Her eyes were blue, wide-spaced and candid. They met his without faltering. Her chin was softly firm, but her lips trembled uncontrollably. A mass of bright blond hair had tumbled into loose curls about her face and neck.
In a low voice, she said, “I don’t know why Dad would run away from me like that. I know it was he,” she reiterated with conviction. “He has hardly changed at all in ten years.”
Shayne cupped his hand under her elbow to steady her. “Aren’t you jumping to conclusions when you say he recognized you? He might not have changed much, but you were just a little girl ten years ago.”
“But he did recognize me,” she cried. “I could see it in his eyes. And my picture was in the local paper two weeks ago,” she went on. “There was a story about him and how I’ve been looking for him everywhere. He must have seen the picture and read about me.”
“Why hasn’t he looked you up sooner — and why come peering in the window at you?”
She shook her head wonderingly. “I don’t know,” she faltered. “Any more than I can understand why he ran away when he saw me.” She drew in a deep breath and really looked at Shayne for the first time. “I remember you now. You’re Michael Shayne, a detective, aren’t you?”
Shayne nodded.
“Won’t you help me find him? He’s a miner, you see. That’s the reason I let them print that story in the paper. We used to live in Telluride. He ran away from — Mother and me in nineteen thirty-two. We never heard a word from him, and when Mother died I advertised in newspapers in all the mining towns.”
“Why did he leave home?”
“He couldn’t find work, and — well, Mother nagged at him all the time. Oh, I didn’t blame him for going off, but if I could find him now — help him—”