He stood a long time, watching the sky. When the last aeroplane had disappeared he resumed his reading. But the next day he watched for the machines again, abandoning his book to follow the course of the flyers.
"Where did you say that factory is located?" he asked Jane Gladys.
"Over by the gas works, sor, be the South Side. Ye takes the Ellem street car, at the four corners. On a Sunday there be crowds a-watchin' the air-divils."
He started to read again, but gave it up and glanced nervously up and down the little porch. Jane Gladys noted this with surprise, for he was usually quiet and unobservant, "like th' toad in th' garden, what squats under a bush all day an' fergits he's alive till a fly lights on his nose," as she expressed it to the family at home.
After lunch Mr. Jones went to town and after making inquiries took the car to the aviation works and field. He watched the construction of flying machines in the factory and saw one or two pupils take short flights in the air. And Jason Jones was so interested that he was late to dinner that evening.
Next day he was at the aviation field again, and from that time he haunted the place, silent and composed but watching every detail of manufacture and listening to the experts as they instructed the pupils. These were not many—three altogether—although Stephen Kane's aeroplane was now admitted to be one of the safest and most reliable ever invented. And one day one of the instructors, noticing the silent man who had watched so long, invited him to take a flight, thinking perhaps to frighten him; but Jason Jones promptly accepted the invitation and with perfect composure endured the strange experience and returned to ground with heightened color but no other evidence of excitement. Could Alora have seen him that day she would have acquitted him of cowardice.
But Alora knew nothing of her father's odd fancy for some time after he became interested in aeroplanes. She was not often at home during the day, frequently taking lunch with Mary Louise or Irene and passing much of her time in their company. She had no interest whatever in her father's movements and Jane Gladys didn't think to mention the matter to her, for "flyin'-machines" had ceased to be a novelty in Dorfield and the sound of their buzzing through the air was heard many times a day. But in turning over a pile of her father's books one day in his absence, Alora found several treatises on aviation and was almost startled to find that Jason Jones cared for any reading aside from light novels.
She had been hunting, at the time, for a novel to read herself, so turning from the aviation literature to a shelf of fiction she began searching for an interesting title. Presently, as she drew out one of her father's books, it opened by accident at a place where a letter had been tucked in—a letter written on soiled and coarse paper of a foreign make. It was addressed: "Sig. Jaysn Jones, at the Steamer Hercules to sail for New York, U.S.A." Opening it, she found it signed: "Silvio Alleghero."
That was their man-servant in Italy, so with a smile of anticipated amusement she read the letter. It was brief, indeed, but the girl's expression soon changed to a puzzled look, for the scrawl said:
"Honored Signore: At your command I have this morning, three hours after your departure for Naples, allowed the prisoner to escape."