Steingall weighed the point for a moment.
“Sometimes I’m inclined to think that the police know more about human nature than any other set of men,” he said, at last, evidently choosing his words with care. “Perhaps I might except doctors. They, too, see us as we are. But the dry legal mind does not allow sufficiently for what is called in every-day speech a guilty conscience. In this case these people knew they had done you and your father and mother a great wrong, and that knowledge was never absent from their thoughts. It colored every word they uttered, governed every action. That’s a heavy handicap, ma’am. It’s the deciding factor in the never-ending struggle between the police and the criminal classes. The most callous crook walking Broadway in freedom to-night—a man who would scoff at the notion that he is bothered by any conscience at all—never passes a policeman without an instinctive sense of danger. And that is what beats him in the long run. Crime may be a form of lunacy—indeed, I look on it in that light myself—but, luckily for mankind, crime cannot stifle conscience.”
The chief’s tone had become serious; he appeared to awake to its gravity when he found the young wife’s eyes fixed on his with a certain awe. He broke off the lecture suddenly.
“Why,” he cried, smiling broadly, and jerking the cigar toward Clancy, “why, ma’am, if we cops hadn’t some sort of a pull, what chance would a shrimp like him have against any one of real intelligence?”
“That’s what he regards as handing me a lemon for my Orange,” grinned Clancy.
Winifred laughed. The curtain can drop on the last act of her adventures to the mirthful music of her happiness.