Persons Unknown

  CHAPTER VIII

  A GREAT OCCASION APPROACHES AND THE VILLAIN ENTERS

  This piece of information was very carefully guarded from thenewspapers. Nothing of the Arm of Justice had as yet leaked out. But thefight in the Park was another matter; people linked it with the sinisterautomobile, and it broke out in headlines everywhere. Herrick began tofind himself the most widely advertised man in New York; hisbattle-scarred appearance was but too apt to proclaim his identity andhe did not know whether he most objected to being considered a hero whohad slain four ruffians with one hand or a presumptuous nine-pin alwaysbeing bowled over and having to be rescued by the police! There was agood deal of pain below his elbow, where the blackjack had temporarilyparalyzed certain muscles, so that for another day or so his arm hunghelpless at his side; he could almost have wished it a more dangerouswound! Curious or jeering friends made his life a burden; Christinacalled him up over the long distance 'phone and swore him not to leavethe house without his revolver; Marion telegraphed him entreaties tocome home, and his own mind seethed in a turmoil of question and ofhorrible fancy to which the young figure of Nancy Cornish was theunhappy center. Nor could Mrs. Hope be called a comforting companion."Besides, Mr. Herrick,--Bryce--were they trying to kidnap you, too? Andif so, wouldn't you think they had enough on their hands already? Or didthey mean to murder you, really? And if so, why? Why? And, oh, Mr.Bryce, just think how uncontrollable Christina is--and who will it benext?" Often as Herrick had asked himself these and many otherquestions, they could not lose their interest for him. His mind spunround in them like a squirrel which finds no opening to its cage.

  Notoriety, however, sometimes brings strange fish in its net. And whenMrs. Grubey stopped Herrick on the street to applaud his prowess as apugilist, within the loose-woven mesh of her wonder and concern heseemed to catch a singular gleam, significant of he knew not what.

  For Mrs. Grubey, in celebrating the hero which Herrick had become to herJohnnie, did hope that he would see the boy, sometime, and use hisinfluence against his being such a little liar.--"You remember thatqueer toy pistol, Mr. Herrick, that he said he borrowed off a boyfriend?"

  "A. A. A., Algebra, Astronomy and Art-Drawing! It had no connection withthem?"

  "Why, it never come from a school at all!"

  "I misdoubted it! Art-Drawing was rather elaborate than convincing."

  "Oh, you'd oughtn't to laugh, Mr. Herrick--and the child so naughty! Whythat morning after Mr. Ingham was killed he found it propping open theslit in our letter box." Herrick ceased to laugh. "He was so set onkeeping it he made up that story, and then to go to work and lose it,an' it so queer the stones in it was maybe real--"

  "He lost it, then?"

  "Els't we'd never have known on account of him coming home crying. Helost it in the Park, where he'd been playing train-robber with it an'lots o' the loafers on benches watchin' him. A bigger boy got it awayfrom him, larkin' back an' forth, an' threw it to him, an' just then ahorse took fright from an automobile and run up on the grass with itsrig. The boys scattered in a hurry an' when they come back the pistolwas gone. He hadn't noticed no particular person watching, so he didn'tknow who was gone, too. I tell him, God took it to punish his lyin',"concluded Mrs. Grubey, with the self-righteousness of perfect truth,"but I certainly would like to know how much it was worth! An' how itever got there an' who it belonged to."

  Herrick had a vision of a comic valentine he had received on the samemorning. "I'm afraid it was meant for me!" he said. He knew this couldnot clear things up much for Mrs. Grubey; and afterward he fell towondering if the capital "C" scratched on the dummy pistol's goldensurface bore any similarity to the slender, pointed lettering which hadformed the words "To the Apollo in the bath-robe." He could neverremember when the initials rose before him in a new order; the A's blentas one and then the C--A. C.--Oh, madness! Yet, on Friday, he would askChristina.

  One other tribute to his popular fame gave him a new idea. It came fromhis Yankee woman at the table d'hote. The night after the attack shemotioned him to her as he was leaving and without ceasing to playsolitaire she said, "If I was you, young feller, I guess I wouldn't comedown here for one while."

  His eyes opened in amused surprise. "Why not?"

  "Ain't you the one shot a Dago yesterday in the Park? Pshaw, you needn'ttell me--I know 'twas 'cause you had t' do it! An' good riddance! Butit's healthier for you to stay where you belong."

  Herrick looked round him on the good-tempered, smiling people at thelittle clean tables, and laughed. "But you don't suppose the wholenation is one united Black-Hand, do you? You seem to have a mighty pooropinion of Italians!"

  "Well," said the woman, with a grim smile of her own, "I married one.I'd oughta know!"

  She finished her game and seeing him still lingering, in enjoyment ofher tartness, she said, "All forriners 're pretty poor folks. When Iget mad at my children I say it's the streak of forrin' in 'em. Well, mygirl's good Yankee, anyhow. Fair as anybody. It's my son's took afterhis father, poor fellow!"

  "Then the proprietress, here, isn't your daughter?"

  "Her? Sakes, no! She's my niece-in-law. I brought up my daughter likeshe was an American girl! It's my son keeps in with these! He'shomesick. My daughter's husband got into a little bit o' trouble in theOld Country," said this remarkable little dame, without the leastembarrassment, "and her an' me's glad enough to stay here. But the menkind o' mope. Their business worries 'em and as I say, 'tain't thebusiness I ever would have chose, but I s'pose when I married a Dago Imight's well made up my mind to it!" She said this with an airinimitably business like, and so continued--"Now I want you should clearout from here, young man! There's all kinds of fellers come here. It maybe awful funny to you to think o' gettin' a knife in your back, but Idon't want it any round where I am! When they're after Dagoes, it ain'tmy business. But my own folks is my own folks."

