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!”