His right-hand man is leaving New York for a job as a university spokesman. His top commanders are retiring. The mayor who appointed him police commissioner is nearing the end of his third and final term, and his replacement may want a fresh face.

He is 71 years old and has missed most of the campaign deadlines to run for public office, leaving his own mayoral hopes unrealized. So the question hanging over Raymond W. Kelly, the commissioner, is this: What comes next for the man whose run as leader of the New York Police Department has made him a nationally recognized figure?

Guessing Mr. Kelly’s next move has never been easy. But for a man who keeps his own counsel and rarely seems unsure of himself, he seems somewhat ambivalent about what might lie ahead.

Mr. Kelly’s wife, Veronica, is said to be eagerly awaiting her husband’s departure from the long hours and endless demands of the commissioner’s job, which Mr. Kelly has held under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg since 2002.