"Tell Dixon to bring around the car at once."
Ten minutes later, attired in a long, closely-fitting coat, he walked at Scanlon's side down the steps to the waiting car.
"Perhaps," said the investigator, "it would have been a trifle better if I had made this visit a day or two ago, as I had intended. But I had a reason for not doing so." The door of the car closed upon them and as they whirled away through the fine rain Ashton-Kirk went on: "Last night I told you I was trying a little experiment. Well, to-day," and there was a look of eagerness in the keen eyes, "I hope to get a result."
"What sort of a result?" asked Scanlon.
"Oh, that I don't know. Wait, and we shall see."
CHAPTER XVI
"Confessed!"
The sombre, battlemented walls of the jail looked grim and merciless through the gray of the day. To Scanlon they seemed of appalling thickness and hardness; the turrets, which occurred at regular intervals, he knew held men, armed and sleepless, who watched tirelessly. Hundreds and hundreds of dingy souls drooped inside; guilt hung over the whole place like a palpable thing.
"Crime will never be cured by placing criminals in institutions like this," said Ashton-Kirk, as they waited at the gate. "Instead, it breeds here. Prison-keepers are a race of themselves; as a rule they are bullies and grafters. And men placed for terms of years at the mercy of these can't be expected to grow, except toward the shadows. A youth, who, because of idleness, impulse or dissipation, offends society in some way, is thrown into this pit of moral filth to cleanse himself. Very few men have the fibre of the true criminal; and when a casual lawbreaker sees this dreadful blow leveled at his soul, he is at first bewildered and afraid; then, if he has any spleen, he arrays himself against the force which struck the blow. And, so, society has gained another enemy."