Nor Iron Bars a Cage...., Page 3

dull."

  It was beautiful, the way he did it. He had told me plainly that hewanted to get down to business and cut the small talk, but he'd doneit in such a way that the transition was frictionlessly smooth.

  "Not much scenery up there," I said. "I hope you'll find what we'retrying to do here has a few more points of interest."

  "I'm quite sure it will, from what I've heard of your pilot projecthere. That's why I want to, well, sort of be a hanger-on for a fewdays, if that's all right with you."

  * * * * *

  Before I could answer, the phone blinked. I excused myself to the Dukeand cut in. The image that came on the screen was almost myself,except that he had his mother's mouth and was twenty-odd yearsyounger.

  "Hi, Dad," he said, with that apologetic smile of his. "Sorry tobother you during office hours, but could I borrow fifty? Pay youback next week."

  I threw a phony scowl at him. "Running short, eh? Have you beenbetting on the stickball teams again?"

  He cast his eyes skyward, and raised the three fingers of his righthand. "Scout's Honor, Dad, I spent it on a new turbine for myElectroFord." Then he lowered his hand and looked down from the upperregions. "I really did. I forgot that I was supposed to take MaryEllen out this evening. Car-happy, I guess. Can you advance thefifty?"

  I threw away my phony scowl and gave him a smile. "Sure, Stevie. How'sMary Ellen?"

  "Swell. She's all excited about going to the Art Ball tonight--that'swhy I didn't want to disappoint her."

  "Slow up, son," I told him, "you've already made your pitch and beenaccepted. You'll get your fifty, so don't push it. Want to come downhere and pick it up?"

  "Can do. And have I told you that you'll be invited to the wedding?"

  "Thanks, pal. Can I give the groom away?" It was a family joke thatwe'd kicked back and forth ever since he had met Mary Ellen, two yearsbefore.

  "Sure thing. See you in a couple of hours. Bye, Dad." He cut off, andI looked at the Duke.

  "Sorry. Now, you were saying?"

  "Perfectly all right." He smiled. "I have two of my own at home.

  "At any rate, I was saying that the Criminal Investigation Departmentof New Scotland Yard has become interested in this experiment ofyours, so I was sent over to get all the first-hand information I can.Frankly, I volunteered for the job; I was eager to come. There areplenty of skeptics at the Yard, I'll admit, but I'm not one of them.If the thing's workable, I want to see it used in England."

  Here was another man who wasn't tied to the "system."

  "D'you mind if I ask some questions?" he said.

  "Go ahead, Your Grace. If I can't answer 'em, I'll say so."

  "Thanks. First off, I'll tell you what I _do_ know--get my ownknowledge of the background straight, so to speak. Now, as Iunderstand it, the courts have agreed--temporarily, at least--that anyperson convicted of certain types of crimes must undergo a psychiatricexamination before sentencing. Right?"

  "That's right."

  "Then, depending on the result of that examination, the magistrate ofthe court may sentence the offender to undertake psychiatric therapyinstead of sending him to a penal institution, such time in therapynot to exceed the maximum time of imprisonment originally provided forthe offense under the law.

  "His sentence is suspended, in other words, if he will agree to thetherapy. If, after he is released by the psychiatrists, he behaveshimself, he is not imprisoned. If he misbehaves, he must serve out theoriginal sentence, plus any new sentence that may be imposed. Have Igot it straight so far?"

  "Perfectly."

  "As I understand it, you've had astounding success." He looked, inspite of what he had said about skepticism, as though he thought thereports he'd heard were exaggerated.

  "So far," I said evenly, "not a single one of our 'patients' hasfailed us."

  He looked amazed, but he didn't doubt me. "And you've been inoperation for how long?"

  "A little over a year since the first case. But I think the recordwill stand the same way five, ten, fifty years from now.

  "You see, Your Grace, we don't _dare_ lose a man. If one of our tamezanies goes haywire again, the courts will stop this pilot project_fast_. There's a lot of pressure against us.

