Big Foot by Edgar Wallace — Read

Elfa Leigh had carried with her, from the house of the pleasant years in Edwards Square, all the intimate personal possessions which she had shared with her father. They had been great friends, this motherless girl and the dreamy, seemingly helpless man whom she called father; and when the curt intimation had come from the British Admiralty, prefaced by the mechanical expression of regret, that the U.S. transport Lenglan had been torpedoed off the south coast of Ireland in a gale, and, with its escorting destroyer, had been sunk with all hands, the news had left her numb and unbelieving.

John Kenneth Leigh was returning from Washington, where he had been called into consultation with his chief. Throughout the war he had been a liaison officer between the British and American Treasuries, and had been largely responsible for the British end of the financial arrangements which had been made between the two countries. When America came into the war, he was transferred to the army department, and for twelve months Elfa had seen very little of her father. He seemed to spend his life moving between the two countries, and it was inevitable that the narrow escapes he had had should culminate in disaster. Elfa had to face a new life, and this she did with a courage beyond praise. She gave up the house in Edwards Square, moved to the three rooms on the top floor of 75 Cubitt Street, and started to build from the wreckage of her broken life.