Captain Hampton uttered an exclamation of satisfaction. Here then was the first absolute proof that his theory was correct, and that there really existed a double of Dorothy, and the evidence of this clerk would in itself go far to disprove the charge against her.

'How long did they stay here?' the detective asked.

The clerk turned to the ledger. 'Two days. They left on the evening of the sixth. They were charged the full day.'

'How did they go?'

'By carriage. Here is the charge – a dollar and a half.'

'Which station did they go to?'

'Ah, that I cannot tell you. We have two carriages and they are both out now, but I can find out this evening. Anything else?'

'Yes; I want to know if they made any inquiries about trains.'

'I don't know that they inquired, but the man spent a whole morning going through the train books and looking through the tables hanging up there. I wondered what in thunder he could be wanting to spend such a time over them, when a couple of minutes would have shown him the train time to any place he wanted to go to. I expect he had not made up his mind where to go. I reckon that was it. I saw him come in with half a dozen books under his arm the morning after they got here.'

'Well, we can do nothing till we hear what station they were taken to. I will look in again this evening.'

'Do you mean to say they were bad ones, Mr. Tricher?'

The detective nodded.

'Well, well, one never knows what to believe. I don't know about the man, but that gal I should never have thought could have been bad.'

'Please look at the photograph again,' Captain Hampton said. 'Examine it closely; is it what you would call a very good likeness?'

'It is a good likeness,' the man said. 'I should have known it if I had seen it in a shop window anywhere; but photographs are never quite like – men's may be, but I have never seen a woman's that was the real thing. They always smooth out their faces somehow, and put on a sort of company expression. This is as like her as two peas, and yet it isn't quite like, if you can understand it. That has got a pretty, innocent sort of expression. The girl's face was harder than that; it was just as pretty, but somehow it looked older, as if she had had some sort of disappointment, and had had a bad time of it. This one looks like the face of a thoroughly happy girl. The other didn't, you know. I said to myself that she had made up her mind to marry some chap her father didn't like, and that he had brought her over here to get her out of his way. You see, she was an unusual sort of woman. I don't know that I ever saw a much prettier one – and one naturally reckoned her up a bit. She only went out once while they were here, and did not seem to have much interest in the city.'

'Well, I think we have been pretty lucky, Captain Hampton,' the detective said when he went out.

'Wonderfully lucky. I am more thankful than I can express; the evidence of that man alone would go a long way towards clearing my friend, for it would at any rate prove that just after these robberies were committed, and at the exact time at which a thief would reach here from England, a woman precisely like her arrived here with a man answering to the description of the one believed to be her accomplice.'

'That would be a great thing certainly; at any rate, if I were you, Captain Hampton, I would get an affidavit, made by Muller and one or two of the waiters, to the effect that a man of whom they would give a description, and the original of a portrait that would of course be marked for identification, arrived at the hotel on August 4, having come by the steamer "Bremen" from Hamburg. There is nothing like getting an affidavit when you can, and the waiters are to hand now; there is no saying where they might be three months hence. I don't say that Muller is likely to leave, but he is bright, and might get a better offer any day from one of the big hotels at St. Louis or Cincinnati, or any other place where there are many Germans.'

'I will certainly do so, and send it across to England at once.'

Arranging with the detective to call for him at the Metropolitan at seven o'clock that evening, Captain Hampton returned to the hotel. It had been a splendid morning's work. Even if all further search was unsuccessful, enough had been done to establish at least a strong case in favour of the contention that the person who called upon the jeweller and Mr. Singleton was not Dorothy Hawtrey. The interview he himself had witnessed, which, had he been compelled to give evidence, would have been in itself almost fatal to her, was now strongly in her favour, for it showed the connecting link between the person who had taken the jewels and this man who was now proved to be passing as her father in the States. It was no longer Dorothy Hawtrey buying off the man who had been persecuting her, but Truscott's partner in the crime informing him of the success of her operations.

Jacob was standing at the door of the hotel when he arrived there. He had long since been made acquainted with the object for which a search was being made for the betting man Marvel, and the woman whose likeness he had been shown. He was greatly delighted at learning that a trace had been obtained of him, and eager to set to work to follow it up.

'It will be bang up, Captain, if we find them here while all them perlice at home is running after them everywhere.'

'Well, I did not think of it in that light, and I don't much care whether they are run down by us or by any one else, so long as they are caught at last, but it is a long way between hearing of them here and catching them. You must remember that this country is twenty times as large as England, and we have really nothing to go upon. We don't know what the man's intentions are. If he intended to go in for swindling, I should think he would have done better on the Continent than here. There are not many very large towns where he could as a stranger expect to make much money, and it would be easier to trace him here than in Europe, where the distances are so much shorter that one can get out of any country in a few hours. If he intends, as I should think most likely, only to stop over here for a short time so as to be out of the way, and then go back and begin the same thing over again, he might take lodgings here or anywhere else.

