Oddments

The Arrowmont Prison Riddle

I first met the man who called himself by the unlikely name of Buckmaster Gilloon in the late summer of 1916, my second year as warden of Arrowmont Prison. There were no living quarters within the old brick walls of the prison, which was situated on a promontory overlooking a small winding river two miles north of Arrowmont Village, so I had rented a cottage in the village proper, not far from a tavern known as Hallahan’s Irish Inn. It was in this tavern, and as a result of a mutual passion for Guinness stout and the game of darts, that Gilloon and I became acquainted.

As a man he was every bit as unlikely as his name. He was in his late thirties, short and almost painfully thin; he had a glass eye and a drooping and incongruous Oriental-style mustache, wore English tweeds, gaudy Albert watch chains and plaid Scotch caps, and always carried half a dozen loose-leaf notebooks in which he perpetually and secretively jotted things. He was well read and erudite, had a repertoire of bawdy stories to rival any vaudevillian in the country, and never seemed to lack ready cash. He lived in a boarding house in the center of the village and claimed to be a writer for the pulp magazines — Argosy, Adventure, All-Story Weekly, Munsey’s.Perhaps he was, but he steadfastly refused to discuss any of his fiction, or to divulge his pseudonym or pseudonyms.

He was reticent about divulging any personal information. When personal questions arose, he deftly changed the subject. Since he did not speak with an accent, I took him to be American-born. I was able to learn, from occasional comments and observations, that he had traveled extensively throughout the world.

In my nine decades on this earth I have never encountered a more fascinating or troubling enigma than this man whose path crossed mine for a few short weeks in 1916.

Who and what was Buckmaster Gilloon? Is it possible for one enigma to be attracted and motivated by another enigma? Can that which seems natural and coincidental be the result instead of preternatural forces? These questions have plagued me in the sixty years since Gilloon and I became involved in what appeared to be an utterly enigmatic crime.

It all began on September 26, 1916 — the day of the scheduled execution at Arrowmont Prison of a condemned murderer named Arthur Teasdale...

Shortly before noon of that day a thunderstorm struck without warning. Rain pelted down from a black sky, and lightning crackled in low jagged blazes that gave the illusion of striking unseen objects just beyond the prison walls. I was already suffering from nervous tension, as was always the case on the day of an execution, and the storm added to my discomfort. I passed the early afternoon sitting at my desk, staring out the window, listening to the inexorable ticking of my Seth Thomas, wishing the execution was done with and it was eight o’clock, when I was due to meet Gilloon at Hallahan’s for Guinness and darts.

At 3:30 the two civilians who had volunteered to act as witnesses to the hanging arrived. I ushered them into a waiting room and asked them to wait until they were summoned. Then I donned a slicker and stopped by the office of Rogers, the chief guard, and asked him to accompany me to the execution shed.

The shed was relatively small, constructed of brick with a tin roof, and sat in a corner of the prison between the textile mill and the iron foundry. It was lighted by lanterns hung from the walls and the rafters and contained only a row of witness chairs and a high permanent gallows at the far end. Attached to the shed’s north wall was an annex in which the death cell was located. As was customary, Teasdale had been transported there five days earlier to await due process.

He was a particularly vicious and evil man, Teasdale. He had cold-bloodedly murdered three people during an abortive robbery attempt in the state capital, and had been anything but a model prisoner during his month’s confinement at Arrowmont. As a rule I had a certain compassion for those condemned to hang under my jurisdiction, and in two cases I had spoken to the governor in favor of clemency. In Teasdale’s case, however, I had conceded that a continuance of his life would serve no good purpose.

When I had visited him the previous night to ask if he wished to see a clergyman or to order anything special for his last meal, he had cursed me and Rogers and the entire prison personnel with an almost maniacal intensity, vowing vengeance on us all from the grave.

I rather expected, as Rogers and I entered the death cell at ten minutes of four, to find Teasdale in much the same state. However, he had fallen instead into an acute melancholia; he lay on his cot with his knees drawn up and his eyes staring blankly at the opposite wall. The two guards assigned to him, Hollowell and Granger (Granger was also the state-appointed hangman), told us he had been like that for several hours. I spoke to him, asking again if he wished to confer with a clergyman. He did not answer, did not move. I inquired if he had any last requests, and if it was his wish to wear a hood for his final walk to the gallows and for the execution. He did not respond.

I took Hollowell aside. “Perhaps it would be better to use the hood,” I said. “It will make it easier for all of us.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rogers and I left the annex, accompanied by Granger, for a final examination of the gallows. The rope had already been hung and the hangman’s knot tied. While Granger made certain they were secure I unlocked the door beneath the platform, which opened into a short passage that ended in a narrow cubicle beneath the trap. The platform had been built eight feet off the floor, so that the death throes of the condemned man would be concealed from the witnesses — a humane gesture which was not observed by all prisons in our state, and for which I was grateful.

