a
job on the Long Island estate as a watcher.

Quite recently, when the young couple came in to New York for a
week-end's shopping--rendered necessary by the establishment of day and
night nurseries--they entertained Steingall and Clancy at dinner in the
Biltmore. Naturally, at one stage of a pleasant meal, the talk turned on
those eventful months, October and November, 1913. As usual, Clancy
waxed sarcastic at his chief's expense.

"He's as vain as a star actor in the movies," he cackled. "Hogs all the
camera stuff. Wouldn't give me even a flash when the big scene was put
on."

Steingall pointed a fat cigar at him.

"Do you know what happened to a frog when he tried to emulate a bull?"
he said.

"I know what happened to a bull one night in East Orange," came the
ready retort.

"The solitary slip in an otherwise unblemished career," sighed the
chief. "Make the most of it, little man. If I allowed myself to dwell on
your many blunders I'd lie down and die."

Winifred never really understood these two. She thought their bickering
was genuine.

"Why," she cried, "you are wonderful, both of you! From the very
beginning you peered into the souls of those evil men. You, Mr. Clancy,
seemed to sense a great mystery the moment you heard Rachel Craik speak
to the Senator outside the club that night. As for you, Mr. Steingall,
do you know what the lawyers told Rex and me soon after our marriage?"

"No, ma'am," said Steingall.

"They said that if you hadn't sent Rex's mother to Atlantic City we
might never have recovered a cent of the stolen money. Sheer bluff, they
called it. We would have had the greatest difficulty in establishing a
legal case."

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--