To the single sheet of paper was fastened a thick, soft curl of dark red hair. Under the curl, in a rounded but girlish handwriting, were four words: "Help me, dear Chris!"
CHAPTER VIII
A GREAT OCCASION APPROACHES AND THE VILLAIN ENTERS
This piece of information was very carefully guarded from the newspapers. Nothing of the Arm of Justice had as yet leaked out. But the fight in the Park was another matter; people linked it with the sinister automobile, and it broke out in headlines everywhere. Herrick began to find himself the most widely advertised man in New York; his battle-scarred appearance was but too apt to proclaim his identity and he did not know whether he most objected to being considered a hero who had slain four ruffians with one hand or a presumptuous nine-pin always being bowled over and having to be rescued by the police! There was a good deal of pain below his elbow, where the blackjack had temporarily paralyzed certain muscles, so that for another day or so his arm hung helpless at his side; he could almost have wished it a more dangerous wound! Curious or jeering friends made his life a burden; Christina called him up over the long distance 'phone and swore him not to leave the house without his revolver; Marion telegraphed him entreaties to come home, and his own mind seethed in a turmoil of question and of horrible fancy to which the young figure of Nancy Cornish was the unhappy center. Nor could Mrs. Hope be called a comforting companion. "Besides, Mr. Herrick,—Bryce—were they trying to kidnap you, too? And if so, wouldn't you think they had enough on their hands already? Or did they mean to murder you, really? And if so, why? Why? And, oh, Mr. Bryce, just think how uncontrollable Christina is—and who will it be next?" Often as Herrick had asked himself these and many other questions, they could not lose their interest for him. His mind spun round in them like a squirrel which finds no opening to its cage.
Notoriety, however, sometimes brings strange fish in its net. And when Mrs. Grubey stopped Herrick on the street to applaud his prowess as a pugilist, within the loose-woven mesh of her wonder and concern he seemed to catch a singular gleam, significant of he knew not what.
For Mrs. Grubey, in celebrating the hero which Herrick had become to her Johnnie, did hope that he would see the boy, sometime, and use his influence against his being such a little liar.—"You remember that queer toy pistol, Mr. Herrick, that he said he borrowed off a boy friend?"
"A. A. A., Algebra, Astronomy and Art-Drawing! It had no connection with them?"
"Why, it never come from a school at all!"
"I misdoubted it! Art-Drawing was rather elaborate than convincing."