just the same.”
The keeper’s hoarse voice sounded:
“After 9 o’clock, chief. What about the lights?”
I got up and told him, “Okay, I’ll help you. Good night, sis.”
AT 9 O’CLOCK Thursday morning Basil sat on the
edge of his cot brushing his hair. I sat on the edge
of mine, with the newspapers still on it but a good deal the
worse for wear, scratching my shoulder and my thigh and my
right side and my left arm, with my forehead wrinkled in con-
centration, trying to remember the title of a book on prison
reform which I had observed on Wolfe’s library shelves at
home but had never bothered to look at. It was a shame I
hadn’t read it because if I had I would have been much bet-
ter prepared for a project which I had already got a pretty
good start on. The idea of the project had occurred to me
during breakfast for which meal I had limited myself to
the common fare of my fellows for the sake of the experience,
and I had got the start during the fifteen minutes from 8:30
to 8:45, when we had all been in the corridor together for
what was called morning exercise, with a keeper and an
ostentatious gun stationed at the open end.
Basil asked, “How many have we got?”
I told him four signed up and three more practically cer-
tain. I gave up trying to remember the name of the book
and took my memo pad from my pocket and looked over
the sheets I had written on:
For the Warden, the District Attorney, the At-
torney-General, the State Legislature, and the
Governor.
MINIMUM BASIC DEMANDS OF THE
CROWFIELD COUNTY PRISONERS
UNION
1. Recognition of the C.C.P.U.
2. The closed shop.
3. Collective bargaining on all controversial matters ex-
cept date of release and possession by our members of
objects which could be used for attack or escape.
4. No lockouts.
5. Food. (Food may be defined as nutritive material ab-
sorbed or taken into the body of an organism which serves
for purposes of growth, work or repair, and for the main-
tenance of the vital processes.) We don’t get any.
6. Running water in all cells.
7. Abolition of all animals smaller than rabbits.
8. Cell buckets of first grade enamel with good lids.
9. Daily inspection of bedding by a committee of public-
spirited citizens, with one member a woman.
10. Adequate supply of checkers and dominoes.
11. Soap which is free of Essence of Nettles, or what-
ever it is that it now contains.
12. Appointment by our President of a Committee on
Bathing, with power to enforce decisions.
Signed this 15th day of September, 1938.
ARCHIE GOODWIN, President.
BASIL GRAHAM, Vice-President, Secretary and
Treasurer.
Four other signatures followed.
I looked up with a dissatisfied frown. It was all right for a
start, but there were 21 people inhabiting that corridor by
actual count. I said in a resolute tone, “It has to be 100 per
cent before nightfall. The fact is, Basil, you may be all right as
Vice-President and/or Secretary and/or Treasurer, but you’re
no damn good as an agitator. You didn’t get anybody.”
He put the brush down. “Well,” he said, “you made 3
mistakes. Demand number 9 will have to be amended by
striking out the last five words. They simply don’t like the
idea of a woman poking around the cells. Demand number
12 is bad in toto. Even when he’s out of jail a man resents
having his personal liberties interfered with, and when he’s
in jail the feeling is greatly intensified. But worst of all was
your offering them a dime apiece to join. That made them
suspicious and we’re going to have a hard time overcoming
it.”
“I don’t see you making any strenuous effort.”
“Is that so. I could make a suggestion right now. Are you
game to step it up to two bits per capita?”
“But you said—”
“Never mind what I said. Are you?”
“Well …” I figured it. “Three seventy-five. Yes.”
“But you wouldn’t play spoon-bean, a game of skill. It’s
a funny world.” He arose and approached. “Give me that
ultimatum.” I tore off the sheet and handed it to him and he
went to the door and tapped on a bar with his fingernail, 3
and 2. In a minute the skinny one with the Adam’s apple ap-
peared and Basil began talking to him in a low tone. I got up
and sauntered over to listen.
“Tell them,” Basil said, “that the offer of a dime to join is
withdrawn. Tell them that the privilege of being charter mem-
bers expires at noon and after that we may let them in and
we may not. Tell them that our platform is Brotherhood, Uni-
versal Suffrage, and Freedom. Tell—”
“Universal Suffering?”
“No. Suf—leave that one out. Brotherhood and Freedom.
Tell them that if they don’t like the idea of a public-spirited
woman coming around and the provisions with regard to bath-
ing, the only way these demands can be changed is by the
membership of the C. C. P. U., which is organized and func-
tioning, and if they don’t become members they can’t help
change them. Incidentally, our President will pay you two
bits for each and every one you get to sign.”
“Two bits? That’s on the level?”
“Absolutely. Wait a minute, come back here. Since you’re
a trusty and are therefore technically one of us, you’re eligible
to join yourself if you want to. But you don’t get any two bits
for signing yourself up. It wouldn’t be ethical. Would it. Presi-
dent Goodwin? Wouldn’t that be e pluribus unum corpus
delicti?”
“Right.”
“Okay. Go ahead. Slim. Noon is the deadline.”
Basil went back and sat down and picked up the brush.
“No damn good as an agitator?” he inquired sarcastically.
“As an agitator, above average,” I admitted. “As a treasurer,
only so-so. You’re inchned to overdraw.”
I don’t know to this day what the C. C. P. U. membership
amounted to at its peak. When Slim had got 4 new members
signed up he came to our cell and requested a dollar before
proceeding further, and I paid him, and by 10 o’clock he had
4 more and got another dollar, but at that point I was re-
moved from the scene by a keeper coming to get me. I started
out, but Basil interposed to say that I had better leave the
other $1.75 with him, since I had assumed the obligation,
just in case. I told him he shouldn’t be so pessimistic about
the President but agreed that his point was valid, and shelled
out.
Captain Barrow, still with no sign of flinching, was wait-
ing in the hall outside the warden’s office. He told me curtly
to come on, and from behind my elbow directed me out of that
wing of the building, up two flights of stairs, and along an
upper corridor to a door which I had entered on Tuesday
afternoon in the company of Osgood and Wolfe. We passed
through the anteroom to the inner chamber, and there sat
District Attorney Waddell at his desk, with bleary eyes that
made him look pudgier than ever.
I marched up to the desk and told him offensively, “Nero
Wolfe wants to see you, mister.”
Barrow snarled, “Sit down, you.”
I sat, and scratched my thigh and shoulder and side and
arm ostentatiously.
Waddell demanded, “What about it? Have you changed
your mind?”
“Yes,” I said, “I have. I used to think that the people who
make speeches and write books about prison reform are all
sentimental softies, but no more. They may or may not—”
‘Turn it off,” Barrow growled. “And quit scratching.”
Waddell said sternly, “I advise you not to be flippant. We
have evidence that you possess vital information in a murder
case. We want it.” He laid a fist on his desk and leaned for-
ward. “We’re going to get it.”
I grinned at him. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse me.
My head is fairly buzzing with this new idea I’ve got and I
can’t think of anything else, not even murder.” I erased the
grin and pointed a finger at him and made my tone ominous;
“Your head will soon be buzzing too. Don’t think it won’t. The
C. C. P. U. is going to clean up, and how would you like
to be kicked out of office?”
“Bah. You damn fool. Do you think Osgood runs this
county? What’s the C. C. P. U.?”
I knew he’d ask, since elected persons are always morbid
about organizations. I told him impressively, “The Crow-
field County Prisoners Union. I’m President. We’ll be 100
per cent by noon. Our demands include—”
I stopped and got my feet under my chair ready for
leverage, because Barrow had got up and taken two steps
and from his expression I thought for a second he was going