AND Turner did not signal the tower guards. A small group gathered about the warden, gazed spellbound at the vicious faces of the escaping convicts. Turner and the other deputy flanked their chief, hands hovering over the service revolvers holstered at their hips, not daring to draw them, lest such an overt act provoke the vicious lifers to let loose again with the machine guns and mow down innocent spectators as they had killed the gatehouse guard.
But after that one burst of fire from the Thompson, the escaping convicts rushed grimly across the yard toward the gate.
The long line of marching prisoners proceeding toward the main building had stopped without orders from the keepers who flanked them. The marching convicts cast envious glances at those who were escaping, but they made no move toward a break for freedom themselves. They had no living shields, like the others.
The warden raised his voice, calling hoarsely to some of the armed convicts. “Gilly! Renzor! You can’t get away with that. You’ll be caught before you get a mile from here. Drop those—”
He stopped as Gilly, one of the two he had addressed, swung snarling toward him, bringing the submachine gun around to bear on the little group. The warden and those with him dropped to the ground to avoid the threatened barrage. But Gilly did not fire, for a tall, heavyset convict who was running alongside him shouted, “Never mind that stuff, Gilly! Keep on goin’!”
Gilly grumbled, but obeyed. The convicts hustled the terrorized college boys along through the gate. Outside, there waited a huge closed truck, with motor running. The convicts piled into this, the motor roared, and the truck sped away, leaving the Ervinton boys with their hands in the air.
Now the guards in the towers directed a withering fire at the swiftly moving truck. But no damage was done; its sides were of sheet metal, and wheels were equipped with solid tires. In less than three minutes it had rounded a bend in the road to the south, and disappeared from view.
Inside the prison grounds, bedlam reigned. The hundreds of excited spectators were shouting and gesticulating, running aimlessly around the ball field. In the yard the keepers were herding the remaining prisoners into the main building, while the warden uttered crisp commands to his deputies.
“Shut the gates! March the men to the cell blocks — we’ll feed them later. Turner, go into my office and start the siren; then phone all the towns along the roads; get out the state police.” He addressed the other deputy, “You, Seely, see the men safely in their cells, then get out every available keeper and guard, organize a posse. I’ll lead it personally.”
One of the professors from Ervinton College, who had joined him at the first sign of the break, tapped him on the shoulder. “I am afraid, warden, that you will not be successful in catching those men. This was a well-planned escape.”
There was a look of desperation in the warden’s face. “We must get those men back, Professor Larrabie!” he exclaimed. “They are the most vicious criminals in the state. Gilly, the one that wanted to mow us down with the machine-gun, is a killer many times over. He was about to be transferred to the death house!” The warden went on, his words tumbling out with hysterical speed, “And the others — Dubrot, Renzor, Gerlan — the brainiest, most ruthless fiends we’ve ever had here! Can you imagine what it means — a gang like that at liberty?” He shuddered. “If I don’t bring them back I—” his voice broke, “there’d be nothing left for me. I couldn’t face the governor!”
“Nonsense!” the professor retorted. Professor Larrabie was a tall, kindly man. He was extremely wealthy in his own right, but was also an enthusiastic scholar. Though he had no need for the income, he loved his scholastic work. He held the position of associate dean of Ervinton, and was far from a worldly man. But he showed that, for all his unworldliness, he had a well-developed sense of observation. For he said, “I believe this was done by one of the visitors, Warden. Just prior to the end of the game, I noted that someone from the visitors’ stand arose and entered the building. He came out immediately before the escape. I believe that person to be responsible. But the sun was in my eyes, and I could not see his features.”
JUST then Turner, the deputy, came running out of the main building. He was breathless, and his face was ashen. He exclaimed, “The siren doesn’t work, sir — it’s been tampered with. And the phone is dead! I can’t get a connection to notify anybody!”
The warden turned a haggard face to Professor Larrabie. “Ten minutes ago, Professor, I’d have staked my life that a thing like this was impossible.” He seemed to have aged ten years in those ten minutes. “It’s a perfect jail break!”
Professor Larrabie nodded. “It would be. The deliverer of those men is very clever. He foresaw everything!” The professor’s gaze wandered over the field where the crowd of visiting spectators was milling around, shouting and gesticulating excitedly. He indicated a figure running toward them across the field. “Here comes Harry Pringle, the son of the deputy police commissioner of New York. Harry is a school chum of my own son, Jack. They are both alumni of Ervinton.” The professor stared near-sightedly at the running youth. “He seems to have something momentous on his mind!”
Harry Pringle reached them, breathless, greeted the professor, then swung to the warden. “Look here, sir!” His thin, ascetic face was burning with intense excitement. “I saw somebody leave the stand a little while ago and enter the building, then come out in about ten minutes. I’ve been searching through the crowd for him, but I can’t find him now. I thought you ought to know about it.”
The warden nodded. “Thanks, Pringle. Professor Larrabie has told me the same thing. But the sun was in his eyes, and he couldn’t tell who it was. Did you recognize him?”
Harry Pringle shook his head. “It was nobody I know. But,” he added eagerly, “I’d recognize him if I saw him again. I’ll never forget that face — now!”
The warden said, “Then I shall have the gates closed and give you an opportunity to examine every person on the grounds. But,” he put his hand on young Pringle’s shoulder, “I’d advise you to be careful. If the person who aided those criminals to escape should learn that you saw him, your life wouldn’t be worth two cents, my boy.”
An armed file of guards emerged from the building at this moment. The warden said to Turner, “I’m heading the posse. You take charge in my absence. Nobody is to leave the grounds until Mr. Pringle here has seen his face.”
The guards piled into three or four cars, the warden got into the first, and the posse started out. Professor Larrabie watched them go, and shook his head sadly. “He will never catch them,” he said to Turner. “They have too much of a start.”
The professor was right. Late that night the warden and his men returned. They had not been able to pick up a single trace of the truck. Nobody had seen it. He sighed deeply, tired and worn from the long, fruitless search. He asked Turner, “Did that young fellow Pringle have any luck?”
“No, sir. He looked everybody over, but not a face like the one he saw. The police are going to have him go through the rogues’ gallery in the morning on the chance that he may recognize one of the pictures.”
The warden looked hopelessly at his deputy. “He won’t, Turner, he won’t recognize it. Whoever that man was, he’s too smart to have his picture in the rogues’ gallery. This whole thing has been done too cleverly and ingeniously.”