"Not for that ?" He had formed for himself an ideal conception of the metropolitan police as a sort of benevolent institution for the suppression of evil.

The notion of benevolence especially was very closely associated with his sense of the power of the men in blue.

He had liked all police constables tenderly, with a guileless trustfulness.

And he was pained.

He was irritated, too, by a suspicion of duplicity in the members of the force.
For Stevie was frank and as open as the day himself.