Cromwell looked around the concrete, windowless cell with its steel door. “Has any inmate ever escaped from solitary?”
“Not in the history of San Quentin.”
Cromwell paused to lay his trap. “Suppose—just suppose, Warden—that you personally took me into San Francisco?”
Weber looked at him with interest. “What do you have in mind?”
“Deliver me to County Prosecutor Horvath’s office and fifty thousand dollars in cash will be delivered to your house on the prison grounds by private messenger precisely one hour later.”
Warden pondered Cromwell’s offer for several moments. He knew it was not an idle offer. The banker was worth many millions of dollars and the offer was in cash, which would leave no trail should law enforcement investigators come sniffing around. Fifty thousand dollars was an enormous sum. He could keep the money hidden until his retirement. Weber also did his arithmetic and knew that it was more than enough to buy him a ranch second to none in the state. It was an offer even an honest man of integrity could not refuse.
Finally, Weber rose from his chair, stepped to the steel door, and rapped three times. The door opened and the uniformed guard entered. “Put a hood over the prisoner’s face and take him to the office behind my house. I’ll be waiting there.” Then he turned and left the cell.
Ten minutes later, the guard pushed Cromwell into Weber’s office. “Remove his hood and manacles,” Weber instructed. As soon as the hood was off and the manacles around Cromwell’s feet and hands removed, the guard was dismissed.
“I trust I can rely on your word as a gentlemen that my compensation will arrive an hour after I safely deposit you on the steps of the city hall?”
Cromwell nodded solemnly. “You can rest assured, the money will be in your hands this afternoon.”
“Good enough.” Weber rose and walked to a closet. He returned with a woman’s dress, hat, purse, and shawl. “Put these on. You are a small man and about the same size as my wife. You will be disguised as her when we drive through the inner gates and the main gate. Keep your head down and the guards will take no notice. She and I often take drives around the countryside or into town.”
“What about Van Dorn’s agents who are patrolling the outer walls?”
Weber smiled thinly. “I am the last man they would suspect of foul play.”
Cromwell looked at the clothes and laughed.
“Something funny?” asked Weber.
“No,” replied Cromwell. “It’s ju
st that I’ve been here before.”
When Cromwell had slipped on the warden’s wife’s clothes, he wrapped the shawl around his neck and pulled the hat down so it would cover the beard that was beginning to stubble his chin. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” he announced.
Weber led him out of the office across a yard to the garage that housed the warden’s Ford Model T automobile. Cromwell effortlessly cranked over the engine and climbed behind the wheel. The car began rolling over the gravel road toward the inner gates and was passed through with a wave from the warden. The main gate was another story. Here, two guards approached the warden for his personal authority to open the gate. “Shari and I are running into the city to buy a gift for her sister’s birthday,” he said placidly.
The guard on the left side of the car dutifully gave the warden a salute and waved him on. The guard on the right gazed at Cromwell, who made a show of looking for something in the purse. The guard dipped his legs to look under her hat, but Weber caught the movement and snapped, “Stop gawking and open the gate.”
The guard straightened up and waved to the engineer in the tower who controlled the mechanism that opened the massive steel doors. As soon as they spread wide enough to permit the Ford through, Weber pulled down the throttle lever and raised his foot off the high-gear pedal. The automobile jumped forward and was soon chugging down the road toward the landing to board the ferry for San Francisco.
36
“HE WHAT?” BELL ROARED OVER THE TELEPHONE.
“What is it?” asked Bronson, coming into the office as Bell hung up the phone.
Bell looked up at him, his face twisted in rage. “Your friend, the righteous and incorruptible warden of San Quentin, released Cromwell.”
“I don’t believe it,” Bronson blurted in utter disbelief.
“You can believe it, all right!” snapped Bell. “That was Marion Morgan, Cromwell’s personal secretary. She said he walked into his office five minutes ago.”
“She must be mistaken.”
“She’s right on the money,” said Curtis from the doorway. He looked at Bronson. “One of your agents who was following his sister, Margaret, saw him come down the steps of the city hall and get in her automobile.”
“Warden Weber taking a bribe,” Bronson muttered. “I would have never thought it.”