'He may know some one who has come over here and has gone in for farming, and may be going to stay with him for a time. There is no saying, in fact, what he may be going to do. I do not suppose that he has the slightest fear that the share he and this woman have played has been discovered, and his motive in coming away was chiefly to ensure Miss Hawtrey's disgrace, and he was anxious that there should be no chance whatever of any one who knew her meeting this woman and discovering that there was some one about who was so strikingly like Miss Hawtrey as to be able to pass for her. My best hope is that we shall get some clue this evening from the man who drove them away from the hotel.'

This hope was realised. On reaching the hotel with the detective the clerk at once sent for the driver. 'He remembers the parties well enough, but I don't know that you will find his news altogether satisfactory. You have got a crafty bird to deal with. Here is the man, he had better tell you himself. Now, Mike, this is the gentleman who wants to know about those people I was speaking to you about.'

'I mind them well enough, sor – a gintleman with as pretty a little girl as I've seen since I left ould Ireland. I drove them down to the wharf and saw the baggage carried on board the steamer.'

'And what steamer was it, Mike?' the detective asked.

'The steamer for New Orleans, of course; that was where they told me to take them. She had got her steam up when we got there, and a nice-looking crowd there was going on board.'

'Would the steamer touch anywhere else on its way?' Captain Hampton asked.

'It might put in at Mobile; some do and some don't,' the detective replied, 'but as we know the day she sailed there will be no difficulty at finding that out at the office.'

'That was the lady, I suppose,' Captain Hampton said, showing the photograph to the driver.

'That's her, sor. I would swear to her anywhere.'

'Well, here is a couple of dollars for you now; I shall want to see you again to-morrow.'

'We shall be getting some affidavits out,' the detective said to the clerk. 'It is important to us to be able to prove that they have been here, even if we never succeed in catching them. It will be a simple thing, merely a statement signed before a justice of the peace to the effect that you make oath that a man of the appearance and description set down and a young woman passing as his daughter, and whose photograph, which will of course be marked and verified, you recognise as being hers without any possibility of doubt, arrived at this hotel on August 4, and left on August 6, being driven from here and seen on board a steamer starting for New Orleans. I shall be glad of the signatures of yourself and as many of the waiters as attended upon them at their meals and can recognise the portrait, also of the chambermaid. We shall have a separate affidavit drawn out for the driver.'

'Very well. Can you leave the photograph with me? I will give it to the head waiter and tell him to show it to the others; as they were here two days and took all their meals here I should say most of the crowd would recognise her. Look here, you had better bring a justice round here to swear them, for it would be difficult to let a dozen of them all go at once.'

'I will manage that. Well, can you spare a couple of minutes to come round into the bar and have a drink?'

The clerk thought he could manage it, and drinks were taken in due course.

'Now what is my best way of getting down to New Orleans?' Captain Hampton asked, as they left the hotel.

'Steamer,' the detective said; 'the railway is not fairly through yet, and it will take pretty nearly as long as if you go by boat, and be a deal more uncomfortable.'

'How often do the boats go?'

'Once or twice a week, sometimes more. There are considerable people travelling down there now. A good many of the folk going to California go that way; they either strike across from there or go up the river by steamer and then make across the plains; it saves a long land journey. But I will tell you about it when I see you in the morning. I will go round the first thing and find out whether that boat that sailed on the 6th put in anywhere, and also what her name was; also whether they took their berths under the name of White or changed them again; then I will see when the next boat goes. I will bring the man before whom they can take an affidavit round here with me – I know two or three I can lay my hands on any time – and then we will go together to the hotel.'

By twelve o'clock next day the business was finished, and the affidavits sworn in duplicate by thirteen witnesses, in addition to that of the driver.

When all was done, Captain Hampton asked the detective as to how much he was indebted to him.

'Nothing at all, sir. My services were placed at your disposal by the chief, and it is all in the way of business. I am very glad to have been of assistance to you.'

'You have been of immense assistance, indeed, Mr. Tricher, and I feel deeply obliged to you. I should never have got on by myself in the same way; it was entirely owing to the clerk at the hotel knowing you that he so readily gave me the information I required, and interested himself in the matter. Well, will you come round and lunch with me at the hotel at two o'clock? We shall go on board the steamer this evening. I am going round now to thank your chief.'

'I shall be happy to lunch with you, and, by the way, you might as well ask the chief to give you a line to the chief at New Orleans. You might find it very useful there; it is a pretty lively place, and if this man happens to have any pals there, you may find it mighty useful to have the aid of the police.'

'Thank you very much for the suggestion, which I will certainly follow.'