After I had made a routine examination of the cubicle, and re-locked the door, I mounted the thirteen steps to the platform. The trap beneath the gibbet arm was operated by a lever set into the floor; when Granger threw the lever, the trap would fall open. Once we tried it and reset it, I pronounced everything in readiness and sent Rogers to summon the civilian witnesses and the prison doctor. It was then 4:35 and the execution would take place at precisely five o’clock. I had received a wire from the governor the night before, informing me that there wasn’t the remotest chance of a stay being granted.

When Rogers returned with the witnesses and the doctor, we all took chairs in the row arranged some forty feet opposite the gallows. Time passed, tensely; with thunder echoing outside, a hard rain drumming against the tin roof, and eerie shadows not entirely dispelled by the lantern light, the moments before that execution were particularly disquieting.

I held my pocket watch open on my knee, and at 4:55 I signaled to the guard at the annex door to call for the prisoner. Three more minutes crept by and then the door reopened and Granger and Hollowell brought Teasdale into the shed.

The three men made a grim procession as they crossed to the gallows steps: Granger in his black hangman’s duster, Hollowell in his khaki guard uniform and peaked cap, Teasdale between them in his grey prison clothing and black hood. Teasdale’s shoes dragged across the floor — he was a stiffly unresisting weight until they reached the steps; then he struggled briefly and Granger and Hollowell were forced to tighten their grip and all but carry him up onto the gallows. Hollowell held him slumped on the trap while Granger solemnly fitted the noose around his neck and drew it taut.

The hands on my watch read five o’clock when, as prescribed by law, Granger intoned, “Have you any last words before the sentence imposed on you is carried out?”

Teasdale said nothing, but his body twisted with a spasm of fear.

Granger looked in my direction and I raised my hand to indicate final sanction. He backed away from Teasdale and rested his hand on the release lever. As he did so, there came from outside a long, rolling peal of thunder that seemed to shake the shed roof. A chill touched the nape of my neck and I shifted uneasily on my chair.

Just as the sound of the thunder faded, Granger threw the lever and Hollowell released Teasdale and stepped back. The trap thudded open and the condemned man plummeted downward.

In that same instant I thought I saw a faint silvery glimmer above the opening, but it was so brief that I took it for an optical illusion. My attention was focused on the rope: it danced for a moment under the weight of the body, then pulled taut and became motionless. I let out a soft tired sigh and sat forward while Granger and Hollowell, both of whom were looking away from the open trap, silently counted off the passage of sixty seconds.

When the minute had elapsed, Granger turned and walked to the edge of the trap. If the body hung laxly, he would signal to me so that the prison doctor and I could enter the cubicle and officially pronounce Teasdale deceased; if the body was still thrashing, thus indicating the condemned man’s neck had not been broken in the fall — grisly prospect, but I had seen it happen — more time would be allowed to pass. It sounds brutal, I know, but such was the law and it had to be obeyed without question.

But Granger’s reaction was so peculiar and so violent that I came immediately to my feet. He flinched as if he had been struck in the stomach and his face twisted into an expression of disbelief. He dropped to his hands and knees at the front of the trap as Hollowell came up beside him and leaned down to peer into the passageway.

“What is it, Granger?” I called. “What’s the matter?”

He straightened after a few seconds and pivoted toward me. “You better get up here, Warden Parker,” he said. His voice was shrill and tremulous and he clutched at his stomach. “Quick!”

Rogers and I exchanged glances, then ran to the steps, mounted them, and hurried to the trap, the other guards and the prison doctor close behind us. As soon as I looked downward, it was my turn to stare with incredulity, to exclaim against what I saw — and what I did not see.

The hangman’s noose at the end of the rope was empty.

Except for the black hood on the ground, the cubicle was empty.

Impossibly, the body of Arthur Teasdale had vanished.

I raced down the gallows steps and fumbled the platform door open with my key. I had the vague desperate hope that Teasdale had somehow slipped the noose and that I would see him lying within, against the door — that small section of the passageway was shrouded in darkness and not quite penetrable from above — but he wasn’t there. The passageway, like the cubicle, was deserted.

While I called for a lantern Rogers hoisted up the rope to examine it and the noose. A moment later he announced that it had not been tampered with in any way. When a guard brought the lantern I embarked on a careful search of the area, but there were no loose boards in the walls of the passage or the cubicle, and the floor was of solid concrete. On the floor I discovered a thin sliver of wood about an inch long, which may or may not have been there previously. Aside from that, there was not so much as a strand of hair or a loose thread to be found. And the black hood told me nothing at all.

There simply did not seem to be any way Teasdale — or his remains — could have gotten, or been gotten, out of there.

