Work Text:
The man had been carving upon the plastered wall of the jail cell all day long and into the night, toiling on with his nails even as his fingers bled and his eyes grew sore. He had broken all the fingernails of his right hand and was now clawing away with the thumb of his left, grimacing and whispering absently to himself as he did so. His foot tapped nervously at the cell floor every few minutes, the sound of it echoing more loudly than what seemed natural. He shivered occasionally as he worked, though whether from the damp cold or from some terrible fear, the guard was never certain.
The prisoner was carving on the one wall of the cell that Hardwick couldn’t see clearly from his post, and he refused to dignify the man’s insanity by moving to the cell door to observe his work. He had been attempting for most of the day to dissuade the strange prisoner from destroying his plaster. “Let that wall alone,” he called for the tenth or eleventh time now, but the words held none of the commanding heat that they had earlier. He was tired and could hardly be bothered anymore.
The prisoner shook his head passionately and continued his work.
Joyce, the night guard, was standing nearby, brow raised and arms crossed. “And he’s been doing that all day, you say?” he asked, turning to his colleague.
“Since an hour or so after I came in,” Hardwick confirmed. “He’ll likely be at it until they take him away in the morning.” He stood from his chair and made a great show of offering it to Joyce.
Joyce grumbled and moved to take Hardwick’s place. “All the more interesting for me,” he replied despite himself as he sat. “You’ll be the man to have to re-plaster it tomorrow.”
Hardwick sighed and shook his head as he walked out. He could still hear fingernails scraping against stone until the moment the cell block door slammed behind him.
He arrived home that night to dark windows and a cold sitting room. His sister had been visiting for the past two weeks, and she had waited up for him every evening with the fire stoked and the gas lamp burning near the window. She had gone back to Baltimore now, however, and from her presence Hardwick had forgotten the ghostly eeriness of returning to a black, lifeless house after sunset. He thought perhaps there’d be no risk in leaving the lamp burning from now on, as long as he kept it turned down.
His cat rubbed against his ankles as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He scratched her head, built a fire, and slept on the settee that night. He couldn’t bring himself to relax well enough to sleep in the bedroom.
Hardwick returned to work the next morning to find Joyce waiting anxiously for him at the door to the cell block. “Look here, Hardwick,” his friend exclaimed, grasping his arm. “You didn’t tell me he’d done all that. You only said he was a murderer.” The flustered look of fear on Joyce's face gave Hardwick a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“That’s all I knew,” Hardwick replied, following as Joyce turned and led the way briskly down the hall. “Why? They did take him this morning, didn’t they?” Hardwick suddenly found himself deeply disturbed by the thought that the prisoner might still be right where he had left him, tearing at the plaster.
“Yes, they took him, but—” Joyce had hurried back to the murderer’s cell, and the door creaked loudly on its hinges as he pushed it open. “Have a look at what he’s written. Hold that.”
Hardwick flinched back as Joyce fairly dropped the cell door on him. He grasped the iron bars and pushed it away, casting a vexed glance at the other man. He looked up at the wall.
The words Hardwick saw scratched recklessly across the whole height and breadth of the cell wall struck him cold before he’d even read them. “God Almighty,” he gasped.
For the most wild and yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen I neither expect nor solicit belief
mad indeed would I be to expect it in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence
yet mad I am not and very surely I do not dream
but tomorrow I die and to-day I would unburden my soul. . .