"That's delightful; he can go with us," exclaimed Ethel Brown, and Helen and Roger looked especially pleased.
The few hours that passed before they met in Washington were filled with guesses as to whether Stanley had built up the family tree of his cousin Emily so firmly that it could not be shaken.
"We proved this morning that Hapgood's story was a mixture of truth and lies," Mr. Emerson said, "but we haven't anything to replace it. Our evidence is all negative."
"Stanley seems sure," Roger reminded him.
When Stanley met them at the station in Washington he seemed both sure and happy. He shook hands with them all.
"It is perfectly great to have you people here," he said to Helen.
"Have you caught Emily?" she replied, dimpling with excitement.
"I have Emily traced backwards and forwards. Let's go into the writing room of the hotel and you shall see right off how she stands."
They gathered around the large table and listened to the account of the young lawyer's adventures. He had had a lead that took him to Millsboro soon after he reached western Pennsylvania, but he missed the trail there and spent some time in hunting in surrounding towns before he came on the record in the Uniontown courthouse.
"I certainly thought I had caught her then," he confessed. "I thought so until I compared the ages of the two Emilies. I found that our Emily would have been only ten years old at the time the Uniontown Emily married Edward Smith."