I stood for a moment, staring at the flickering light from the lantern, listening to the distant rumbling of thunder. Had Teasdale died at the end of the hangman’s rope? Or had he somehow managed to cheat death? I had seen him fall through the trap with my own eyes, had seen the rope dance and then pull taut with the weight of his body. He must have expired, I told myself.

A shiver moved along my back. I found myself remembering Teasdale’s threats to wreak vengeance from the grave, and I had the irrational thought that perhaps something otherworldly had been responsible for the phenomenon we had witnessed. Teasdale had, after all, been a malignant individual. Could he have been so evil that he had managed to summon the Powers of Darkness to save him in the instant before death — or to claim him soul and body in the instant after it?

I refused to believe it. I am a practical man, not prone to superstition, and it has always been my nature to seek a logical explanation for even the most uncommon occurrence. Arthur Teasdale had disappeared, yes; but it could not be other than an earthly force behind the deed. Which meant that, alive or dead, Teasdale was still somewhere inside the walls of Arrowmont Prison.

I roused myself, left the passageway, and issued instructions for a thorough search of the prison grounds. I ordered word sent to the guards in the watchtowers to double their normal vigilance. I noticed that Hollowell wasn’t present along with the assembled guards and asked where he had gone. One of the others said he had seen Hollowell hurry out of the shed several minutes earlier.

Frowning, I pondered this information. Had Hollowell intuited something, or even seen something, and gone off unwisely to investigate on his own rather than confide in the rest of us? He had been employed at Arrowmont Prison less than two months, so I knew relatively little about him. I requested that he be found and brought to my office.

When Rogers and Granger and the other guards had departed, I escorted the two civilian witnesses to the administration building, where I asked them to remain until the mystery was explained. As I settled grimly at my desk to await Hollowell and word on the search of the grounds, I expected such an explanation within the hour.

I could not, however, have been more wrong.

The first development came after thirty minutes, and it was nearly as alarming as the disappearance of Teasdale from the gallows cubicle. One of the guards brought the news that a body had been discovered behind a stack of lumber in a lean-to between the execution shed and the iron foundry. But it was not the body of Arthur Teasdale.

It was that of Hollowell, stabbed to death with an awl.

I went immediately. As I stood beneath the rain-swept lean-to, looking down at the bloody front of poor Hollowell’s uniform, a fresh set of unsettling questions tumbled through my mind. Had he been killed because, as I had first thought, he had either seen or intuited something connected with Teasdale’s disappearance? If that was the case, whatever it was had died with him.

Or was it possible that he had himself been involved in the disappearance and been murdered to assure his silence? But how could he have been involved? He had been in my sight the entire time on the gallows platform. He had done nothing suspicious, could not in any way I could conceive have assisted in the deed.

How could Teasdale have survived the hanging?

How could he have escaped not only the gallows but the execution shed itself?

The only explanation seemed to be that it was not a live Arthur Teasdale who was carrying out his warped revenge, but a dead one who had been embraced and given earthly powers by the Forces of Evil...

In order to dispel the dark reflections from my mind, I personally supervised the balance of the search. Tines of lightning split the sky and thunder continued to hammer the roofs as we went from building to building. No corner of the prison compound escaped our scrutiny. No potential hiding place was overlooked. We went so far as to test for the presence of tunnels in the work areas and in the individual cells, although I had instructed just such a search only weeks before as part of my security program.

We found nothing.

Alive or dead, Arthur Teasdale was no longer within the walls of Arrowmont Prison.

I left the prison at ten o’clock that night. There was nothing more to be done, and I was filled with such depression and anxiety that I could not bear to spend another minute there. I had debated contacting the governor, of course, and, wisely or not, had decided against it for the time being. He would think me a lunatic if I requested assistance in a county or statewide search for a man who had for all intents and purposes been hanged at five o’clock that afternoon. If there were no new developments within the next twenty-four hours, I knew I would have no choice but to explain the situation to him. And I had no doubt that such an explanation unaccompanied by Teasdale or Teasdale’s remains would cost me my position.

Before leaving, I swore everyone to secrecy, saying that I would have any man’s job if he leaked word of the day’s events to the press or to the public-at-large. The last thing I wanted was rumor-mongering and a general panic as a result of it. I warned Granger and the other guards who had come in contact with Teasdale to be especially wary and left word that I was to be contacted immediately if there were any further developments before morning.

I had up to that time given little thought to my own safety. But when I reached my cottage in the village I found myself imagining menace in every shadow and sound. Relaxation was impossible. After twenty minutes I felt impelled to leave, to seek out a friendly face. I told my housekeeper I would be at Hallahan’s Irish Inn if anyone called for me and drove my Packard to the tavern.

The first person I saw upon entering was Buckmaster Gilloon. He was seated alone in a corner booth, writing in one of his notebooks, a stein of draught Guinness at his elbow.

