It was not until the advent of Copeland, the new First Deputy, that Blake
began to suspect his own position. Copeland was an out-and-out “office”
man, anything but a “flat foot.” Weak looking and pallid, with the
sedentary air of a junior desk clerk, vibratingly restless with no actual
promise of being penetrating, he was of that indeterminate type which
never seems to acquire a personality of its own. The small and bony and
steel-blue face was as neutral as the spare and reticent figure that sat
before a bald table in a bald room as inexpressive and reticent as its
occupant. Copeland was not only unknown outside the Department; he was,
in a way, unknown in his own official circles.
And then Blake woke up to the fact that some one on the inside was
working against him, was blocking his moves, was actually using him as a
“blind.” While he was given the “cold” trails, younger men went out on
the “hot” ones. There were times when the Second Deputy suspected that
his enemy was Copeland. Not that he could be sure of this, for Copeland
himself gave no inkling of his attitude. He gave no inkling of anything,
in fact, personal or impersonal. But more and more Blake was given the
talking parts, the rôle of spokesman to the press. He was more and more
posted in the background, like artillery, to intimidate with his remote
thunder and cover the advance of more agile columns. He was encouraged to
tell the public what he knew, but he was not allowed to know too much.
And, ironically enough, he bitterly resented this rôle of “mouthpiece”
for the Department.
“You call yourself a gun!” a patrolman who had been shaken down for
insubordination broke out at him. “A gun! why, you’re only a _park_ gun!
That’s all you are, a broken-down bluff, an ornamental has-been, a park
gun for kids to play ’round!”
Blake raged at that, impotently, pathetically, like an old lion with its
teeth drawn. He prowled moodily around, looking for an enemy on whom to
vent his anger. But he could find no tangible force that opposed him. He
could see nothing on which to centralize his activity. Yet something or
somebody was working against him. To fight that opposition was like
fighting a fog. It was as bad as trying to shoulder back a shadow.
He had his own “spots” and “finders” on the force. When he had been
tipped off that the powers above were about to send him out on the
Binhart case, he passed the word along to his underlings, without loss of
time, for he felt that he was about to be put on trial, that they were
making the Binhart capture a test case. And he had rejoiced mightily when
his dragnet had brought up the unexpected tip that Elsie Verriner had
been in recent communication with Binhart, and with pressure from the
right quarter could be made to talk.
This tip had been a secret one. Blake, on his part, kept it well muffled,
for he intended that his capture of Binhart should be not only a personal
triumph for the Second Deputy, but a vindication of that Second Deputy’s
methods.
So when the Commissioner called him and Copeland into conference, the day
after his talk with Elsie Verriner, Blake prided himself on being
secretly prepared for any advances that might be made.
It was the Commissioner who did the talking. Copeland, as usual, lapsed
into the background, cracking his dry knuckles and blinking his pale-blue
eyes about the room as the voices of the two larger men boomed back and
forth.
“We’ve been going over this Binhart case,” began the Commissioner. “It’s
seven months now—and nothing done!”
Blake looked sideways at Copeland. There was muffled and meditative
belligerency in the look. There was also gratification, for it was the
move he had been expecting.
“I always said McCooey wasn’t the man to go out on that case,” said the
Second Deputy, still watching Copeland.
“Then who _is_ the man?” asked the Commissioner.
Blake took out a cigar, bit the end off, and struck a match. It was out
of place; but it was a sign of his independence. He had long since given
up plug and fine-cut and taken to fat Havanas, which he smoked audibly,
in plethoric wheezes. Good living had left his body stout and his
breathing slightly asthmatic. He sat looking down at his massive knees;
his oblique study of Copeland, apparently, had yielded him scant
satisfaction. Copeland, in fact, was making paper fans out of the
official note-paper in front of him.
“What’s the matter with Washington and Wilkie?” inquired Blake,
attentively regarding his cigar.
“They’re just where we are—at a standstill,” acknowledged the
Commissioner.
“And that’s where we’ll stay!” heavily contended the Second Deputy.
The entire situation was an insidiously flattering one to Blake. Every
one else had failed. They were compelled to come to him, their final
resource.
“Why?” demanded his superior.
“Because we haven’t got a man who can turn the trick! We haven’t got a
man who can go out and round up Binhart inside o’ seven years!”
“Then what is your suggestion?” It was Copeland who spoke, mild and
hesitating.
“D’ you want my suggestion?” demanded Blake, warm with the wine-like
knowledge which, he knew, made him master of the situation.
“Of course,” was the Commissioner’s curt response.
“Well, you’ve got to have a man who knows Binhart, who knows him and his
tricks and his hang outs!”
“Well, who does?”
“I do,” declared Blake.
The Commissioner indulged in his wintry smile.
“You mean if you weren’t tied down to your Second Deputy’s chair you
could go out and get him!”
“I could!”
“Within a reasonable length of time?”
“I don’t know about the time! But I could get him, all right.”
“If you were still on the outside work?” interposed Copeland.
“I certainly wouldn’t expect to dig him out o’ my stamp drawer,” was
Blake’s heavily facetious retort.
Copeland and the Commissioner looked at each other, for one fraction of a
second.
“You know what my feeling is,” resumed the latter, “on this Binhart
case.”
“I know what _my_ feeling is,” declared Blake.
“What?”
“That the right method would’ve got him six months ago, without all this
monkey work!”
“Then why not end the monkey work, as you call it?”
“How?”
“By doing what you say you can do!” was the Commissioner’s retort.
“How’m I going to hold down a chair and hunt a crook at the same time?”
“Then why hold down the chair? Let the chair take care of itself. It
could be arranged, you know.”
Blake had the stage-juggler’s satisfaction of seeing things fall into his
hands exactly as he had manœuvered they should. His reluctance was merely
a dissimulation, a stage wait for heightened dramatic effect.
“How’d you do the arranging?” he calmly inquired.
“I could see the Mayor in the morning. There will be no Departmental
difficulty.”
“Then where’s the trouble?”
“There is none, if you are willing to go out.”
“Well, we can’t get Binhart here by pink-tea invitations. Somebody’s got
to go out and _get_ him!”
“The bank raised the reward to eight thousand this week,” interposed the
ruminative Copeland.
“Well, it’ll take money to get him,” snapped back the Second Deputy,
remembering that he had a nest of his own to feather.
“It will be worth what it costs,” admitted the Commissioner.
“Of course,” said Copeland, “they’ll have to honor your drafts—in
reason.”
“There will be no difficulty on the expense side,” quietly interposed the
Commissioner. “The city wants Binhart. The whole country wants Binhart.
And they will be willing to pay for it.”
Blake rose heavily to his feet. His massive bulk was momentarily stirred
by the prospect of the task before him. For one brief moment the
anticipation of that clamor of approval which would soon be his stirred
his lethargic pulse. Then his cynic calmness again came back to him.
“Then what’re we beefing about?” he demanded. “You want Binhart and I’ll
get him for you.”
The Commissioner, tapping the top of his desk with his gold-banded
fountain pen, smiled. It was almost a smile of indulgence.
“You _know_ you will get him?” he inquired.
The inquiry seemed to anger Blake. He was still dimly conscious of the
operation of forces which he could not fathom. There were things, vague
and insubstantial, which he could not understand. But he nursed to his
heavy-breathing bosom the consciousness that he himself was not without
his own undivulged powers, his own private tricks, his own inner
reserves.
“I say I’ll get him!” he calmly proclaimed. “And I guess that ought to be
enough!”