The hollow lens

by Henry Leverage
Another adventure of Chester Fay
The author of “Beyond the Wall,” “Whispering Wires,” and “Peterman’s Luck” is at his best in this fascinating story of underworld life.
In the _argot_ of the underworld, Chester Fay, alias Edward Letchmere, an expert on other people’s strong-boxes, had lammistered to Short Hills, California, where an excellent golf-links surrounds a half-hotel, half-clubhouse of the superior order.
After finishing a game, upon the twelfth day of his stay at Short Hills, Fay tossed his golf-bag to the turf, dismissed his caddy and sat down at the Nineteenth Hole, where refreshments were at that time available.
The girl who entered his life, a few minutes after he was seated, came diagonally from the clubhouse. He mentally concluded that she had been waiting on the porch for the game to finish.
She wore a picture-hat, carried a parasol and was extremely cool, as was attested by her manner as she drew a chair up to his table and said:
“I’m Charlie Laurie’s only daughter.”
Had the California sky fallen upon the links, Fay would not have been more surprised. Charlie Laurie was serving fifty years in the Isolation Section of Dannemora for the crime, committed against the dignity of New York State, of forcing open a national bank, seizing the contents of the vault and escaping to Argentina, where he was later turned up by a former pal.
This man, as Fay recalled him in that long minute of his stare across the table, was bulky, rough-voiced and disfigured by a giant scar which ran from the lobe of his right ear down to, and under, his chin. The girl who now professed to be his daughter resembled him in no particular.
“Some mistake,” Fay said, rising gallantly. “I’m sure that you have taken me for some one else.”
The girl lifted her elbows from the table, opened her parasol, raised it and asked: