“You see, kid,” Sanc continued, “those people are excited and frightened. You have to think for them and for yourself, too. When I told them they might get us tomorrow I gave them another out; they say to themselves, ‘Why, of course the police will get them. How foolish of us to endanger ourselves and family over a few things that are insured and will be recovered in the pawnshops when the burglars are arrested.’

“Then I send them to the phone, and we depart.”

I listened, spellbound. “You did something to your voice. I hardly recognized it.”