Gilloon had always been very secretive about his notebooks and never allowed anyone to glimpse so much as a word of what he put into them. But he was so engrossed when I walked up to the booth that he did not hear me, and I happened to glance down at the open page on which he was writing. There was but a single interrogative sentence on the page, clearly legible in his bold hand. The sentence read:

If a jimbuck stands alone by the sea, on a night when the dark moon sings, how many grains of sand in a single one of his footprints?

That sentence has always haunted me, because I cannot begin to understand its significance. I have no idea what a jimbuck is, except perhaps as a fictional creation, and yet that passage was like none which ever appeared in such periodicals as Argosy or Munsey’s.

Gilloon sensed my presence after a second or two, and he slammed the notebook slut. A ferocious scowl crossed his normally placid features. He said irritably, “Reading over a man’s shoulder is a nasty habit, Parker.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry—”

“I’ll thank you to be more respectful of my privacy in the future.”

“Yes, of course.” I sank wearily into the booth opposite him and called for a Guinness.

Gilloon studied me across the table. “You look haggard, Parker,” he said. “What’s troubling you?”

“It’s... nothing.”

“Everything is something.”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”

“Would it have anything to do with the execution at Arrowmont Prison this afternoon?”

I blinked. “Why would you surmise that?”

“Logical assumption,” Gilloon said. “You are obviously upset, and yet you are a man who lives quietly and suffers no apparent personal problems. You are warden of Arrowmont Prison and the fact of the execution is public knowledge. You customarily come to the inn at eight o’clock, and yet you didn’t make your appearance tonight until after eleven.”

I said, “I wish I had your mathematical mind, Gilloon.”

“Indeed? Why is that?”

“Perhaps then I could find answers where none seem to exist.”

“Answers to what?”

A waiter arrived with my Guinness and I took a swallow gratefully.

Gilloon was looking at me with piercing interest. I avoided his one-eyed gaze, knowing I had already said too much. But there was something about Gilloon that demanded confidence. Perhaps he could shed some light on the riddle of Teasdale’s disappearance.

“Come now, Parker — answers to what?” he repeated. “Has something happened at the prison?”

And of course I weakened — partly because of frustration and worry, partly because the possibility that I might never learn the secret loomed large and painful. “Yes,” I said, “something has happened at the prison. Something incredible, and I mean that literally.” I paused to draw a heavy breath. “If I tell you about it, do I have your word that you won’t let it go beyond this table?”

“Naturally.” Gilloon leaned forward and his good eye glittered with anticipation. “Go on, Parker.”

More or less calmly at first, then with increasing agitation as I relived the events, I proceeded to tell Gilloon everything that had transpired at the prison. He listened with attention, not once interrupting. I had never seen him excited prior to that night, but when I had finished, he was fairly squirming. He took off his Scotch cap and ran a hand through his thin-fling brown hair.

“Fascinating tale,” he said.

“Horrifying would be a more appropriate word.”

“That too, yes. No wonder you’re upset.”

“It defies explanation,” I said. “And yet there has to be one. I refuse to accept the supernatural implications.”

“I wouldn’t be so skeptical of the supernatural if I were you, Parker. I’ve come across a number of things in my travels which could not be satisfactorily explained by man or science.”

I stared at him. “Does that mean you believe Teasdale’s disappearance was arranged by forces beyond human ken?”

“No, no. I was merely making a considered observation. Have you given me every detail of what happened?”

“I believe so.”

“Think it through again — be sure.”

Frowning, I reviewed the events once more. And it came to me that I had neglected to mention the brief silvery glimmer which had appeared above the trap in the instant Teasdale plunged through; I had, in fact, forgotten all about it. This time I mentioned it to Gilloon.

“Ah,” he said.

“Ah? Does it have significance?”

“Perhaps. Can you be more specific about it?”

“I’m afraid not. It was so brief I took it at the time for an optical illusion.”

“You saw no other such glimmers?”

“None.”

“How far away from the gallows were you sitting?”

“Approximately forty feet.”

“Is the shed equipped with electric lights?”

“No — lanterns.”

“I see,” Gilloon said meditatively. He seized one of his notebooks, opened it, shielded it from my eyes with his left arm, and began to write with his pencil. He wrote without pause for a good three minutes, before I grew both irritated and anxious.

“Gilloon,” I said, “stop that infernal scribbling and tell me what’s on your mind.”

He gave no indication of having heard me. His pencil continued to scratch against the paper, filling another page. Except for the movement of his right hand and one side of his mouth gnawing at the edge of his mustache, he was as rigid as a block of stone.

“Damn it, Gilloon!”

But it was another ten seconds before the pencil became motionless. He stared at what he had written and then looked up at me. “Parker,” he said, “did Arthur Teasdale have a trade?”

The question took me by surprise. “A trade?”

“Yes. What did he do for a living, if anything?”

