Scanlon looked dubious.
"I hope it won't depend on his say-so," said he. "He don't sound like a heavyweight to me."
"He's as easily deceived as a child—and I rather think that is why he is here. His great obsession is loyalty; every guard in the place may be a grafter and a rascal, but as long as there is an effusive display of loyalty to him, his eyes are closed. One honest man of his type is more of a clog to reform than all the scoundrels combined."
Here the old warden returned; at the same time a guard entered the office.
"Healey will show you the way, Mr. Ashton-Kirk," as he shook hands with the investigator. "And I trust your interest in this unfortunate young man will have happy results."
He also shook Scanlon's hand and expressed much gratification at having met him; then the two followed the guard out into the courtyard and into the gloomy corridors of the jail. There was a stale, confined smell in the place; a chill was in the air—the sort of thing that comes from continued damp. The blank steel doors with their rows of rivet heads, and the criminal history of the cell's inhabitant hanging beside them on a neat card, oppressed Bat.
"There is a movement on foot to do away with capital punishment," said he, to Ashton-Kirk. "What makes them think life imprisonment isn't as bad?"
The investigator shrugged his shoulders.
"They don't think that," said he. "They merely present the indisputable fact that a legal murder cannot in any way make amends for an illegal one. When that is acted upon, I'm of the opinion that the jailing of men will get more attention."
The guard was a heavy-faced man, who walked with a limp. He had overheard these remarks, and now spoke.