Chapter 7: Saved By The Belle

Shilton! End of the line! Shilton! End of the line! The conductor needn’t have bothered to bawl out his message. All the passengers knew that this was the terminus and everyone was already standing and more than ready to disembark after an uncomfortable journey. As the locomotive gasped to a halt I dawdled, allowing all the other twenty or so people to alight before I did.

My name is Owen Price and I was returning to Shilton after four years in prison. I was innocent of course. So many of them say that, don’t they? In my case it’s true and I hope this account of the matter will demonstrate that point to anyone who might be interested, though I’m writing it as much to get things off my chest as for any other reason.

Shilton isn’t my hometown and I had only one purpose in coming back. I was not and am not concerned with rehabilitating myself because I don’t intend to stay here. I wanted justice and knew I wouldn’t get it through legal channels. My route would be vengeance.

The tale began when I had few sharp words with John Handley. Both of us were attracted to Rita Hart, widely regarded as the most attractive young woman in town. I won’t go over the conversation we had. It was a little juvenile for a couple of fellows in their middle twenties, especially as Rita had never said or done anything to encourage either of us, though we had no doubt she was aware of our interest in her. We parted late in the evening. Two days later, Handley was found sprawled in an alley. He’d been attacked and had taken a beating that left him paralysed from the waist down.

To my amazement I was arrested later that day, accused of carrying out the assault. I was even more astounded when two men came forward, claiming that they’d seen me give the fallen man a last kick, then leave the spot. They said they had rushed to see whether they could help Handley but weren’t able to do anything for him, so had summoned the town’s doctor.

I was tried for the crime, found guilty and given the four-year sentence. The prospect of life in prison filled me with foreboding. It was indeed a grim existence, but I fared better than most of the inmates. For one thing, the guards soon grasped that I had had a good education and to my surprise they seemed to respect that. I also taught two of them to play chess. They became fascinated with the game and passed on to some of their colleagues what they’d learned from me. With about a dozen of them taking up the pastime, they set up a club. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t be a member, but I was asked to offer some offer some of the players tips from time to time.

When the Handley incident occurred, I had been in Shilton barely a year. Apart from my parents, who lived in New England, much too far away to travel to the Southwest on my account, I had no family, nor had I any close friends. During my confinement, I received only one visitor – and that was a big surprise. The man turned up eight months after I’d started serving my sentence. He was no more than a casual acquaintance. I’m not going to reveal his identity here and nobody will be able to trace it at the prison because he gave a false name there.

My case had been preying on my visitor’s mind since the trial and he could no longer keep what he knew to himself. What he said astounded me. I hadn’t been aware that Rita Hart was in the sights of one of Shilton’s most prominent businessmen, Jacob Fenner. It was he who had orchestrated my downfall. Somehow he’d learned that both John Handley and I had designs on Rita. He’d hired two thugs to beat up and cripple Handley. They were of course the same pair who’d claimed to have seen me in the alley and whose testimonies had led to the guilty verdict.

An intentional aspect of the horrible scheme was that the assault on Handley put an end to any ambition he had as far wooing was concerned, so Fenner had disposed of two birds with one stone and left the way clear for himself. Less than a year after the start of my incarceration, he had married Rita. Well, I could hardly blame her for choosing the path of security and affluence, even though it was with a man nearly twice her age.

I was almost beside myself with fury when I heard my visitor’s story. He gave me the additional information that the two men Fenner had engaged to thrash Handley and frame me had disappeared from Shilton a few days after my trial. He also said that he intended to leave the town in due course. I’m not saying here whether he did or not, and anyway, many people have come and gone in the meantime.

In the three years and four months that passed between that man’s visit and my release, my anger remained unabated. I was determined to get even with Fenner as quickly as possible, then leave Shilton right away. There was no accommodation awaiting me. I didn’t even expect to book a room in the hotel or either of the two boarding houses.

The train had arrived shortly before eight in the evening. Fenner lived in a vast, luxurious house three miles out of town. I had no means of getting there other than on foot, and by nine o’clock I was standing in front of the massive oak door of my quarry’s mansion. They say that revenge is a dish best taken cold but I paid no heed to that dictum, and I was soon to realise that I should have done so, for I was far too impetuous.

My idea was to bypass or overpower any servants Fenner might have and get to him as quickly as possible. I hadn’t even stopped to consider that he might not be at home. I was prepared to break a window if necessary, but the door was unlocked, so I went inside and found myself in a long, wide hall. On either side of it were two doors, the first pair facing one another, both about ten feet from me, the second pair twenty feet or so further along. Directly ahead of me, around twenty-five feet away, was a staircase.