When Never-Fail Blake alighted from his sleeper in Montreal he found
one of Teal's men awaiting him at Bonaventure Station. There had been
a hitch or a leak somewhere, this man reported. Binhart, in some way,
had slipped through their fingers.
All they knew was that the man they were tailing had bought a ticket
for Winnipeg, that he was not in Montreal, and that, beyond the railway
ticket, they had no trace of him.
Blake, at this news, had a moment when he saw red. He felt, during
that moment, like a drum-major who had "muffed" his baton on parade.
Then recovering himself, he promptly confirmed the Teal operative's
report by telephone, accepted its confirmation as authentic, consulted
a timetable, and made a dash for Windsor Station. There he caught the
Winnipeg express, took possession of a stateroom and indited carefully
worded telegrams to Trimble in Vancouver, that all out-going Pacific
steamers should be watched, and to Menzler in Chicago, that the
American city might be covered in case of Binhart's doubling southward
on him. Still another telegram he sent to New York, requesting the
Police Department to send on to him at once a photograph of Binhart.
In Winnipeg, two days later, Blake found himself on a blind trail.
When he had talked with a railway detective on whom he could rely, when
he had visited certain offices and interviewed certain officials, when
he had sought out two or three women acquaintances in the city's
sequestered area, he faced the bewildering discovery that he was still
without an actual clue of the man he was supposed to be shadowing.
It was then that something deep within his nature, something he could
never quite define, whispered its first faint doubt to him. This doubt
persisted even when late that night a Teal Agency operative wired him
from Calgary, stating that a man answering Binhart's description had
just left the Alberta Hotel for Banff. To this latter point Blake
promptly wired a fuller description of his man, had an officer posted
to inspect every alighting passenger, and early the next morning
received a telegram, asking for still more particulars.
He peered down at this message, vaguely depressed in spirit, discarding
theory after theory, tossing aside contingency after contingency. And
up from this gloomy shower slowly emerged one of his "hunches," one of
his vague impressions, coming blindly to the surface very much like an
earthworm crawling forth after a fall of rain. There was something
wrong. Of that he felt certain. He could not place it or define it.
To continue westward would be to depend too much on an uncertainty; it
would involve the risk of wandering too far from the center of things.
He suddenly decided to double on his tracks and swing down to Chicago.
Just why he felt as he did he could not fathom. But the feeling was
there. It was an instinctive propulsion, a "hunch." These hunches
were to him, working in the dark as he was compelled to, very much what
whiskers are to a cat. They could not be called an infallible guide.
But they at least kept him from colliding with impregnabilities.
Acting on this hunch, as he called it, he caught a Great Northern train
for Minneapolis, transferred to a Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul
express, and without loss of time sped southward. When, thirty hours
later, he alighted in the heart of Chicago, he found himself in an
environment more to his liking, more adaptable to his ends. He was not
disheartened by his failure. He did not believe in luck, in miracles,
or even in coincidence. But experience had taught him the bewildering
extent of the resources which he might command. So intricate and so
wide-reaching were the secret wires of his information that he knew he
could wait, like a spider at the center of its web, until the betraying
vibration awakened some far-reaching thread of that web. In every
corner of the country lurked a non-professional ally, a secluded
tipster, ready to report to Blake when the call for a report came. The
world, that great detective had found, was indeed a small one. From
its scattered four corners, into which his subterranean wires of
espionage stretched, would in time come some inkling, some hint, some
discovery. And at the converging center of those wires Blake was able
to sit and wait, like the central operator at a telephone switchboard,
knowing that the tentacles of attention were creeping and wavering
about dim territories and that in time they would render up their
awaited word.
In the meantime, Blake himself was by no means idle. It would not be
from official circles, he knew, that his redemption would come. Time
had already proved that. For months past every police chief in the
country had held his description of Binhart. That was a fact which
Binhart himself very well knew; and knowing that, he would continue to
move as he had been moving, with the utmost secrecy, or at least
protected by some adequate disguise.
