Argosy (UK), January 1955 — page 134: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Pe ere eS 5. . wits & oss Se a ee ae 2 . . *~ se ~ 132 W. R. BURNETT “This prisoner, Michael Martin, vulgarly known as Captain Lightfoot, is to be held for trial on the capital offence of armed robbery on the highway. Dismissed.”’ Michael heard a sympathetic murmur, and turned. An ugly little warder he hadn’t seen before was looking at him with anguished eyes. As Michael passed him on his way out, the warder slipped him a note. Once in his cell, Michael looked eagerly at it. It read: A. - disappeared with the strong-box. Mystery. T From Trim! Good lord, what did it mean? They needed that money for the bribing of guards. He fell on his palliasse and took his head in his hands. Things were not working out as his optimistic nature had led him to expect. After his morning meal next day, Michael was moved into the wing of the prison reserved for common criminals. Regis’s cell had been a tolerable one, but there was certainly nothing like it to be found in the old, dungeonlike part of the Castle down whose dank, sweating stone corridors Michael was now walking, manacled, between two powerful warders. Michael stood in the miserable twilight of the narrow cell, looking about him with distaste. *“ Ah well,” he said, ‘‘ it won’t be long, one way or another,” and he moved over below the slitted window and looked up at the feeble ray of sunshine cutting diagonally across the gloom. Where had the crazy girl got to with the guineas? Was she the kind who ran off when there was trouble? Michael doubted it very much, and yet you could never be quite sure of a woman. But the warder’s message had heartened him. He had friends. That evening, one of the warders handed him a second note. It read: A. had ideas of her own. All’s well. T. Michael was tried before Mr. Justice Banks, and his trial was as summary as Regis’s—cynically so. Legally it was a very simple matter: Michael’s word against the word of Lord Devereaux’s steward. The fact that all the money had been returned to Desmond by Regis was considered irrelevant by the judge, as he stated in his summing-up. It was all over in the space of an afternoon, and Michael was sentenced forthwith to hang within two weeks’ time. And Michael soon found that all was not well—far from it. At the conclusion of the trial the head warder was assigned to the job of guarding Michael closely until he was hanged. Apparently the Castle was taking no chances. The head warder was a huge, brutal-looking man, well over six feet and very wide in the beam, with a shock of coarse, curly blond hair and a pale, square face of outsized ruggedness. He had fists as big as hams, and he seemed to take an instant dislike to Michael and handled him roughly in front of the other warders, cursed him for a damned Irish peasant, and even tried to kick him. > comicloooks.Ccomn