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!"




IV

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