CREED OF THE "FENCES"
An autopsy performed on Grady's body showed no sign of poison. His death had been caused by apoplexy. The woman who meant to kill him by poison had actually done so by means of the furious emotions she had aroused. She could have taken the diamonds had she only dared to wait.
Thus died Grady, still free from the law, and with his great fortune in diamonds in his pocket. Yet he died in an agony of furious disappointment as miserably as it is the lot of man to die. For him, as for "Mother" Mandelbaum, it was destined that the lesson should be finally but tragically impressed—that crime does not pay!
As a general thing the receiver of stolen goods is the greediest, tightest-fisted individual who ever squeezed a dollar. The bargains he drives are so one-sided that unless the thief is unusually shrewd he will find his profits dwindling to almost nothing by the time he has disposed of his plunder. The margin between what the thief gets for his stealings and the price they finally bring is enormous, and even with only a few thieves working regularly for him the "fence" finds it easy to get rich in a very short time.
The greed of the "fences" is one important reason why many criminals find it difficult to reform. The more thieves a "fence" has working for him the greater his profits, and naturally the longer they remain in the business the more valuable they are. When a thief reforms, the "fence" is put to the trouble and expense of training a new man—and there is always the danger that the new member of the staff will prove less capable or industrious than the one whose place he takes.
The "fence," therefore, tries to make crime so attractive or so necessary to the clever thief that he will continue stealing until death or arrest overtakes him. He keeps close watch for signs of a desire to reform, and does all he can to discourage it.
The "fence" studies the special weaknesses of his thieves and understands just how to play on them to his advantage. If a thief suggests "turning over a new leaf," the "fence" pays him more liberally for his next lot of goods, or loans him money to satisfy his craving for liquor, drugs, fine clothes, or whatever may be his failing.
This last is a favorite method of getting a thief into a "fence's" power. The "fence" advances money freely, with the "always-glad-to-help-an-old-friend" spirit. But he keeps careful count of every dollar loaned, and when the inevitable day of reckoning comes the debt is usually so large that the thief can never hope to pay it except by crime.