Abracadaver Read Free Page B

with different police and prison officers three times a week, were disinclined to talk. They walked a few yards ahead of the two detectives, unlocking gates at frequent intervals and slamming them closed when the party had passed through. Once or twice there was a barred window on the left wall, through which Thackeray saw paved yards and the grey walls of the main prison-block beyond.
    ‘Ten years ago we were told this performance could stop,’ reflected Cribb. ‘Prevention of Crime Act, 1871. Photography, they said! That’s the way to spot your felon. Put every blasted criminal there is in a studio like a maharajah and immortalise him in half-profile. Bravo for science! And what happened?’
    ‘It cost too much,’ said Thackeray.
    ‘Dear me, yes. In his enthusiasm the Home Secretary hadn’t done his arithmetic. In no time at all the photographing was restricted to convicts and habitual criminals, and now you need a special application to the Governor to take a camera anywhere near an old lag. Progress, Thackeray! So three times a week the gentlemen of Clerkenwell and Newgate still show their precious monikers to the Law, and the Law scratches its head and goes through its inventory of eyes and mouths and noses and tries to spot its old acquaintances. Sounds like a parlour-game and ain’t so far from being one.’
    Another door was unlocked by a bored turnkey and they emerged blinking into daylight, and crossed a deserted exercise yard, where a circular track of polished pavement had been worn by generations of shuffling boots. The walls bordering the yard looked massive and impossible to scale, but as a precaution iron spikes projected inwards from the top.
    The warders approached the building at the top end of the yard, mounted its stone steps and knocked at the entrance. Before joining them, Cribb drew Thackeray’s attention to the gigantic drumlike contraption built on to the top of the block. ‘Revolving fan,’ he explained. ‘Put there by Mr Howard, the reformer. Ventilates the whole interior of the jail.’ His eyes travelled slowly up the full height of the building. ‘Not many windows, you see.’
    The unlocking and unbarring completed, they mounted narrow stone stairs and were greeted unexpectedly at the top with, ‘Damn my eyes, it’s Sergeant Cribb!’ from a uniformed warder with a style and presence that wanted only a row of medals and a yard of gold braid to be worthy of the doorman at the Cafe Royal.
    ‘Cyril Blade!’ responded Cribb. ‘Now where was it last? Don’t speak.’ His fingers snapped. ‘Got it! Holloway, the year before last.’ He turned to Thackeray. ‘If you think Irving’s got a voice, listen to this. What did they inscribe on the foundation-stone at Holloway, Cyril?’
    Mr Blade drew a deep breath. ‘May God preserve the City of London, and make this place a terror to evil doers.’
    ‘Carries conviction, eh?’ said Cribb, savouring the performance. ‘No treadmill here, though, Cyril. Your vocal powers are wasted.’
    Mr Blade disagreed. ‘I carry the sound of that blasted shin-scraper in me head to this day, Sergeant. Uncommon cruel, subjecting a man’s ears to that racket twelve hours a day. I asked for a move to the oakum-shed in the end, but they sent me here instead. And the shock I got, Sergeant!’
    ‘Not so harsh as Holloway?’ suggested Cribb.
    Mr Blade clenched his fist eloquently. ‘This is a better home than my old mother made for me, Sergeant. They’re in clover here, I tell you. In clover.’
    ‘They should be, Cyril. They’re not convicted yet. Are they lined up?’
    ‘Like a guard of honour!’
    ‘Good. We’ll see who you’ve got, then.’
    Mr Blade ushered them through an open door into a whitewashed room the size and shape of a hospital ward. The difference was clear in the positioning of the beds: sets of bunks in tiers of five were ranged head to foot along the length of the wall facing them. A row of well-scrubbed deal tables and