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:
“Wont you sit down? I haven’t mistaken you for some one else. You are Chester Fay, alias Edward Letchmere—an old friend of my father’s.”
Fay took off his plaid cap and sat down. He fingered a platinum-and-gold cigarette-case, removed a monogrammed cigarette, scratched a match on the bottom of the table and inhaled a deep breath of Turkish-scented smoke.
“By what other name was your father known?” he tested her.
“He was sometimes called ‘Big Scar’!”
“Where were you born?”
“In Chi. I was with Micky Gleason’s mob in Paris. I worked deep-sea with Minnie May, ‘The Duchess.’ I have been trained by my father to dip, forge, stall for pennyweighting and ever so many useful things.”