Gradually the guests thinned out in the tea-room, but Shirley cautiously waited until the last.
“Do you believe these young men are all members of the gang?” asked the girl. “Why do you suppose these men are all criminals? They surely look a bad lot.”
“There are two general reasons why men go wrong. One is hard luck, aided by tempting opportunity—they hope to make a success out of failure, and then keep on the straight path for the rest of their lives. Such men are the absconders, the forgers, the bank-wreckers, and even the petty thieves. But once branded with the prison bars and stripes, they seldom find it possible to turn against the tide in which they find themselves: so they become habitual offenders. They are the easiest criminals to detect. The second class are the born crooks, who are lazy, sharp-witted and without enough will-power to battle against the problems of honesty in work. It is easy enough to succeed if a man is clever and unscrupulous without a shred of generosity. The hard problem is to be affectionate, human, and conquer every-day battles by remaining actively honest, when your rivals are not straight. The born crook is safer from prison than the weakling of the first class.” He looked down at the coffee, and then continued.
“I do not believe all these young men are in this curious plot. They are merely the small fry of the fishing banks: they are petty rascals, with occasional big game. But somewhere, behind this sinister machine, is a guiding hand on the throttle, a brain which is profound, an eye which is all-seeing and a heart as cold as an Antartic mountain. There is the exceptional type of criminal who is greedy—for money and its luxurious possibilities; selfish—with regard for no other heart in the world; crafty—with the cunning of an Apache, enjoying the thrill of crime and cruelty; refined and vainglorious—with pride in his skill to thwart justice and confidence in his ability to continually broaden the scope of his work. Crime is the ruling passion of this unknown man. And the way to catch him is by using that passion as a bait upon the hook. I am the wriggling little angle worm who will dangle before his eyes to-night. But I do not expect to land him—I merely purpose to learn his identity, to draw the net of the law about him, in such a way as to keep the Grimsby and Van Cleft names from the case.”
“And how can that be done?”
“That, young lady, is my 'fatal secret.' The subplot developing within my mind is still nebulous with me,—you would lose all interest, as would I, if you knew what was going to happen. But the time has passed, and now we can go to the theatre. I bought the tickets by messenger this afternoon. I will let you do the talking to the chauffeur and the usher.”
They left the tea-room, the last guests out.
It was a touching sight to see the elderly gentleman supported on one side by a fat French waiter, and on the opposite, by the solicitous girl. The old Civil War wound was unusually troublesome.