"Arrested's an exaggeration."
"I should be shadowed, then?"
"Well, my dear fellow, there've been so many disappearances! And you're so near the storm-center—you make such a sensitive barometer!"
Herrick dropped on to the couch as a mouse might give itself up to a cat and leaned forward, frowning, motionless.
"It's a great game, this, of 'Vanishing Lady'! But I don't mind telling you that it's the Italian background to the vanishings that interests us. An obscure young girl—but a great friend of Christina Hope's—is the first to vanish. She sends an appeal for aid to Christina Hope, through the Arm of Justice.
"A publisher—betrothed to Christina Hope—receives blackmailing letters from the Arm of Justice, and is murdered.
"A young author—also betrothed to Christina Hope—is attacked. But, as a victim, proves a failure.
"An actor—also—well, also an old friend of Christina Hope, and said to have been recently in love with the vanished Nancy Cornish is arrested for Ingham's murder. And what happens? S-s-z-boum! A cluster of respectable and comfortable persons scatter for the ends of the earth. While, ahead of them all, pop goes the beauty! In a white and silver dress. So she didn't go farther than the embrace held wide open to receive her."
"You mean, of course, the Arm of Justice?"
"Of course."