“I don’t know what you mean. Creditors? Why did you come here at all?”
“Well, if it comes to that, how do you come to be here yourself?” returned Lang, driven to defense.
“Here? In my own father’s house?” she exclaimed in the most genuine amazement.
Lang’s brain almost turned dizzy again. The wildest suppositions flashed through it. Was Eva really Morrison, or was Rockett really Rockett? Could she be the daughter of the Automotive Fuel defaulter without knowing it?
“Oh, I want to know what it all means!” she cried pitifully. “I waited in Mobile for my father. He never came. At last I came out here, to our house. Thieves had been through it; it was turned upside down. Father’s money box was in this room, burst open. I found the keys—with your name. I couldn’t believe it. I thought they had been stolen from you. I can’t believe yet. Why don’t you speak?” she cried passionately. “Say it—it wasn’t you!
“You must know something,” she went on, after waiting in vain for Lang to answer. “Father had been here; his things were here; his bed had been slept in, and he’s gone. Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Lang groaned. He was so bewildered that he felt incapable of clear thought. “It isn’t as bad as it looks. Don’t think the worst of me. I didn’t ransack the house. I had authority to come here, and I have the money safe.”
“I don’t care about any money. It’s my father!” she reiterated. “Have they murdered him?”
“I don’t know!” exclaimed the surgeon in despair. “Wait—who was your father? What was he like?”
“You don’t know?” She stared amazed. “Why, Edward Morrison, the explorer. Don’t you know his books?”