As it was agreed that a couple of days could make no difference to her, orders were at once given for the carriages to be ready the next morning, and at an early hour they started on their way down to Geneva.
CHAPTER XIX
Mr. Hawtrey made but a few hours' stay in London, Dorothy urging her father to leave at once for home. He would have preferred stopping for a day or two to confer with Mr. Charles Levine, and to get the matter with the jeweller settled before he went North, but Dorothy pressed the point so much that he gave way.
'What is the use, father,' she urged, 'of employing people to do your law business and then doing it yourself? I should think when Gilliat sees a copy of those papers Mr. Danvers sent us, he will be convinced that he has been wrong all through, but even if he isn't, you could not argue the matter with him. Mr. Levine could say a great deal more than you could. I quite understand, from what you told me, that there is really nothing to connect this woman with the theft; still, anyone could see that it would be more likely that she should do it than I should.'
'Except this, Dorothy—that you were in London at the time, and there is no proof that she was; and that these people all swear it was you, while the most that we can prove is that there is in existence some one who is wonderfully like you. It is an immense satisfaction to us to have got as far as we have. We have, at any rate, a strong defence, and the story will at least satisfy all who know you. Still, Singleton agrees with me that a jury would hardly be satisfied, and that the verdict would probably be against us.
'I don't expect the jeweller to give up his claim. I don't think it would be reasonable to expect it. The man has been robbed of valuable goods, and he and his two assistants were absolutely convinced that it was you who took them. There were reports about that you were being pressed for money; and our defence that a woman, so like you that your portrait was taken for hers, crossed from Hamburg to New York a week after the robbery, cannot be taken as conclusive that it was this woman and not you who was at the jeweller's shop. My greatest comfort in the matter is at present that this woman is at the other side of the Atlantic, and I am quite prepared to meet the jeweller half-way and share the loss with him if Levine does not think that in case this woman does return, as it is almost certain she will do, and attempts similar frauds, my having compromised the matter would weaken our position.'
'I see all that, father, but I don't see why you should not write about it to Mr. Levine, instead of going into it with him personally. He is sure to want you to stay in town, and then there is no saying how long we might be kept. You will be up in town again in the spring.'
'Very well, Dorothy, we will start to-morrow morning. If Levine thinks it is absolutely necessary he should see me I must run up again. The train takes us so far towards home now that it is only eighteen hours' travelling, and I must own that I shall be heartily glad to be at home again. We have been away more than eight months, which is longer than I can remember having been from home all my life.'
Mr. Singleton was glad when his friend told him that they would travel down together.