Prisoner's Base

Some chauffeurs of PD cars like to have an excuse to step on it, and some don't. That one did. He didn't use much noise, but plenty of gas, and when he was in the fourth grade a maladjusted schoolteacher had made him write five hundred times, "A miss is as good as a mile," and it sank in. I should have clocked us from 230 West Twentieth Street to 240 Centre Street. As I got out I told him he should have an insurance vending machine, like those at airports, installed on his dash, and he grinned sociably. "Impressed you, did it, bud?"

It did, at that, but not as much as the assortment I found waiting for me in the spacious and well-furnished office of Police Commissioner Skinner. Besides Skinner and District Attorney Bowen, there were two deputy commissioners, Cramer and another inspector, a deputy inspector, a captain, and Sergeant Purley Stebbins-and they were certainly waiting for me, from the way all faces turned and stayed turned as I entered and advanced.

Skinner told me to sit, and they had a chair waiting too. He asked Bowen, "You want to take it, Ed?"

"No, go ahead," the DA told him.

Skinner eyed me. "I guess you know as much about where we stand as I do."

I lifted my shoulders and let them down. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm flat on my back."

He nodded. "We all are, not for quotation. Most of us gave up our weekends, but we might as well not have. During the last forty hours we've had more men on this case than any other in my time, and I can't see that we've gained an inch, and the others agree with me. It is an extremely bad situation, it couldn't be worse, and something has to be done. We've been discussing it here at length, and various proposals have been made and some adopted, and one of them concerns you. We want your help on it."

"I've been trying to help."