Never-Fail Blake

  V (a)

  When Never-Fail Blake alighted from his sleeper in Montreal he foundone of Teal's men awaiting him at Bonaventure Station. There had beena 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 ticketfor Winnipeg, that he was not in Montreal, and that, beyond the railwayticket, they had no trace of him.

  Blake, at this news, had a moment when he saw red. He felt, duringthat moment, like a drum-major who had "muffed" his baton on parade.Then recovering himself, he promptly confirmed the Teal operative'sreport by telephone, accepted its confirmation as authentic, consulteda timetable, and made a dash for Windsor Station. There he caught theWinnipeg express, took possession of a stateroom and indited carefullyworded telegrams to Trimble in Vancouver, that all out-going Pacificsteamers should be watched, and to Menzler in Chicago, that theAmerican city might be covered in case of Binhart's doubling southwardon him. Still another telegram he sent to New York, requesting thePolice 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, whenhe had visited certain offices and interviewed certain officials, whenhe had sought out two or three women acquaintances in the city'ssequestered area, he faced the bewildering discovery that he was stillwithout an actual clue of the man he was supposed to be shadowing.

  It was then that something deep within his nature, something he couldnever quite define, whispered its first faint doubt to him. This doubtpersisted even when late that night a Teal Agency operative wired himfrom Calgary, stating that a man answering Binhart's description hadjust left the Alberta Hotel for Banff. To this latter point Blakepromptly wired a fuller description of his man, had an officer postedto inspect every alighting passenger, and early the next morningreceived a telegram, asking for still more particulars.

  He peered down at this message, vaguely depressed in spirit, discardingtheory after theory, tossing aside contingency after contingency. Andup from this gloomy shower slowly emerged one of his "hunches," one ofhis vague impressions, coming blindly to the surface very much like anearthworm crawling forth after a fall of rain. There was somethingwrong. 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; itwould 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 wasthere. It was an instinctive propulsion, a "hunch." These huncheswere to him, working in the dark as he was compelled to, very much whatwhiskers 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 trainfor Minneapolis, transferred to a Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paulexpress, and without loss of time sped southward. When, thirty hourslater, he alighted in the heart of Chicago, he found himself in anenvironment more to his liking, more adaptable to his ends. He was notdisheartened by his failure. He did not believe in luck, in miracles,or even in coincidence. But experience had taught him the bewilderingextent of the resources which he might command. So intricate and sowide-reaching were the secret wires of his information that he knew hecould wait, like a spider at the center of its web, until the betrayingvibration awakened some far-reaching thread of that web. In everycorner of the country lurked a non-professional ally, a secludedtipster, ready to report to Blake when the call for a report came. Theworld, that great detective had found, was indeed a small one. Fromits scattered four corners, into which his subterranean wires ofespionage stretched, would in time come some inkling, some hint, somediscovery. And at the converging center of those wires Blake was ableto sit and wait, like the central operator at a telephone switchboard,knowing that the tentacles of attention were creeping and waveringabout dim territories and that in time they would render up theirawaited word.

  In the meantime, Blake himself was by no means idle. It would not befrom official circles, he knew, that his redemption would come. Timehad already proved that. For months past every police chief in thecountry had held his description of Binhart. That was a fact whichBinhart himself very well knew; and knowing that, he would continue tomove as he had been moving, with the utmost secrecy, or at leastprotected by some adequate disguise.

  It would be from the underworld that the echo would come. And next toNew York, Blake knew, Chicago would make as good a central exchange forthis underworld as could be desired. Knowing that city of the MiddleWest, and knowing it well, he at once "went down the line," making hisrounds stolidly and systematically, first visiting a West Sidefaro-room and casually interviewing the "stools" of Custom House Placeand South dark Street, and then dropping in at the Cafe Acropolis, inHalsted Street, and lodging houses in even less savory quarters. Heduly canvassed every likely dive, every "melina," every gambling houseand yegg hang out. He engaged in leisurely games of pool withstone-getters and gopher men. He visited bucket-shops and barrooms,and dingy little Ghetto cafes. He "buzzed" tipsters and floaters andmouthpieces. He fraternized with till tappers and single-drillers. Healways made his inquiries after Binhart seem accidental, a caseapparently subsidiary to two or three others which he kept always tothe foreground.

  He did not despair over the discovery that no one seemed to know ofBinhart or his movements. He merely waited his time, and extended newramifications into newer territory. His word still carried its weightof official authority. There was still an army of obsequiousunderlings compelled to respect his wishes. It was merely a matter oftime and mathematics. Then the law of averages would ordain its end;the needed card would ultimately be turned up, the right dial-twistwould 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 metBinhart, two weeks before, in the cafe of the Brown Palace in Denver.He was traveling under the name of Bannerman, wore his hair in apomadour, and had grown a beard.

  Blake took the first train out of Chicago for Denver. In this lattercity an Elks' Convention was supplying blue-bird weather forunderground "haymakers," busy with bunco-steering, "rushing"street-cars and "lifting leathers." Before the stampede at the news ofhis approach, he picked up Biff Edwards and Lefty Stivers, put on thescrews, and learned nothing. He went next to Glory McShane, a MarketStreet 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, newspaperstories were seldom written. This work involved a laborious andmonotonous examination of hotel registers, a canvassing of ticketagencies and cab stands and transfer companies. It was anything butstory-book sleuthing. It was a dispiriting tread-mill round, but hewas still sifting doggedly through the tailings of possibilities when acode-wire came from St. Louis, saying Binhart had been seen the daybefore at the Planters' Hotel.

  Blake was eastbound on his way to St. Louis one hour after the receiptof this wire. And an hour after his arrival in St. Louis he wasengaged in an apparently care free and leisurely game of pool with oneLoony Ryan, an old-time "box man" who was allowed to roam with aclipped wing in the form of a suspended indictment. Loony, for theliberty thus doled out to him, rewarded his benefactors by anoccasional 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 tochalk his cue. But his eye, with one quick sweep, had made sure ofevery face in the room.

  Loony studied the balls for a second or two
. Wolf was a "dip" with aninternational record.

  "Last time I saw Wolf he was out at 'Frisco, workin' the Beaches," wasLoony's reply.

  Blake ventured an inquiry or two about other worthies of theunderworld. 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 toplace 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 hewas n't travelin' wit' any moll that Hep spoke of."

  Blake made his shot, chalked his cue again, and glanced down at hiswatch. His eyes were on the green baize, but his thoughts wereelsewhere.

  "I got 'o leave you, Loony," he announced as he put his cue back in therack. He spoke slowly and calmly. But Loony's quick gaze circled theroom, 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 meforget an appointment o' mine!"

  Twenty minutes after he had left the bewildered Loony Ryan in the poolparlor he was in a New Orleans sleeper, southward bound. He knew thathe was getting within striking distance of Binhart, at last. The zestof 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 notmore than a day behind his man.