nobody, of course, believed it — least of all that nasty little man with the twitching nose who had conducted the prosecution.

Yet what could have been more natural? He had just wandered round the street for half an hour making up his mind to go in and wallop Amy. And then, when at last he had gone in...

Bert pushed away his unfinished cup of tea. He suddenly felt he did not want any more breakfast. He still saw Amy lying there, in the bedroom upstairs, with her head all cut open and a broken beer bottle lying on the floor. He would remember that to his dying day... his dying day.

He had picked up the bottle and at that moment the coppers had come. Old Green from next door brought them. Old Green heard the row earlier in the evening and he hadn’t seen the prisoner — that was him — Bert Higgins — leave the house or come back. Old Green had sworn to having heard several such rows before. He had testified in court that Amy and Bert Higgins were on bad terms with each other, which was a lie. He had always been on the best of terms with Amy. Bad terms, indeed!

Nobody had seen George enter or leave the house. But that was only because of the fog. George, of course, must have come along while he was at the Goat and Compasses. It was George who had sloshed Amy with the beer bottle. Wasn’t he employed by a brewery? But that prosecutin’ fellow had pointed out that you could get a bottle of Bishop’s ale anywhere and that there were several bottles of it in Bert’s own kitchen.

George must have had a row with Amy, the same as he had. But while he had only hit her with his hand, George had sloshed her with a bottle.

That was what had happened, but he couldn’t prove it and George had dug up an old sweetheart who had sworn he had been with her at the time and that was what they called an alibi.

There came a knock at the door and Warder Joe crossed the cell.

“Chaplain to see you, mate,” he announced.

“Not for me,” said Bert. “ ’E’ll only talk to me about a future life and this one’s good enough for me.”

Bert spent the next quarter of an hour walking up and down his cell. They were cutting things rather fine with the reprieve. But those government chaps were always like that. Look at the clerks at the Labor Exchange. It took you hours to draw the dole. Lack of organization, that’s what it was.

But here, at last, was the governor. Chap in gray with a white mustache. Behind him were three men in dark clothes. Two of them had their hands behind their backs as though they were hiding something. Behind them again was the chaplain. There was no getting away from these parsons.

“Put your hands behind your back, please.”

It was one of the men in dark clothes speaking. Warder Joe stood at his elbow. Somebody seized his arms firmly above the elbows. Something tight was pressing against them and he found suddenly that they had been strapped behind him. Another of the men in dark clothes was slipping something over his head, something woolly, a woolen bag.

“ ’Ere,” protested Bert Higgins.

But they had pulled it right down to his neck and he could not see and his protest was stifled. But he could hear all right. The chaplain was at him now.

“I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord. He that believeth in me, though he be dead, yet shall he live.”

“ ’Ere,” Bert protested again.

But no one answered him. He felt himself being pushed firmly forward. His feet touched stone as he walked, then wood. The wood quivered a little beneath his feet and he was brought to a halt. At the same moment something was slipped over his head.

It rasped his neck as it settled on his shoulders and a hard lump sat uncomfortably to the left underneath his chin.

“ ’Ere,” protested Bert Higgins for the third time.

The hands which had touched him, moved away. He was suddenly alone...

Footsteps sounded somewhere. A door creaked. A voice cried out sharply in the darkness.

“Here you are, Governor. Straight from the Home Secretary.”

There was a crackle of paper. The Governor was saying something.

Bert Higgins breathed a sigh of relief. They had cut it pretty fine but this was just what he had expected.

Yes, that was right. They were untying his arms. The woolen bag was pulled from his face and there stood the Governor smiling at him.

“A narrow squeak,” the Governor was saying. “But the reprieve has come at last. George Butterworth was arrested early this morning.”

“And may God have mercy on his soul,” said Bert Higgins, as he followed the Governor from the cell.

Could they be at the prison gates already?

“Here they are, mate,” said Joe and Bert Higgins perceived that the warder was offering him a collar and tie.

But first he must shake hands with the Governor.

“Goodbye, Higgins,” said the Governor.

“So long, Guv-ner.”

It was raining as usual and the streets were sombre and gray. That was a tram. It was fading with a noise of bells, into the fog. Bert Higgins ran after it. His legs were heavy and reluctant, but by a supreme effort he jumped on board and found a place.

He sat in the train. Time passed. He was being carried quite a long way and suddenly he perceived that the tram was empty. The conductor, wearing a mackintosh cape, loomed in from the fog.

“Terminus, mate,” he said. “Tram don’t go no further.”

Bert Higgins left the tram. The streets were very dark and the fog was thickening. But Bert could see quite clearly where he was. That was Westbury Terrace. Why had he come to Westbury Terrace? Force of habit, he supposed. Was the house still empty or had it a new tenant? He did not want to walk down that familiar street but his feet dragged him forward.

There stood the door, same as ever, a dirty green. It hadn’t had a spot of paint on it for years.

But the steps were nice and white. Who could have cleaned them, now Amy was gone. He pushed open the door and entered the hall. A light shone from the kitchen and someone was standing at the wooden table. It was a woman and her back was turned to him. She stood at the table with a rolling pin in her hand, rolling... rolling.

The woman turned and looked at him. She was all in white... in her wedding dress, and there was flour on her forearms.

“Hello, Bert,” said Amy, “thought you was never comin’.”

“Yes, Mr. Coroner,” said the prison doctor, “death was practically instantaneous. The pulse had already ceased to beat when I reached the body. The man was dead before he knew it.”