The Problem of Cell 13 | Page 3

until this
was all ended, then:
"I should like to make three small requests. You may grant them or not,
as you wish."
"No special favors, now," warned Mr. Fielding.
"I am asking none," was the stiff response. "I would like to have some
tooth powder -- buy it yourself to see that it is tooth powder -- and I
should like to have one five-dollar and two ten-dollar bills."
Dr. Ransome, Mr. Fielding and the warden exchanged astonished
glances. They were not surprised at the request for tooth powder, but
were at the request for money.
"Is there any man with whom our friend would come in contact that he
could bribe with twenty-five dollars?" asked Dr. Ransome of the
warden.
"Not for twenty-five hundred dollars," was the positive reply.
"Well, let him have them," said Mr. Fielding. "I think they are harmless
enough."
"And what is the third request?" asked Dr. Ransome.
"I should like to have my shoes polished."
Again the astonished glances were exchanged. This last request was the
height of absurdity, so they agreed to it. These things all being attended
to, The Thinking Machine was led back into the prison from which he
had undertaken to escape.
"Here is Cell 13," said the warden, stopping three doors down the steel
corridor. "This is where we keep condemned murderers. No one can
leave it without my permission; and no one in it can communicate with
the outside. I'll stake my reputation on that. It's only three doors back of
my office and I can readily hear any unusual noise."

"Will this cell do, gentlemen?" asked The Thinking Machine. There
was a touch of irony in his voice.
"Admirably," was the reply.
The heavy steel door was thrown open, there was a great scurrying and
scampering of tiny feet, and The Thinking Machine passed into the
gloom of the cell. Then the door was closed and double locked by the
warden.
"What is that noise in there?" asked Dr. Ransome, through the bars.
"Rats -- dozens of them," replied The Thinking Machine, tersely.
The three men, with final good-nights, were turning away when The
Thinking Machine called:
"What time is it exactly, warden?"
"Eleven seventeen," replied the warden.
"Thanks. I will join you gentlemen in your office at half-past eight
o'clock one week from to-night," said The Thinking Machine.
"And if you do not?"
"There is no 'if' about it."
Ê
II
Chisholm Prison was a great, spreading structure of granite, four stories
in all, which stood in the center of acres of open space. It was
surrounded by a wall of solid masonry eighteen feet high, and so
smoothly finished inside and out as to offer no foothold to a climber, no
matter how expert. Atop of this fence, as a further precaution, was a
five-foot fence of steel rods, each terminating in a keen point. This
fence in itself marked an absolute deadline between freedom and

imprisonment, for, even if a man escaped from his cell, it would seem
impossible for him to pass the wall.
The yard, which on all sides of the prison building was twenty-five feet
wide, that being the distance from the building to the wall, was by day
an exercise ground for those prisoners to whom was granted the boon
of occasional semi-liberty. But that was not for those in Cell 13. At all
times of the day there were armed guards in the yard, four of them, one
patrolling each side of the prison building.
By night the yard was almost as brilliantly lighted as by day. On each
of the four sides was a great arc light which rose above the prison wall
and gave to the guards a clear sight. The lights, too, brightly
illuminated the spiked top of the wall. The wires which fed the arc
lights ran up the side of the prison building on insulators and from the
top story led out to the poles supporting the arc lights.
All these things were seen and comprehended by The Thinking
Machine, who was only enabled to see out his closely barred cell
window by standing on his bed. This was on the morning following his
incarceration. He gathered, too, that the river lay over there beyond the
wall somewhere, because he heard faintly the pulsation of a motor boat
and high up in the air saw a river bird. From that same direction came
the shouts of boys at play and the occasional crack of a batted ball. He
knew then that between the prison wall and the river was an open space,
a playground.
Chisholm Prison was regarded as absolutely safe. No man had ever
escaped from it. The Thinking Machine, from his perch on the bed,
seeing what he saw, could readily understand why.