“What bearing can that have on what’s happened?”

“Perhaps a great deal,” Gilloon said.

“He worked in a textile mill.”

“And there is a textile mill at the prison, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Does it stock quantities of silk?”

“Silk? Yes, on occasion. What—?”

I did not finish what I was about to say, for he had shut me out and resumed writing in his notebook. I repressed an oath of exasperation, took a long draught of Guinness to calm myself, and prepared to demand that he tell me what theory he had devised. Before I could do that, however, Gilloon abruptly closed the notebook, slid out of the booth, and loomed over me.

“I’ll need to see the execution shed,” he said.

“What for?”

“Corroboration of certain facts.”

“But—” I stood up hastily. “You’ve suspicioned a possible answer, that’s clear,” I said, “though I can’t for the life of me see how, on the basis of the information I’ve given you. What is it?”

“I must see the execution shed,” he said firmly. “I will not voice premature speculations.”

It touched my mind that the man was a bit mad. After all, I had only known him for a few weeks, and from the first he had been decidedly eccentric in most respects. Still, I had never had cause to question his mental faculties before this, and the aura of self-assurance and confidence he projected was forceful. Because I was so desperate to solve the riddle, I couldn’t afford not to indulge, at least for a while, the one man who might be able to provide it.

“Very well,” I said, “I’ll take you to the prison.”

Rain still fell in black torrents — although without thunder and lightning — when I brought my Packard around the last climbing curve onto the promontory. Lantern light glowed fuzzily in the prison watchtowers, and the bare brick walls had an unpleasant oily sheen. At this hour of night, in the storm, the place seemed forbidding and shrouded in human despair — an atmosphere I had not previously apprehended during the two years I had been its warden. Strange how a brush with the unknown can alter one’s perspective and stir the fears that lie at the bottom of one’s soul.

Beside me Gilloon did not speak; he sat erect, his hands resting on the notebooks on his lap. I parked in the small lot facing the main gates, and after Gilloon had carefully tucked the notebooks inside his slicker we ran through the downpour to the gates. I gestured to the guard, who nodded beneath the hood of his oilskin, allowed us to enter, and then quickly closed the iron halves behind us and returned to the warmth of the gatehouse. I led Gilloon directly across the compound to the execution shed.

The guards I had posted inside seemed edgy and grateful for company. It was colder now, and despite the fact that all the lanterns were lit it also seemed darker and filled with more restless shadows. But the earlier aura of spiritual menace permeated the air, at least to my sensitivities. If Gilloon noticed it, he gave no indication.

He wasted no time crossing to the gallows and climbing the steps to the platform. I followed him to the trap, which still hung open. Gilloon peered into the cubicle, got onto all fours to squint in the rectangular edges of the opening, and then hoisted the hangman’s rope and studied the noose. Finally, with surprising agility, he dropped down inside the cubicle, requesting a lantern which I fetched for him, and spent minutes crawling about with his nose to the floor. He located the thin splinter of wood I had noticed earlier, studied it in the lantern glow, and dropped it into the pocket of his tweed coat.

When he came out through the passageway he wore a look mixed of ferocity and satisfaction. “Stand there a minute, will you?” he said. He hurried over to where the witness chairs were arranged, then called, “In which of these chairs were you sitting during the execution?”

“Fourth one from the left.”

Gilloon sat in that chair, produced his notebooks, opened one, and bent over it. I waited with mounting agitation while he committed notes to paper. When he glanced up again, the flickering lantern glow gave his face a spectral cast.

He said, “While Granger placed the noose over Teasdale’s head, Hollowell held the prisoner on the trap — is that correct?”

“It is.”

“Stand as Hollowell was standing.”

I moved to the edge of the opening, turning slightly quarter profile.

“You’re certain that was the exact position?”

“Yes.”

“Once the trap had been sprung, what did Hollowell do?”

“Moved a few paces away.” I demonstrated.

“Did he avert his eyes from the trap?”

“Yes, he did. So did Granger. That’s standard procedure.”

“Which direction did he face?”

I frowned. “I’m not quite sure,” I said. “My attention was on the trap and the rope.”

“You’re doing admirably, Parker. After Granger threw the trap lever, did he remain standing beside it?”

“Until he had counted off sixty seconds, yes.”

“And then?”

“As I told you, he walked to the trap and looked into the cubicle. Again, that is standard procedure for the hangman. When he saw it was empty he uttered a shocked exclamation, went to his knees, and leaned down to see if Teasdale had somehow slipped the noose and fallen or crawled into the passageway.”

“At which part of the opening did he go to his knees? Front, rear, one of the sides?”

“The front. But I don’t see—”

“Would you mind illustrating?”

I grumbled but did as he asked. Some thirty seconds passed in silence. Finally I stood and turned, and of course found Gilloon again writing in his notebook. I descended the gallows steps. Gilloon closed the notebook and stood with an air of growing urgency. “Where would Granger be at this hour?” he asked. “Still here at the prison?”

