“Molly, I want to tell you something I have never told you before. I am English. I only took the name McEachern because they thought it would help me in the Force. Our real name is Forrest.”
“Father! But why haven’t you ever told me before?”
“I was afraid you might ask questions and find out things.”
She looked quickly at him.
“I was sent to America,” he went on, “because I was expelled from school for stealing.”
There was a silence. She caught the arm that was round her waist and gave it a little squeeze.
“What does it matter what you did when you were only a boy?” she said.
He did not look at her. There was a dull flush on his cheeks.
“We’ll go home, Molly,” he said. “I had a place in society over there till I threw it away, and, by Heaven, I’m going to get it back for you. You shall have a fair show, whatever I may have done. We shall not take the old name again. None of the return of the black sheep for me! I won’t have people looking down on you because your father—”
“But, father dear, it was so long ago. What does it matter? Who would remember?”
“Never mind. I couldn’t risk it. They might say what they pleased about me, but you’re going to start fair. Who’s to recognise me after all these years? I’m just John McEachern from America, and if anybody wants to know anything about me, I’m a man who has made money on Wall Street—and that’s no lie—and has come over to England to spend it.” Molly gave his arm another squeeze. Her eyes were wet.
“Father dear,” she whispered, “I believe you’ve been doing it all for me. You’ve been slaving away for me ever since I was born, stinting yourself and saving money just so that I could have a good time later on.”
“No, no!”
“It’s true,” she said. She turned on him with a tremulous laugh. “I don’t believe you’ve had enough to eat for years. I believe you’re all skin and bone. Never mind. Tomorrow I’ll take you out and buy you the best dinner you’ve ever had out of my own money. We’ll go to the Ritz, and you shall start at the top of the menu and go straight down till you’ve had enough.”
“That will make up for everything. And now don’t you think you ought to be going to bed? You’ll be losing all that color you got on the ship.”
“Soon. Not just yet. I haven’t seen you for such ages.” She pointed at the bull terrier. “Look at Tommy, standing there and staring. He can’t believe I’ve really come back. Father, there was a man on the Mauretania with eyes exactly like Tommy’s—all brown and bright—and he used to stand and stare just like Tommy’s doing.”
“If I had been there,” said her father wrathfully, “I’d have knocked his head off.”
“No, you wouldn’t, because I’m sure he was really a very nice young man. He had a chin rather like yours, father. Besides, you couldn’t have got at him to knock his head off, because he was travelling second-class.”
“Second-class? Then you didn’t talk with him?”
“We couldn’t. You wouldn’t expect him to shout at me across the railing! Only whenever I walked round the deck he seemed to be there.”
“Staring?”
“He may not have been staring at me. Probably he was just looking the way the ship was going, and thinking of some girl in New York. I don’t think you can make much of a romance out of it, father.”
“I don’t want to, my dear. Princes don’t travel in the second cabin.”
“He may have been a prince in disguise.”
“More likely a commercial traveller,” grunted Mr. McEachern.
“Commercial travellers are often quite nice.”
“Princes are nicer.”
“Well, I’ll go to bed and dream of the nicest one I can think of. Come along, dogs. Stop biting my slipper, Tommy. Why can’t you behave like Rastus? Still, you don’t snore, do you? Aren’t you going to bed soon, father? I believe you’ve been sitting up late and getting into all sorts of bad habits while I’ve been away. I’m sure you have been smoking too much. When you’ve finished that cigar you’re not even to think of another till tomorrow. Promise!”
“Not one!”
“Not one. I’m not going to have my father getting like the people you read about in the magazine advertisements. You don’t want to feel sudden shooting pains, do you?”
“No, my dear.”
“And have to take some awful medicine?”
“No.”
“Then promise.”
“Very well, my dear. I promise.”
As the door closed he threw away the stump he was smoking, and remained for a few moments in thought.
Then he drew another cigar from his case, lit it, and resumed the study of the little notebook.
V
A Thief in the Night
How long the light had been darting about the room like a very-much-enlarged firefly Jimmy did not know. It seemed to him like hours, for it had woven itself into an incoherent waking dream of his; and for a moment, as the mists of sleep passed away from his brain, he fancied that he was dreaming still. Then sleep left him, and he realised that the light, which was now moving slowly across the bookcase, was a real light.
That the man behind it could not have been there long was plain, or he would have seen the chair and its occupant. He seemed to be taking the room step by step. As Jimmy sat up noiselessly, and gripped the arms of the chair in readiness for a spring, the light passed from the bookcase to the table. Another foot or so to the left, and it would have fallen on Jimmy.
On it came. From the position of the ray Jimmy could see that the burglar was approaching on his side of the table. Though, until that day, he had not been in the room for two months, its geography was clearly stamped on his mind’s eye. He knew almost to a
