“Yes. About that—wreck.”
Claire sighed. Her pulses had suddenly sobered. But the calm that replaced her moment of emotion had no satisfaction in it. Now her gaze came back to the man’s face. And the wide blue eyes were striving for a smile of interest she did not feel.
“Yes, tell me,” she said, with a pretence of eagerness. “It was all very mystifying and horrible. I haven’t forgotten. I’d say it isn’t easy to forget that sort of thing. My, I was scared.”
McLagan began to grope in his pockets.
“May I smoke?” He was holding up his cigar-case.
“Surely,” the girl laughed. “Isn’t it queer? You haven’t always asked that.”
“No,” the man smiled back. He glanced about the handsome loggia with its pretty comforts. “It’s queer the way we change with circumstances.”
“Yes. Smoke up. I like the rougher things best. Maybe I didn’t always feel that way. I’ve seen so much of the smooth and shining since I came to Max’s Speedway that I kind of like to think of the rough granite I used to know back there in the hills.”
McLagan glanced out of the window as he lit his long, lean cigar.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s stood up to things since the world began. Say, kid, I want you to hand me anything you can about—Jim. I mean, I know the story you and your Mum handed me at the time. I know all that, but—— Say, he’d made a real big strike in Australia and was on his way back to home. Was he bringing his stuff along? Or was it banked? What were the plans he’d made? I sort of remember a long letter he’d sent. Did he hand your Mum details?”