“What for?”
“To show those two sketches to Mr. de Crespigny.”
“But will that proof be strong enough to convince a man whose powers of perception must be weakened by age? What if Mr. de Crespigny should fail to understand the evidence of those sketches? What if he should refuse to believe your accusation of his nephew?”
“I will show him my father’s letter.”
“You forget that your father’s letter accuses Robert Lance, and not Launcelot Darrell.”.
“But the sketches are signed ‘Robert Lance.’”
“And Mr. Darrell may deny his identity with the man who signed himself by that name. You cannot ask Maurice de Crespigny to believe in his nephew’s guilt on the testimony of a pencil drawing which that nephew may boldly repudiate. No, Eleanor, the work of to-day is only one step upon the road we have to tread. We must be patient, and wait for more conclusive proof than that which we hold in these two sketches.”
Eleanor sighed wearily.
“And in the meantime the 15th of March may come, or Mr. de Crespigny may die,” she said. “Oh, let me go to him at once; let me tell him who I am, and show him my father’s letter; let me tell him the cruel story of his old friend’s death! He knows nothing but that which he learned from a brief notice in a newspaper. He cannot refuse to believe me.”
Richard Thornton shook his head.