  Now it could not be denied that there was something not whollyreassuring as to the pursuits of this respectable old lady's family inthis speech, and in lighter-hearted times Herrick might have noted it asa testimonial to that theory of his concerning the matter-of-fact incrime. But now it suggested to him that he might do worse than look forthe faces of the blackmailers in such little eating-places as this one.After all, they evidently were Italians, and it was with Italians thatthey would sojourn. Yes--that was one line to follow! He remembered thatthis region was in or adjacent to Ten Euyck's district and he wonderedif he could bring himself to ask the favor of a list of its Latinhaunts. He and Mrs. Hope were on their way to a big Wednesday nightopening when this resolution took definite shape, and it was strange,with his mind full of these ideas, to come into the crush and dazzle ofthe theater lobby.

  Mrs. Hope at once began bowing right and left; the theatrical season wasstill so young that there were actors and actresses everywhere. Herrick,abnormally aware of his new conspicuousness, could only endeavor to lookpleasant; and, trailing, like a large helpless child, in her wake, wasglad to catch the friendly eye of Joe Patrick; fellow-sufferer in acommon cause, whom Christina's recommendation as usher he perceived tohave landed him here, instead of at the theater where she was to play.Unfortunately Joe hailed him by name, in an unexpectedly carrying voice;a blush for which Herrick could have kicked himself with rage flamedover him to the roots of his hair, and when he perceived, with horror,that they were entering a box, he clutched Mrs. Hope's cloak and slunkbehind the curtains with it like a raw boy.

  But even so, there was a continual coming and going of acquaintances,many of whom conveyed a sort of sympathetic flutter over Mrs. Hope'sinterest in to-night's play; an impression that Christina must feel herown absence simply too hard, and Herrick smiled to think how much moreconcentrated were Christina's interests than they realized. Not buttheir expectation of her appearance to-morrow was keen enough. It seemedto Herrick that there was a thrill of it in all the audience, whichpersistently studied Mrs. Hope's box. Christina's genius was a burningquestion, and the unknown quantity of her s
uccess agitated herprofession like a troubled air--through which how many eyes were alreadyardently directed toward to-morrow night, passionate astronomers,attendant on a new star! Murders come and murders go, but here was agirl who, in a few hours, might throw open the brand-new continent of anew career; who, next season, might be a queen, with powers like lifeand death fast in her hands. And, with that tremendous absorption intheir own point of view which Herrick had not failed to observe in themembers of Christina's profession, people asked if it wasn't toodreadful that this business of Ingham's murder and Nancy Cornish'sdisappearance should happen just at this time, when it might upsetChristina for her performance?

  Mrs. Hope introduced him to all comers with a liberality which herdaughter had been far from displaying, and he could see them studyinghim and trying to place him in Christina's life. It was clear to himthat if he ranked high, they were glad he had not gone and got himselfbeaten to death in the Park, or it might have upset her still more. Hethought of the girl whose wet cheek had pressed his in the firelight.The sweetness of the memory was sharp as a knife, and the rise of thecurtain, displaying wicked aristocrats of Louis the Fourteenth, sportingon the lawns of Versailles, could not deaden it.

  For if there is one quality essential to the effect of wickedaristocrats it is that of breeding; and of all mortal qualities there isnone to which managers are so indifferent. In a costume play moreparticularly, there is one requisite for men and one only; size. Solemnbulks, with the accents of Harlem, Piccadilly and Pittsburgh, bowedthemselves heavily about the stage in conscientiously airy masqueradeand, since nothing is so terrible as elegance when she goes with a flatfoot, Herrick's eyes roved up and down the darkened house studying thefaces of Christina's confreres, there, and endeavoring to contrast themwith the faces of the public and the critics to whom, to-morrow, shemust entrust her fate.

  A burst of applause, recalling his attention to the stage, pointed outto him a real aristocrat. Among the full-calved males in pinks andblues, the entrance of a slender fellow in black satin, not very tall,with an order on his breast and the shine of diamonds among his laces,had created something the effect of the arrival of a high-spirited andthoroughbred racehorse among a drove of caparisoned elephants. Herrick,the ingenuous outsider, supposed this actor the one patrician obtainableby the management; not knowing that it was his hit as the spy in"Garibaldi's Advance" which had opened to him the whole field of foreignvillains, and that he could never have been cast for a treacherousmarquis of Louis Quatorze this season if he had not succeeded as atreacherous private of Garibaldi the season before.

  With a quick, light gesture, which acknowledged and dismissed thewelcome of the audience, the newcomer crossed the stage and bowed deeplybefore his king. The king stood at no great distance from Herrick's box,and when the newcomer lifted his extraordinarily bright, dark eyes theyrested full on Herrick's own. Then Herrick found himself looking intothe face of the man in the street who had questioned him about themurder on the night of Ingham's death.

  Herrick had a strange sensation that for the thousandth part of aninstant the man's eyes went perfectly blind. But they never lost theirsparkle, and his lips retained the fine light irony that made his quietface one pale flash of mirth and malice. "Who is that?" Herrick askedMrs. Hope.

  "Who? Oh--that's Will Denny."

  Herrick was startled by a hand on his sleeve, and a hoarse, boyish voicesaid in his ear, "That's him!" He knew the voice for Joe Patrick's."That's the man I took up in the elevator."