It would be from the underworld that the echo would come. And next to
New York, Blake knew, Chicago would make as good a central exchange for
this underworld as could be desired. Knowing that city of the Middle
West, and knowing it well, he at once "went down the line," making his
rounds stolidly and systematically, first visiting a West Side
faro-room and casually interviewing the "stools" of Custom House Place
and South dark Street, and then dropping in at the Café Acropolis, in
Halsted Street, and lodging houses in even less savory quarters. He
duly canvassed every likely dive, every "melina," every gambling house
and yegg hang out. He engaged in leisurely games of pool with
stone-getters and gopher men. He visited bucket-shops and barrooms,
and dingy little Ghetto cafés. He "buzzed" tipsters and floaters and
mouthpieces. He fraternized with till tappers and single-drillers. He
always made his inquiries after Binhart seem accidental, a case
apparently subsidiary to two or three others which he kept always to
the foreground.
He did not despair over the discovery that no one seemed to know of
Binhart or his movements. He merely waited his time, and extended new
ramifications into newer territory. His word still carried its weight
of official authority. There was still an army of obsequious
underlings compelled to respect his wishes. It was merely a matter of
time and mathematics. Then the law of averages would ordain its end;
the needed card would ultimately be turned up, the right dial-twist
would at last complete the right combination.
The first faint glimmer of life, in all those seemingly dead wires,
came from a gambler named Mattie Sherwin, who reported that he had met
Binhart, two weeks before, in the café of the Brown Palace in Denver.
He was traveling under the name of Bannerman, wore his hair in a
pomadour, and had grown a beard.
Blake took the first train out of Chicago for Denver. In this latter
city an Elks' Convention was supplying blue-bird weather for
underground "haymakers," busy with bunco-steering, "rushing"
street-cars and "lifting leathers." Before the stampede at the news of
his approach, he picked up Biff Edwards and Lefty Stivers, put on the
screws, and learned nothing. He went next to Glory McShane, a Market
Street acquaintance indebted for certain old favors, and from her, too,
learned nothing of moment. He continued the quest in other quarters,
and the results were equally discouraging.
Then began the real detective work about which, Blake knew, newspaper
stories were seldom written. This work involved a laborious and
monotonous examination of hotel registers, a canvassing of ticket
agencies and cab stands and transfer companies. It was anything but
story-book sleuthing. It was a dispiriting tread-mill round, but he
was still sifting doggedly through the tailings of possibilities when a
code-wire came from St. Louis, saying Binhart had been seen the day
before at the Planters' Hotel.
Blake was eastbound on his way to St. Louis one hour after the receipt
of this wire. And an hour after his arrival in St. Louis he was
engaged in an apparently care free and leisurely game of pool with one
Loony Ryan, an old-time "box man" who was allowed to roam with a
clipped wing in the form of a suspended indictment. Loony, for the
liberty thus doled out to him, rewarded his benefactors by an
occasional indulgence in the "pigeon-act."
"Draw for lead?" asked Blake, lighting a cigar.
"Sure," said Loony.
Blake pushed his ball to the top cushion, won the draw, and broke.
"Seen anything of Wolf Yonkholm?" he casually inquired, as he turned to
chalk his cue. But his eye, with one quick sweep, had made sure of
every face in the room.
Loony studied the balls for a second or two. Wolf was a "dip" with an
international record.
"Last time I saw Wolf he was out at 'Frisco, workin' the Beaches," was
Loony's reply.
Blake ventured an inquiry or two about other worthies of the
underworld. The players went on with their game, placid, self-immured,
matter-of-fact.
"Where's Angel McGlory these days?" asked Blake, as he reached over to
place a ball.
"What's she been doin'?" demanded Loony, with his cue on the rail.
"She 's traveling with a bank sneak named Blanchard or Binhart,"
explained Blake. "And I want her."
Loony Ryan made his stroke.
"Hep Roony saw Binhart this mornin', beatin' it for N' Orleans. But he
was n't travelin' wit' any moll that Hep spoke of."
Blake made his shot, chalked his cue again, and glanced down at his
watch. His eyes were on the green baize, but his thoughts were
elsewhere.
"I got 'o leave you, Loony," he announced as he put his cue back in the
rack. He spoke slowly and calmly. But Loony's quick gaze circled the
room, promptly checking over every face between the four walls.
"What's up?" he demanded. "Who 'd you spot?"
"Nothing, Loony, nothing! But this game o' yours blamed near made me
forget an appointment o' mine!"
Twenty minutes after he had left the bewildered Loony Ryan in the pool
parlor he was in a New Orleans sleeper, southward bound. He knew that
he was getting within striking distance of Binhart, at last. The zest
of the chase took possession of him. The trail was no longer a "cold"
one. He knew which way Binhart was headed. And he knew he was not
more than a day behind his man.