The escaped convict

The lady opened the door and asked, “What’s the matter?”

The man said, “Two policemen are chasing me.” Then he forced his way into the house. He said, “If it looks as if I am going to be caught, just before I am arrested I will strangle you.”

The lady said, “Don’t worry; I will help you.” So the lady didn’t open the door when the policemen came, and they didn’t know the man was inside the house. After half an hour the lady went out of the house to see if the policemen were still there and she didn’t see anyone. Still, the man was afraid that the police would find him.

Some time passed and the lady offered the man something to eat. While he was eating the man said, “I have escaped from jail. People were very unkind to me in the prison. But now that I am out of jail, the police are after me and I will have no peace. I don’t know what I am going to do.”

The lady said, “Well, you have to know what is best for yourself. But I will tell you something absolutely true. My brother…”

Then the lady started crying.

“What about your brother?” asked the man.

The lady continued, “Many years ago my brother got angry with his best friend. He kicked his friend so hard that his friend had a heart attack and died. My brother didn’t kill his friend intentionally, but he was arrested. While he was in jail he was always thinking that he would be the happiest person when he was finally freed. After fourteen years my brother was released.”

“Where is your brother now?” asked the man.

The lady said, “My brother stayed here for three months, but during that time he didn’t have any peace. He was always afraid that again he would do something wrong and be returned to jail. He was afraid that he would do something wrong by accident. That kind of fear entered into his mind.”

The lady turned to her guest and said, “I hope you will not have that kind of fear. Perhaps you too will be haunted by the thought that the police will always be after you.”

Then the lady started crying again. “What happened?” asked the man.

“One day,” said the woman, “he committed suicide by jumping off the second floor of our house.” And the woman started crying again.

The man was horrified.

“Before he died, my brother said it would have been far better for him to have remained in jail. He would have had more peace in prison. I really don’t want this kind of thing to happen in your life.”

The man said, “I don’t want to have the same problem!”

He was so shocked and afraid that he would have the same fate that he ran out of the house and went back to the jail on his own.

The superintendent had sent many policemen out looking for the escaped convict, but the search had been all in vain. The superintendent was so happy that the man had come back on his own.

The superintendent happened to be the father of the woman who had inspired the convict to turn himself in. When he came home, he told his daughter what had happened. He said, “So you see, my daughter, in this world there are still nice people. You always say that we don’t treat people well. But now somebody has come back on his own. He was telling us that he will have better rest and peace with us. So never say that we torture people in our jail. Here is the proof that we treat the inmates well.”

The daughter said, “Father, you know that I don’t have a brother. I am your only child.”

“Of course,” said the superintendent.

“To make that culprit go back to your jail,” the daughter said, “I had to invent a brother. Not only that, I had to make my brother a murderer who was arrested and thrown in jail. I had to say that when he came out of jail, he was haunted by the thought that the police would again arrest him. Then I made him commit suicide. Now he is dead.”

The father said, “What are you talking about?”

The daughter told her father the whole story. Then she said, “When I told that story, the thief ran back to the jail because he didn’t want to have that kind of miserable life. You always brag that you treat the prisoners so well, but I had to play all kinds of tricks to get that man to go back. It was only out of utter fear that he went back.”