On saying good-bye to the detective, Captain Hampton, with much pressure, succeeded in inducing him to accept, as a remembrance, a handsome meerschaum that he had the evening before admired.

Upon the voyage down, Captain Hampton was much struck at the difference between the passengers on board the 'Enterprise,' and those with whom he was associated on his passage across the Atlantic. There were among them a sprinkling of Southern gentlemen, a few travellers and Northern manufacturers, but the majority were men who were bound to the far west, some to Texas only, but California was the destination of the greater part. These again were sharply divided into two sections, the one composed of hardy-looking men, the sons of Eastern farmers, or British emigrants who were going out with the fixed intention of making their fortune at the goldfields.

Few of the other section were, he thought, likely to get so far. They were simply rough characters who were more likely to remain at New Orleans or some of the river towns than to undertake a long and perilous journey. Whatever might be their nominal vocation, he set them down as being thieves, gambling-house bullies, or ruffians ready to turn their hand to any scoundrelism that presented itself. The real working men soon came to know each other, and being bound by a common object kept aloof from the others, and generally sat in little groups discussing the journey before them and the best methods of proceeding.

Some were in favour of ascending the Missouri to Omaha, others of going up the Arkansas and striking across by the Santa Fé route. All had evidently studied the newspapers diligently, and had almost by heart the narratives of travel that had appeared there, and before the end of the voyage several parties had been made up of men who agreed to journey together for mutual aid and protection.

In the saloon gambling went on all day. As night came on, voices were raised in anger, and fierce quarrels took place, which were only prevented from going further by the captain's prompt intervention, and by his declaration that any man who drew pistol or bowie knife should be put in irons for the rest of the voyage.

Captain Hampton was heartily glad when the vessel entered the Mississippi. He had associated principally with two or three of the Southern gentlemen, and had kept as far as possible aloof from the rowdy portion of the passengers. This, however, he had been unable to do altogether. He himself was an object of general curiosity. He was a Britisher; he was not bound for the West; he was not thinking of taking up land; he was unconnected with any commercial house. His explanation that he was travelling for pleasure and intended to go up the two great rivers of the continent, was considered altogether unsatisfactory, and one after another most of his fellow passengers endeavoured, by a series of searching questions, to get at the facts of the case. Jacob, on the other hand, enjoyed the voyage greatly; unconsciously to himself he was a student of human nature, and this was a phase entirely new to him.

'It seems to me, Captain,' he said to his master one evening, 'that most of this 'ere gang ought to be in Newgate. Why, to hear what they say of themselves, there is scarce one of them that hasn't killed one or two men in his time. I have been a-listening to some of that black-bearded chap's stories, and if all that he says is true, he has killed over twenty; I counted them up careful. I can't make out how it is that a chap like that is going about free; why, he would have been hung a dozen times if he had been at home. What is the good of the perlice if they lets a chap like that go on as he likes?'

'You may be sure that the greater part of his stories are lies, Jacob, though some of them may be true. New Orleans is perhaps as rough a city as any of its size in the world, and as you go farther West, life becomes still more unsafe. In so vast a country the law is powerless, and men settle their disputes in their own way. Almost every one carries arms, and shooting affrays are of common occurrence, and as long as what is considered fair play is preserved, no one thinks of interfering. A man who is killed is buried, and the one who killed him goes his way unconcernedly; so, though a good many of these stories you hear are lies, there may be more truth in some of them than you would think.'

'They have been a-pumping me, lots of them has,' Jacob said, 'and trying to find out what you are doing out here. I have stuffed them up nicely; I have told them as you had been out in India, and had killed thousands upon thousands of lions, and tigers, and elephants.'

'What was the use of telling lies, Jacob?' Captain Hampton asked angrily.

'Well, sir, I don't suppose as they believe it all, because I don't believe their stories; but it was, I thought, just as well as they should think you was a great fighter, and could shoot wonderful straight. I know by what they said that some of them was half inclined to get up a quarrel with you. "'Cause," as they said, "you was stuck up, and thought yourself better than other people;" and it seemed to me as it was best they should think as you wasn't a good man to quarrel with. "Bless you," says I, over and over again, "there ain't nothing stuck up about my master; only I know as he hates getting into trouble, 'cause he don't like having to kill a man and so he keeps hisself to hisself;" and then I pitches it in strong about killing Indians, and that sort of thing, and I do think, Captain, as it has kept them a bit quiet.'

Captain Hampton laughed.

'Well, perhaps it may have done, Jacob; these fellows seldom interfere with a man unless they think it safe to do so. Still, I would much rather in future you did not invent any stories about me. Always stick to the truth, lad; lying never pays in the long run.'