“I doubt it. He came on duty at three and should have gone off again at midnight.”

“It’s imperative that we find him as soon as possible, Parker. Now that I’m onto the solution of this riddle, there’s no time to waste.”

“You have solved it?”

“I’m certain I have.” He hurried out of the shed.

I felt dazed as we crossed the rain-soaked compound, yet Gilloon’s positivity had infused in me a similar sense of urgency. We entered the administration building and I led the way to Rogers’ office, where we found him preparing to depart for the night. When I asked about Granger, Rogers said that he had signed out some fifty minutes earlier, at midnight.

“Where does he live?” Gilloon asked us.

“In Hainesville, I think.”

“We must go there immediately, Parker. And we had better take half a dozen well-armed men with us.”

“Do you honestly believe that’s necessary?”

“I do,” Gilloon said. “If we’re fortunate, it will help prevent another murder.”

The six-mile drive to the village of Hainesville was charged with tension, made even more acute by the muddy roads and the pelting rain. Gilloon stubbornly refused to comment on the way as to whether he believed Granger to be a culpable or innocent party, or as to whether he suspected to find Arthur Teasdale alive — or dead — at Granger’s home. There would be time enough later for explanations, he said.

Hunched over the wheel of the Packard, conscious of the two heavily armed prison guards in the rear seat and the headlamps of Rogers’ car following closely behind, I could not help but wonder if I might be making a prize fool of myself. Suppose I had been wrong in my judgment of Gilloon, and he was daft after all? Or a well-meaning fool in his own right? Or worst of all, a hoaxster?

Nevertheless, there was no turning back now. I had long since committed myself. Whatever the outcome, I had placed the fate of my career firmly in the hands of Buckmaster Gilloon.

We entered the outskirts of Hainesville. One of the guards who rode with us lived there, and he directed us down the main street and into a turn just beyond the church. The lane in which Granger lived, he said, was two blocks further up and one block east.

Beside me Gilloon spoke for the first time. “I suggest we park a distance away from Granger’s residence, Parker. It won’t do to announce our arrival by stopping in front.”

I nodded. When I made the turn into the lane I took the Packard onto the verge and doused its lights. Rogers’ car drifted in behind, headlamps also winking out. A moment later eight of us stood in a tight group in the roadway, huddling inside our slickers as we peered up the lane.

There were four houses in the block, two on each side, spaced widely apart. The pair on our left, behind which stretched open meadowland, were dark. The furthest of the two on the right was also dark, but the closer one showed light in one of the front windows. Thick smoke curled out of its chimney and was swirled into nothingness by the howling wind. A huge oak shaded the front yard. Across the rear, a copse of swaying pine stood silhouetted against the black sky.

The guard who lived in Hainesville said, “That’s Granger’s place, the one showing light.”

We left the road and set out across the grassy flatland to the pines, then through them toward Granger’s cottage. From a point behind the house, after issuing instructions for the others to wait there, Gilloon, Rogers, and I made our way downward past an old stone well and through a sodden growth of weeds. The sound of the storm muffled our approach as we proceeded single-file, Gilloon tacitly assuming leadership, along the west side of the house to the lighted window.

Gilloon put his head around the frame for the first cautious look inside. Momentarily he stepped back and motioned me to take his place. When I had moved to where I could peer in, I saw Granger standing relaxed before the fireplace, using a poker to prod a blazing fire not wholly composed of logs — something else, a blackened lump already burned beyond recognition, was being consumed there. But he was not alone in the room; a second man stood watching him, an expression of concentrated malevolence on his face and an old hammerless revolver tucked into the waistband of his trousers.

Arthur Teasdale.

I experienced a mixture of relief, rage, and resolve as I moved away to give Rogers his turn. It was obvious that Granger was guilty of complicity in Teasdale’s escape — and I had always liked and trusted the man. But I supposed everyone had his price; I may even have had a fleeting wonder as to what my own might be.

After Rogers had his look, the three of us returned to the back yard, where I told him to prepare the rest of the men for a front-and-rear assault on the cottage. Then Gilloon and I took up post in the shadows behind the stone well. Now that my faith in him, at least, had been vindicated, I felt an enormous gratitude — but this was hardly the time to express it. Or to ask any of the questions that were racing through my mind. We waited in silence.

In less than four minutes all six of my men had surrounded the house. I could not hear it when those at the front broke in, but the men at the back entered the rear door swiftly. Soon the sound of pistol shots rose above the cry of the storm.

Gilloon and I hastened inside. In the parlor we found Granger sitting on the floor beside the hearth, his head buried in his hands. He had not been injured, nor had any of the guards. Teasdale was lying just beyond the entrance to the center hallway. The front of his shirt was bloody, but he had merely suffered a superficial shoulder wound and was cursing like a madman. He would live to hang again, I remember thinking, in the execution shed at Arrowmont Prison.

