CHAPTER X
INTO THE LIGHT
Yes, the whole business was kept mighty quiet. Lots of people never really knew just my part in the affair. The Prefect thought it better to hush up the outside assistance and let it go in as a police job. It was all the same to me, though, as Chu-Chu was dead and his pal was dead and two others of the gang were dead. None got away, and the ones taken were no great shucks, and nothing to be afraid of in the future. Anyway, they'd heard of me and asked nothing better than to try to forget me.
It was no such cinch as a couple of weeks in bed this time. I was shot all to pieces, and was six weeks on my back, and my leg in a box, with a weight swinging from the foot; and the police surgeon says that I'll limp for the rest of my life. The Prefect took me to my own little garconniere and detailed his own doctor to fix me up.
John got back to Paris after his "cure," and came in every day to see me. Edith never came. She still thinks that I broke my word, and my honest hope is that she will keep on thinking so to her dying day; but she kept my room bright with flowers. John knew the whole story, of course. He was a different man, I thought, and a finer one; and he told me that it only needed me on my feet again to make the motor business a big success. And he was right.
Ivan's death made a big stir, but only for its ro-
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