“There’s just the trouble,” said the inspector quickly.  “It wasn’t a good beginning.  This is one of those peculiar cases of outlawry for which the law itself is largely responsible, and I don’t know of any one I would say this to but you.  The father was hanged, as I have said.  Six months later it was discovered, beyond a doubt, that the law had taken the life of an innocent man, and that DeBar had been sent to the gallows by a combination of evidence fabricated entirely by the perjury of enemies.  The law should have vindicated itself.  But it didn’t.  Two of those who had plotted against DeBar were arrested, tried—­and acquitted, a fact which goes to prove the statement of a certain great man that half of the time law is not justice.  There is no need of going into greater detail about the trials and the plled the three men chiefly instrumental in sending their father to his death, and fled into the North.”

“Good!” exclaimed Philip.

The word shot from him before he had thought.  At first he flushed, then sat bolt upright and smiled frankly into the inspector’s face as he watched the effect of his indiscretion.

“So many people thought at the time,” said MacGregor, eying him with curious sharpness.  “Especially the women.  For that reason the first three who were caught were merely convicted of manslaughter instead of murder.  They served their sentences, were given two years each for good behavior, and are somewhere in South America.  The fourth killed himself when he was taken near Moose Factory, and the other three went what the law calls ‘bad.’  Henry, the oldest of them all, killed the officer who was bringing him down from Prince Albert in ’99, and was afterward executed.  Paul, the sixth, returned to his native town seven years after the hanging of his father and was captured after wounding two of the officers who went in pursuit of him.  He is now in an insane asylum.”

The inspector paused, and ran his eyes over a fresh slip of paper.

“And all this,” said Philip in a low voice, “because of a crime committed by the law itself.  Five men hung, one a suicide, three in prison and one in an insane asylum—­because of a blunder of the law!”

“The king can do no wrong,” said MacGregor with gentle irony, “and neither can the law.  Remember that, Philip, as long as you are in the service.  The law may break up homes, ruin states, set itself a Nemesis on innocent men’s heels—­but it can do no wrong.  It is the Juggernaut before which we all must bow our heads, even you and I, and when by any chance it makes a mistake, it is still law, and unassailable.  It is the greatest weapon of the clever and the rich, so it bears a moral.  Be clever, or be rich.”

“And William DeBar, the seventh brother—­” began Philip.