Never-Fail Blake

  IV

  The unpretentious, brownstone-fronted home of Deputy Copeland wasvisited, late that night, by a woman. She was dressed in black, andheavily veiled. She walked with the stoop of a sorrowful andmiddle-aged widow.

  She came in a taxicab, which she dismissed at the corner. From thehouse steps she looked first eastward and then westward, as though tomake sure she was not being followed. Then she rang the bell.

  She gave no name; yet she was at once admitted. Her visit, in fact,seemed to be expected, for without hesitation she was ushered upstairsand into the library of the First Deputy.

  He was waiting for her in a room more intimate, more personal, morecompanionably crowded than his office, for the simple reason that itwas not a room of his own fashioning. He stood in the midst of itswarm hangings, in fact, as cold and neutral as the marble Diana behindhim. He did not even show, as he closed the door and motioned hisvisitor into a chair, that he had been waiting for her.

  The woman, still standing, looked carefully about the room, from sideto side, saw that they were alone, made note of the two closed doors,and then with a sigh lifted her black gloved hands and began to removethe widow's cap from her head. She sighed again as she tossed theblack crepe on the dark-wooded table beside her. As she sank into thechair the light from the electrolier fell on her shoulders and on thecarefully coiled and banded hair, so laboriously built up into a crownthat glinted nut-brown above the pale face she turned to the manwatching her.

  "Well?" she said. And from under her level brows she stared atCopeland, serene in her consciousness of power. It was plain that sheneither liked him nor disliked him. It was equally plain that he, too,had his ends remote from her and her being.

  "You saw Blake again?" he half asked, half challenged.

  "No," she answered.

  "Why?"

  "I was afraid to."

  "Did n't I tell you we 'd take care of your end?"

  "I 've had promises like that before. They were n't always remembered."

  "But our office never made you that promise before, Miss Verriner."

  The woman let her eyes rest on his impassive face.

  "That's true, I admit. But I must also admit I know Jim Blake. We 'dbetter not come together again, Blake and me, after this week."

  She was pulling off her gloves as she spoke. She suddenly threw themdown on the table. "There 's just one thing I want to know, and knowfor certain. I want to know if this is a plant to shoot Blake up?"

  The First Deputy smiled. It was not altogether at the mere calmnesswith which she could suggest such an atrocity.

  "Hardly," he said.

  "Then what is it?" she demanded.

  He was both patient and painstaking with her. His tone was almostpaternal in its placativeness.

  "It's merely a phase of departmental business," he answered her. "Andwe 're anxious to see Blake round up Connie Binhart."

  "That's not true," she answered with neither heat nor resentment, "oryou would never have started him off on this blind lead. You 'd neverhave had me go to him with that King Edward note and had it work out tofit a street in Montreal. You 've got a wooden decoy up there inCanada, and when Blake gets there he 'll be told his man slipped awaythe day before. Then another decoy will bob up, and Blake will goafter that. And when you 've fooled him two or three times he 'll sailback to New York and break me for giving him a false tip."

  "Did you give it to him?"

  "No, he hammered it out of me. But you knew he was going to do that.That was part of the plant."

  She sat studying her thin white hands for several seconds. Then shelooked up at the calm-eyed Copeland.

  "How are you going to protect me, if Blake comes back? How are yougoing to keep your promise?"

  The First Deputy sat back in his chair and crossed his thin legs.

  "Blake will not come back," he announced. She slewed suddenly round onhim again.

  "Then it _is_ a plant!" she proclaimed.

  "You misunderstand me, Miss Verriner. Blake will not come back as anofficial. There will be changes in the Department, I imagine; changesfor the better which even he and his Tammany Hall friends can't stop,by the time he gets back with Binhart."

  The woman gave a little hand gesture of impatience.

  "But don't you see," she protested, "supposing he gives up Binhart?Supposing he suspects something and hurries back to hold down hisplace?"

  "They call him Never-Fail Blake," commented the unmoved and dry-lippedofficial. He met her wide stare with his gently satiric smile.

  "I see," she finally said, "you 're not going to shoot him up. You 'remerely going to wipe him out."

