The silver blade

About six o'clock on an evening in the early part of a recent November, the drowsy quiet sometimes pervading police headquarters was rudely broken by the precipitate entrance of a young man, who made his way hurriedly to the door marked, in neat gilt letters, "CHIEF OF POLICE."In addition to the reserve squad, whose vigil never ends, many other officers were present in the lazy transition stage between going on and going off duty. The attention of them all was immediately attracted to the stranger, and held by his extraordinary manner, from the instant he became visible in the flickering gas-lights until he finally disappeared.In the first place, he was not such a one as usually comes to the city-hall basement, either voluntarily or when haled hither by one of the law's myrmidons; for he was fashionably, even fastidiously, attired, with a marked preciosity of manner which would have been even more noticeable under ordinary conditions.But it was not over any idiosyncrasy of apparel or customary detail of personality that the aroused curiosity of the officers l