The Shadow (Stringer)/Chapter 3
III
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 was n'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 have n'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 were n'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 would n'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!"