“Neither do I,” he said.
Then he went on:
“You have courage—a dependable sort of courage. It is a quality rare enough in the world; too rare, it seems to me, to be thoughtlessly broken up. I am going to try an experiment.
“I don’t see why the courage which you possess should not be brought to the service of the government instead of against it. Do you think you could stick to us as faithfully as you have stuck to these two inconsiderate blacklegs?”
He did not wait for me to reply; but he went on:
“Crime always fails,” he said. “There never was any man able to get away with it. No matter how clever he is, there is always some point at which his plans go to pieces; sooner or later something turns up against which he is wholly unable to protect himself. The thing is so certain to happen that it seems to look as though there were a power in the universe determined on the maintenance of justice; a power that is opposed to criminal endeavor and always at work to destroy the criminal agent—just as it destroyed White and just as it has destroyed Mooney.”
He went on as though he were speaking to himself.
“But it does not act as though it wished to destroy you.... I suppose one’s large view in this matter ought to be consistent. If one assumes that this Authority has exercised itself for the ultimate destruction of these two hardened offenders, then one must also believe that what has happened in your behalf has happened also with an equal design.”
He began to walk about the room, his hands in his pockets, his chin lifted as in some reflection.
“Well,” he said, “at any rate I am going to take it that way. I am going to turn you over to Dix for a tryout in the Secret Service. We have got to seize a number of dangerous Reds and your holdup experience ought to make you a useful assistant for Dix. Besides,” he added, “we are involved in a sort of promise about you.”