conference scheduled with the Mayor and some Federal officials, and, after all, the duke was only here on police business, not as Ambassador from the Court of St. James. So he ended up being treated just as any visitor from Scotland Yard would be treated.

He was shown directly to my office, and I gave him a quick once-over as he came in the door. Tall, about six feet even; weight about 175, none of it surplus fat; light brown hair smoothed neatly back, almost no gray; eyes, blue-gray, with finely-etched lines around them that indicated they'd been formed by both smiles and frowns: face, rather long and bony, with thin, firm lips and a longish, thin, slightly curved nose. He wore good clothes, and he wore them well. His age, I knew; it was the same as mine. It was the first time I had ever seen a man who looked like a real aristocrat and a good cop rolled into one.

He had an easy smile on his face, and his eyes were taking me in, too. I stand an inch under six feet, but I'm a little broader across the shoulders than he, so the ten more pounds I carry doesn't make me look fat. My face is definitely not aristocratic—wide and square, with a nose that shows a slight bend where it was broken when I was a rookie, heavy, dark eyebrows, and hair that is receding a little on top and graying perceptibly at the sides. The eyes are a dark gray, and I'm well aware that the men under me call me "Old Flint-eye" when I put the pressure on them.

"I'm Chief Inspector Acrington," he said pleasantly, giving me a firm handshake.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Your Grace," I said. "I'm Inspector Royall. Sit down, won't you?" I gestured toward one of the upholstered guest chairs, and sat down in the other one myself, so we wouldn't have the desk between us. "Have a good trip across?" I asked.

"Fine. Except, of course, for the noise."

"Noise?" I knew he'd come over in one of the Transatlantic Airways' new inertia-drive ships, and they're supposed to be fairly quiet.

His smile broadened a trifle. "Exactly. There wasn't any. I'm rather used to the vibration of jets, and these new jobs float along at a hundred thousand feet in the deadest silence you ever heard—if you'll pardon the oxymoron. Everybody chattered like a flight of starlings, just to keep the air full of sound."

I chuckled. "Maybe they'll put vibrators on them, just to make the people feel comfortable. I read that the men in the moon ships complain about the same thing."

"So I've heard. But, actually, the silence is a minor thing when one realizes the time one saves. When one is looking forward to something interesting, traveling can be deadly dull."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Slow up, son," I told him, "you've already made your pitch and been accepted. You'll get your fifty, so don't push it. Want to come down here 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 that we'd kicked back and forth ever since he had met Mary Ellen, two years before.

"Sure thing. See you in a couple of hours. Bye, Dad." He cut off, and I 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 Department of New Scotland Yard has become interested in this experiment of yours, 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 are plenty 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 own knowledge of the background straight, so to speak. Now, as I understand it, the courts have agreed—temporarily, at least—that any person convicted of certain types of crimes must undergo a psychiatric examination before sentencing. Right?"

"That's right."

"Then, depending on the result of that examination, the magistrate of the court may sentence the offender to undertake psychiatric therapy instead of sending him to a penal institution, such time in therapy not to exceed the maximum time of imprisonment originally provided for the offense under the law.

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

"Perfectly."

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

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

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

"A little over a year since the first case. But I think the record will 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 tame zanies 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 over again 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 wait some more until they commit their next crime, so that we can catch them 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't it? You know they're going to fall again; you know that they're going to rob, or hurt, or kill someone. But there's nothing you can do about it. You're helpless. No police force has enough men to enable a cop to be assigned to every known repeater and follow him night and day.

"In this state, if a man is convicted of a felony for a fourth time, a life sentence is mandatory. But that means that at least four victims have to be sacrificed before the