  "You are quite wrong there," began the man across the table from her."Administration changes may happen, and in--"

  "In other words, you 're getting Jim Blake out of the way, off on thisBinhart trail, while you work him out of the Department."

  "No competent officer is ever worked out of this Department," parriedthe First Deputy.

  She sat for a silent and studious moment or two, without looking atCopeland. Then she sighed, with mock plaintiveness. Her wistfulnessseemed to leave her doubly dangerous.

  "Mr. Copeland, are n't you afraid some one might find it worth while totip Blake off?" she softly inquired.

  "What would you gain?" was his pointed and elliptical interrogation.

  She leaned forward in the fulcrum of light, and looked at him soberly.

  "What is your idea of me?" she asked.

  He looked back at the thick-lashed eyes with their iris rings of deepgray. There was something alert and yet unparticipating in theirsteady gaze. They held no trace of abashment. They were no longerveiled. There was even something disconcerting in their lucid andlevel stare.

  "I think you are a very intelligent woman," Copeland finally confessed.

  "I think I am, too," she retorted. "Although I have n't used thatintelligence in the right way. Don't smile! I 'm not going to turnmawkish. I 'm not good. I don't know whether I want to be. But Iknow one thing: I 've got to keep busy--I 've got to be active. I 've_got_ to be!"

  "And?" prompted the First Deputy, as she came to a stop.

  "We all know, now, exactly where we 're at. We all know what we want,each one of us. We know what Blake wants. We know what you want. AndI want something more than I 'm getting, just as you want somethingmore than writing reports and rounding up push-cart peddlers. I wantmy end, as much as you want yours."

  "And?" again prompted the First Deputy.

  "I 've got to the end of my ropes; and I want to swing around. It's noreform bee, mind! It's not what other women like me think it is. ButI can't go on. It doesn't lead to anything. It does n't pay. I wantto be safe. I 've _got_ to be safe!"

  He looked up suddenly, as though a new truth had just struck home withhim. For the first time, all that evening, his face was ingenuous.

  "I know what's behind me," went on the woman. "There 's no use diggingthat up. And there 's no use digging up excuses for it. But there_are_ excuses--good excuses, or I 'd never have gone through what Ihave, because I feel I was n't made for it. I 'm too big a coward toface what it leads to. I can look ahead and see through things. I canunderstand too easily." She came to a stop, and sat back, with onewhite hand on either arm of the chair. "And I 'm afraid to go on. Iwant to begin over. And I want to begin on the right side!"

  He sat pondering just how much of this he could believe. But shedisregarded his veiled impassivity.

  "I want you to take Picture 3,970 out of the Identification Bureau, thepicture and the Bertillon measurements. And then I want you to give methe chance I asked for."

  "But that does not rest with me, Miss Verriner!"

  "It will rest with you. I could n't stool with my own people here.But Wilkie knows my value. He knows what I can do for the service if I'm on their side. He could let me begin with the Ellis Islandspotting. I could stop that Stockholm white-slave wor
k in two months.And when you see Wilkie to-morrow you can swing me one way or theother!"

  Copeland, with his chin on his bony breast, looked up to smile into herintent and staring eyes.

  "You are a very clever woman," he said. "And what is more, you know agreat deal!"

  "I know a great deal!" she slowly repeated, and her steady gazesucceeded in taking the ironic smile out of the corners of his eyes.

  "Your knowledge," he said with a deliberation equal to her own, "willprove of great value to you--as an agent with Wilkie."

  "That's as you say!" she quietly amended as she rose to her feet.There was no actual threat in her words, just as there was no actualmockery in his. But each was keenly conscious of the wheels thatrevolved within wheels, of the intricacies through which each wasthreading a way to certain remote ends. She picked up her black glovesfrom the desk top. She stood there, waiting.

  "You can count on me," he finally said, as he rose from his chair. "I'll attend to the picture. And I 'll say the right thing to Wilkie!"

  "Then let's shake hands on it!" she quietly concluded. And as theyshook hands her gray-irised eyes gazed intently and interrogativelyinto his.