Sixty minutes later, after Teasdale had been placed under heavy guard in the prison infirmary and a silent Granger had been locked in a cell, Rogers and Gilloon and I met in my office. Outside, the rain had slackened to a drizzle.

“Now then, Gilloon,” I began, “we owe you a great debt, and I acknowledge it here and now. But explanations are long overdue.”

He smiled with the air of a man who has just been through an exhilarating experience. “Of course,” he said. “Suppose we begin with Hollowell. You’re wondering if he was bribed by Teasdale — if he also assisted in the escape. The answer is no: he was an innocent pawn.”

“Then why was he killed? Revenge?”

“Not at all. His life was taken — and not at the place where his body was later discovered — so that the escape trick could be worked in the first place. It was one of the primary keys to the plan’s success.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “The escape trick had already been completed when Hollowell was stabbed.”

“Ah, but it hadn’t,” Galloon said. “Hollowell was murdered before the execution, sometime between four and five o’clock.”

We stared at him. “Gilloon,” I said, “Rogers and I and five other witnesses saw Hollowell inside the shed—”

“Did you, Parker? The execution shed is lighted by lanterns. On a dark afternoon, during a thunderstorm, visibility is not reliable. And you were some forty feet from him. You saw an average-size man wearing a guard’s uniform, with a guard’s peaked cap drawn down over his forehead — a man you had no reason to assume was not Hollowell. You took his identity for granted.”

“I can’t dispute the logic of that,” I said. “But if you’re right that it wasn’t Hollowell, who was it?”

“Teasdale, of course.”

“Teasdale! For God’s sake, man, if Teasdale assumed the identity of Hollowell, whom did we see carried in as Teasdale?”

“No one,” Gilloon said.

My mouth fell open. There was a moment of heavy silence. I broke it finally by exclaiming, “Are you saying we did not see a man hanged at five o’clock this afternoon?”

“Precisely.”

“Are you saying we were all victims of some sort of mass hallucination?”

“Certainly not. You saw what you believed to be Arthur Teasdale, just as you saw what you believed to be Hollowell. Again let me remind you: the lighting was poor and you had no reason at the time to suspect deception. But think back, Parker. What actually did you see? The shape of a man with a black hood covering his head, supported between two other men. But did you see that figure walk or hear it speak? Did you at any time discern an identifiable part of a human being, such as a hand or an exposed ankle?”

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, mentally reexamining the events in the shed. “No,” I admitted. “I discerned nothing but the hood and the clothing and the shoes. But I did see him struggle at the foot of the gallows, and his body spasm on the trap. How do you explain that?”

“Simply. Like everything else, illusion. At a preconceived time Granger and Teasdale had only to slow their pace and jostle the figure with their own bodies to create the impression that the figure itself was resisting them. Teasdale alone used the same method on the trap.”

“If it is your contention that the figure was some sort of dummy, I can’t believe it, Gilloon. How could a dummy be made to vanish any more easily than a man?”

“It was not, strictly speaking, a dummy.”

“Then what the devil was it?”

Gilloon held up a hand; he appeared to be enjoying himself immensely. “Do you recall my asking if Teasdale had a trade? You responded that he had worked in a textile mill, whereupon I asked if the prison textile mill stocked silk.”

“Yes, yes, I recall that.”

“Come now, Parker, use your imagination. What is one of the uses of silk — varnished silk?”

“I don’t know,” I began, but no sooner were the words past my lips than the answer sprang into my mind. “Good Lord — balloons!”

“Exactly.”

“The figure we saw was a balloon?”

“In effect, yes. It is not difficult to sew and tie off a large piece of silk in the rough shape of a man. When inflated to a malleable state with helium or hydrogen, and seen in poor light from a distance of forty feet or better, while covered entirely by clothing and a hood, and weighted down with a pair of shoes and held tightly by two men — the effect can be maintained.

“The handiwork would have been done by Teasdale in the relative privacy of the death cell. The material was doubtless supplied from the prison textile mill by Granger. Once the sewing and tying had been accomplished, I imagine Granger took the piece out of the prison, varnished it, and returned it later. It need not have been inflated, naturally, until just prior to the execution. As to where the gas was obtained, I would think there would be a cylinder of hydrogen in the prison foundry.”

I nodded.

“In any event, between four and five o’clock, when the three of them were alone in the death annex, Teasdale murdered Hollowell with an awl Granger had given him. Granger then transported Hollowell’s body behind the stack of lumber a short distance away and probably also returned the gas cylinder to the foundry. The storm would have provided all the shield necessary, though even without it the risk was one worth taking.

