HE "Ferret" could have reported the conversation between the warden and the man from headquarters very accurately, that part of it, at least, that generalized upon himself and the three others who were to leave the penitentiary that morning, having, it was supposed, if not generally practised, fully expiated their crimes and being restored to freedom if not full citizenship. For the Ferret was very, very far from being a fool.
"Once a crook, always a crook!" announced the detective, somewhat wearily. "You wait till they begin coming back to you. I ain't running down your dope or your methods but you're new to the game, if you'll pardon my saying so. There's a heap of improvement needed in penitentiaries, I'll grant you, but all your honor system, your free talk and your baseball games ain't going to make an honest man out of a blown-in-the-glass crook. Do what you will with 'em, they figure the mistake they made was in getting caught, not in the crime itself.
"They come in sore and they go out sore, for all your coddling of 'em. You can't make 'em glad to be here. A man in a cell nurses a grouch and a guy with a grouch ain't going to repent. He may think it pays best to run straight but he gets out and he reads about something good that was pulled off and then he meets his woman or some woman and then some of the gang come around and show him an easy thing. Well—he's sick of prison grub and prison fare and so's his woman of the skimping she's done while he was in. The excitement gets him—and then we get him and you see him registering at your hotel inside of a few months at best.
"Take it from me, Mr. Warden, I know 'em. 'Once a crook, always a crook.' Take the Ferret, first-class cracksman and high-flier, going out today after five years less eight months for behaving himself; he'll be back. I'll bet you a month's pay he'll be back inside of six months, or, if he isn't, we'll be looking for him. Why was he good in quod? Because he wanted to get out of quod. Not because he means to go straight."
"I'll take that bet, Henderson," said the new warden quietly. "Call it an even hundred. You know only the seamy side of human nature. There's a right and wrong side to every man, but you never turn over the goods to have a look at the pattern that was intended to be shown. A crook may be always a crook, but all convicts are not crooks, Henderson. Circumstance, environment, desire of that same excitement you mentioned, the same sort of desire that sent men viking in old times, have a lot to do with it. The Ferret," he broke off to smile, "do you know what the Ferret has been doing and what he wants to do?"
"I'd make another little bet on the last end of it. What has he been doing?"
"Doing wonderful things in my garden and greenhouse. The man is a born genius with grafting and crossing."
"I believe all of that," said Henderson. "Double-crossing and grafting are easy to him."
"And he wants—wait, we'll have him in and ask him."
The Ferret was escorted in. He might have been anywhere between forty and fifty. His hair, that had been allowed to grow since his time of freedom approached, was long enough to be laid back in a smooth gray pompadour. The forehead was well-shaped, the nose well-chiseled and the mouth neither small nor thin-lipped. His eyes—Henderson would have called them cunning—to the warden they were shrewd. He was slight but built with all the suggestive agility of the animal after which the underworld had christened him.
The work among the warden's shrubs and flowers had banished all trace of prison pallor, his cheap, ready-made suit fitted him surprisingly well, he looked not at all like a discharged prisoner, not at all like a malefactor, a wizard at coaxing combinations and blowing stubborner safes—he had used oxy-acetylene on the last one. His hands might have been those of a wood-carver, a musician even, or a master-gardener.
Though Henderson would have set them down as the hands of a forger or a master-cracksman. And he stood respectful with a certain dignity, quite at his ease, the hint of an ironic smile on his lips for Henderson, the gleam of a friendly one in his eyes for the warden.
"What are you figuring on doing, Rogers?" asked the latter in kindly fashion.
"I should like to take up the raising of fancy shrubs, sir," answered the Ferret, ignoring Henderson's grin at his words. "It takes more capital than I have. To go into it properly it would take a thousand dollars before I'd get any return but I'll go at it quietly, if I can get an opening."
Henderson snickered.