Jeffries hesitated, said, "I'm something of a Johnny-come-lately in
this line of work, you know. I'd be interested in hearing how it's
handled from here on."
"In this case it will be pretty well standard procedure," Cavender
said. "Tomorrow around noon I'll have Grady brought in to see me. I'll
be in a curt and bitter mood--the frustrated honest cop. I'll tell him
he's in luck. The D. A.'s office has informed me that because of the
important names involved in this fraud case, and because all but
around forty thousand dollars of the money he collected in this town
have been recovered, they've decided not to prosecute. He'll have till
midnight to clear out. If he ever shows up again, he gets the book."
"Why leave him the forty thousand?" Jeffries asked. "I understood they
know darn well where it's stashed."
Cavender shrugged. "The man's put in two years of work, Reuben. If we
clean him, he might get discouraged enough to get out of the racket
and try something else. As it is, he'll have something like the
Institute of Insight going again in another city three months from
now. In an area that hasn't been cropped over recently. He's good in
that line ... one of the best, in fact."
Jeffries thoughtfully started the car, pulled out from the curb.
Halfway down the block, he remarked, "You gave me the go-ahead sign
with the cigarette right after the Greenfield girl claimed she'd put
the paper napkin into that image. Does that mean you finally came to a
decision about her?"
"Uh-huh."
Jeffries glanced over at him, asked, "Is there any secret about how
you're able to spot them?"
"No ... except that I don't know. If I could describe to anyone how to
go about it, we might have our work cut in half. But I can't, and
neither can any other spotter. It's simply a long, tedious process of
staying in contact with people you have some reason to suspect of
being the genuine article. If they are, you know it eventually. But if
it weren't that men with Grady's type of personality attract them
somehow from ten miles around, we'd have no practical means at present
of screening prospects out of the general population. You can't
distinguish one of them from anyone else if he's just walking past you
on the street."
Jeffries brought the car to a halt at a stop light.
"That's about the way I'd heard it," he acknowledged. "What about
negative spotting? Is there a chance there might be an undiscovered
latent left among our recent fellow students?"
"No chance at all," Cavender said. "The process works both ways. If
they aren't, you also know it eventually--and I was sure of everyone
but Greenfield over three weeks ago. She's got as tough a set of
obscuring defenses as I've ever worked against. But after the jolt she
got tonight, she came through clear immediately."
The light changed and the car started up. Jeffries asked, "You feel
both of them can be rehabilitated?"
"Definitely," Cavender said. "Another three months of Grady's
pseudoyoga might have ruined them for good. But give them around a
year to settle out and they'll be all right. Then they'll get the
call. It's been worth the trouble. Jones is good medium grade--and
that Greenfield! She'll be a powerhouse before she's half developed.
Easily the most promising prospect I've come across in six years."
"You're just as certain about Perrie Rochelle?"
"Uh-huh. Protopsi--fairly typical. She's developed as far as she ever
will. It would be a complete waste of time to call her. You can't
train something that just isn't there."