  "In the first place, we only work with repeaters. You know the type.The world is full of them. The boys that are picked up over and overagain for the same kind of crime."

  He nodded. "They're the ones we wait for. The ones we catch, convict,and send to prison--and then wait until they get out, and then waitsome more until they commit their next crime, so that we can catchthem and start the whole cycle over again."

  "That's them," I said. "When they're out, they're just between crimes,that's all. And that puts the police in a hell of a position, doesn'tit? You _know_ they're going to fall again; you know that they'regoing to rob, or hurt, or kill someone. But there's nothing you cando about it. You're helpless. No police force has enough men to enablea cop to be assigned to every known repeater and follow him night andday.

  "In this state, if a man is convicted of a felony for a fourth time, alife sentence is mandatory. _But that means that at least four victimshave to be sacrificed before the dangerous man is removed fromsociety!_"

  The Duke nodded thoughtfully. "'Sacrifice' is the word. Go on."

  "Now, the type of crime we're working with--the kind we expect futurelaws to apply to--is strictly limited. It must be a crime of violenceagainst a human being, or a crime of destruction in which there is agrave danger that human lives may be lost. The sex maniac, thefirebug, or the goon who gets a thrill out of beating people. Or thereckless driver who has proven that he can't be trusted behind thewheel of a car.

  "We can't touch the kleptomaniac or the common drunk or the drugaddict. They're already provided for under other laws. And thosehabits are not, _by themselves_, dangerous to the lives of others. Agood many of our kind of zany _do_ drink or take drugs--about fiftyper cent of them. But what they're sentenced for is crimes ofviolence, not for guzzling hooch or mainlining heroin."

  * * * * *

  My phone chimed. It was Lieutenant Shultz, of Homicide. His square,blocky face held a trace of excitement. "Inspector Royall, InspectorKleek told me to report to you if there was any news in the Donahuecase."

  "What is it, Lieutenant?"

  "We're pretty sure of our man. Scrapings from the kid's fingernailsgave us his blood type. The computer narrowed the list down quite abit with that data. Then, a few minutes ago, one of the boys found thekid's clothes stuffed in with some trash paper in the back stairwellof a condemned building just a couple of blocks from where we foundher last night.

  "And--get this, Inspector!--she was wearing a pair of those shinypatent-leather shoes, practically brand-new, and they have prints allover them! His are over hers, since he was the last one to handlethem, and there's only the two sets of prints! We just now gotpositive identification."

  "Grab him and bring him in," I said. "I'll be right down. I want totalk to him."

  His face fell a little. "Well, it isn't going to be as easy as allthat, sir. You see, we'd already checked at his last known address,earlier this morning, before we got the final check on the blood type.This guy left the rooming house he was staying in--checked out twodays ago, just a short time after the girl was killed. I figured thatlooked queer at the time, so I had two of my men start tracing him inparticular. But there's not a sign of him so far."

  I untensed myself. "O.K. What's his record?"

  "Periodic drunk. Goes for weeks without touching the stuff, then hegoes out on a binge that lasts for a week sometimes.

  "Name's Lawrence Nestor, alias Larry Nestor. Twenty-eight years old,six feet one inch, slight build, but considered fairly strong. Brownhair, brown eyes. Speaks with a lisp due to a dental defect; the lispbecomes more noticeable when he's drinking." He turned the page of thereport he was reading from. "Arrested for drunkenness four times inthe past five years, got off with a fine w
hen he pleaded guilty. Hemolested a little girl two years ago and was picked up forquestioning, but nothing came of it. The girl hadn't been physicallyhurt, and she couldn't make a positive identification, so he wasreleased from custody.

  "Officers on duty in the neighborhood report that he has frequentlybeen seen talking to small children, usually girls, but he wasn't seento molest them in any way, and there were no complaints from parents,so no