He was greatly taken aback. He had not yet had time to collect his thoughts; nothing much remained in his mind except the decision of the night before that this[Pg 451] morning he was going to the police with an account of what he had seen. And, stronger and clearer than anything else, was his desire and resolve to get away from here.
“Oh, tell me!” she entreated.
Ross reflected well before answering. Eddy suspected him of something—Heaven knew what. Perhaps this girl did, too. He imagined that they were both a little afraid of him. And, if he held his tongue, and didn’t let them know how casual and unpremeditated all his actions had been, he might keep them in wholesome doubt about him, and so get away.
“My name’s Moss,” he replied, as if surprised. “I came to get a job.”
“No!” she said. “You got my note. But how could you? Who can you be? Nanna said—but I don’t believe it! I knew—as soon as I saw you—I felt sure you’d come to help me. Oh, tell me! My cousin James sent you, didn’t he?”
“James Ross?” asked Ross, slowly.
“Yes!” she answered, eagerly. “My cousin James. He did! I know it! Mother always told me to go to him if I needed help. Of course, I know he must be old now. I was afraid—so terribly afraid that he’d left the ship, or that I’d forgotten the name of it. But I was right, after all. I thought mother had said he was purser on the Farragut.”
“What!” cried Ross.
He began to understand now. Years and years ago—the dimmest memory—he had had a cousin James who was purser on one of the Porto Rico boats. He could vaguely remember his coming to their house in Mayaguez; a gloomy man with a black beard; son of his father’s elder brother William. It must have been on the old Farragut, scrapped nearly twenty years ago.
And that cousin James had vanished, too, long ago. William Ross had had three children, and outlived them all. Ross could remember his grandfather telling him that.