“Once Granger and Teasdale had brought the balloon-figure to the gallows, Granger, as hangman, placed the noose carefully around the head. You told me, Parker, that he was the last to examine the noose. While he was doing so he inserted into the fibers at the inner bottom that sharp sliver of wood you found in the trap cubicle. When he drew the noose taut, he made sure the sliver touched the balloon’s surface so that when the trap was sprung and the balloon plunged downward the splinter would penetrate the silk. The sound of a balloon deflating is negligible; the storm made it more so. The dancing of the rope, of course, was caused by the escaping air.

“During the ensuing sixty seconds, the balloon completely deflated. There was nothing in the cubicle at that point except a bundle of clothing, silk and shoes. The removal of all but the hood, to complete the trick, was a simple enough matter. You told me how it was done, when you mentioned the silvery glimmer you saw above the trap.

“That glimmer was a brief reflection of lantern light off a length of thin wire which had been attached to the clothing and to the balloon. Granger concealed the wire in his hand, and played out most of a seven- or eight-foot coil before he threw the trap lever.

“After he had gone to his knees with his back to the witness chairs, he merely opened the front of his duster. No doubt it made something of a bulge, but the attention was focused on other matters. You did notice, Parker — and it was a helpful clue — that Granger appeared to be holding his stomach as if he were about to be ill. What he was actually doing was clutching the bundle so that it would not fall from beneath his duster. Later he hid the bundle among his belongings and transported it out of the prison when he went off duty. It was that bundle we saw burning in the fireplace in his cottage.”

“But how did Teasdale get out of the prison?”

“The most obvious way imaginable,” Gilloon said. “He walked out through the front gates.”

“What!”

“Yes. Remember, he was wearing a guard’s uniform — supplied by Granger — and there was a storm raging. I noticed when we first arrived tonight that the gateman seemed eager to return to his gatehouse, where it was dry. He scarcely looked at you and did not question me. That being the case, it’s obvious that he would not have questioned someone who wore the proper uniform and kept his face averted as he gave Hollowell’s name. The guards had not yet been alerted and the gateman would have no reason to suspect trickery.

“Once out, I suspect Teasdale simply took Granger’s car and drove to Hainesville. When Granger himself came off duty, I would guess that he obtained a ride home with another guard, using some pretext to explain the absence of his own vehicle.

“I did not actually know, of course, that we would find Teasdale at Granger’s place; I made a logical supposition in light of the other facts. Since Granger was the only other man alive who knew how the escape had been worked, I reasoned that an individual of Teasdale’s stripe would not care to leave him alive and vulnerable to a confession, no matter what promises he might have made to Granger.”

“If Teasdale managed his actual escape that easily, why did he choose to go through all that trickery with the balloon? Why didn’t he just murder Hollowell, with Granger’s help, and then leave the prison prior to the execution, between four and five?”

“Oh, I suppose he thought that the bizarre circumstances surrounding the disappearance of an apparently hanged man would insure him enough time to get clear of this immediate area. If you were confused and baffled, you would not sound an instant alarm, whereas you certainly would have if he had simply disappeared from his cell. Also, the prospect of leaving all of you a legacy of mystery and horror afforded him a warped sense of revenge.”

“You’re a brilliant man,” I told him as I sank back in my chair.

Gilloon shrugged. “This kind of puzzle takes logic rather than brilliance, Parker. As I told you earlier tonight, it isn’t always wise to discount the supernatural; but in a case where no clear evidence of the supernatural exits, the answer generally lies in some form of illusion. I’ve encountered a number of seemingly incredible occurrences, some of which were even more baffling than this one and most of which involved illusion. I expect I’ll encounter others in the future as well.”

“Why do you say that?”

“One almost seems able after a while to divine places where they will occur,” he said matter-of-factly, “and therefore to make oneself available to challenge them.”

I blinked at him. “Do you mean you intuited something like this would happen at Arrowmont Prison? That you have some sort of prevision?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps I’m nothing more than a pulp writer who enjoys traveling.” He gave me an enigmatic smile and got to his feet clutching his notebooks. “I can’t speak for you, Parker,” he said, “but I seem to have acquired an intense thirst. You wouldn’t happen to know where we might obtain a Guinness at this hour, would you?”

One week later, suddenly and without notice, Gilloon left Arrowmont Village. One day he was there, the next he was not. Where he went I do not know: I neither saw him nor heard of or from him again.

Who and what was Buckmaster Gilloon? Is it possible for one enigma to be attracted and motivated by another enigma? Can that which seems natural and coincidental be the result instead of preternatural forces? Perhaps you can understand now why these questions have plagued me in the sixty years since I knew him. And why I am haunted by that single passage I read by accident in his notebook, the passage which may hold the key to Buckmaster Gilloon:

If a jimbuck stands alone by the sea, on a night when the dark moon sings, how many grains of sand in a single one of his footprints?...