CHAPTER XIII

Ten days later the party were re-united at Martigny. The Fortescues had been there two days, having travelled faster than the Hawtreys had done. Captain Armstrong and Mr. Fitzwarren only turned up the next day; they had learnt at Lucerne the inn at which the Hawtreys intended to stay, and went straight there. The others were all absent on an excursion to the Col de la Forclaz, and did not return until late in the afternoon. Captain Armstrong and Mr. Fitzwarren were standing on the steps of the hotel when the three girls clattered up on donkeys, the elders having been left a quarter of a mile behind.

'How are you both?' Ada Fortescue, who had won the race by a length, said, as they came down the steps. 'No, thank you, Captain Armstrong, I can slip off without any assistance. We were talking of you this morning at breakfast, and wondering when you were likely to turn up.'

They stood talking at the door of the hotel until the others arrived.

'Which way have you come?' Mr. Hawtrey asked, after they had shaken hands.

'We went over the Brunig Pass to Interlaken; we stopped there a day or two and came from Thun over the Simmenthal to Aigle; we stayed there four days, and a day at St. Maurice, and got in here half an hour after you had started, and have since been for a stroll among the pines.'

'We were over at St. Maurice the day before yesterday.'

'It is splendid up here,' Ada Fortescue put in; 'we have been grumbling ever since we came because we did not come on here at once instead of spending those four days at Lucerne. It was all very lovely, but it was so hot one really could not enjoy it as one ought to have done. Up here it is so deliciously cool, at least except in the middle of the day, that one feels up to anything. I wish you could persuade papa to let us go up one of the mountains; not a difficult one, of course. At present mamma won't hear of it; though Mr. Hawtrey said he would go with us and Dorothy. I don't think papa would mind,' she added confidentially.

Captain Armstrong smiled. Mr. Fortescue was really but a cipher in the family. He accompanied his wife and daughters, and was very useful in looking after the luggage and paying bills, but his wife was the real manager of the party. She was not one of those women who assert their predominance over their husbands; upon the contrary, she made a point of consulting him on everything, but as his opinions were always in accord with hers, this was little more than a form. She herself, among her intimates, frequently bewailed her husband's disinclination to take a leading part in anything.

'It is a great disadvantage to the girls, for it compels me to put myself much more forward than I like. It is always bad for a mother to have to do so; it gets her the name of being a managing woman, and there is nothing men are more shy of.' And yet in spite of Mrs. Fortescue's disclaimer, there were people who believed that if Mr. Fortescue had had a chance there would have been no occasion for his wife to take matters so entirely in hand as she did. Within an hour of meeting Captain Armstrong and Mr. Fitzwarren, she had discussed the matter with her husband.

'I don't know what to think of these men coming here just as we have arrived. It must mean one thing or the other.'

Mr. Fortescue remarked that no doubt it did.

'Captain Armstrong is of course an excellent match,' she said. 'The question is, has he come here on his own account or on that of Mr. Fitzwarren? If on his own account, it must be in order to see more of one of our girls, or of Dorothy Hawtrey. On the other hand, Mr. Fitzwarren cannot be considered at all an eligible person; of course he is in society, and all that sort of thing, and is very well connected, but that won't keep up a household. It would not do at all, and I shall warn Ada and Clara that they are not to think of flirting with him, and that if I see any signs of them doing so we shall at once move away.'

'He is a very pleasant young man,' Mr. Fortescue said. 'I believe he has a good position in the Foreign Office, and is private secretary to Lord Wolverhouse.'

'Yes, that is all very well,' Mrs. Fortescue said, sharply, 'and I dare say it is a very good position for a clerk in a foreign office, but, as I said, it won't do to keep up an establishment, so I shall keep my eyes open.'

This Mrs. Fortescue did for the next four days, and the results were so far satisfactory that she assured herself that Mr. Fitzwarren had no design upon either of her daughters. He always made one of the party on their excursions, but divided his attentions equally between the three girls, and there was nothing in his manner that could excite the smallest suspicion, even in her mind, that he viewed one with a greater degree of preference than the other. Captain Armstrong appeared equally general in his attentions, and even Dorothy, who had felt at first a certain uneasiness when they joined, thought no more of the matter. He happened to be there when they were, and it was natural that he should attach himself to her party, and she soon ceased to feel at all shy with him or to think of him in any other light than as a pleasant companion in their rambles.

For the first week Mrs. Fortescue always formed one of the party, but as the walks extended and they went higher and higher up the hill-side she was glad, as soon as she felt that her suspicions of Mr. Fitzwarren's attentions were unfounded, to let them go under their father's escort. Mr. Singleton was the only person who complained.

'I wonder how long those two men are going to stay here,' he said to Mr. Hawtrey one day.

'I have not heard them say anything about it. I shall be sorry when they go, for they are both pleasant, and it makes it very much more agreeable for the girls to have them to go about with. Of course, when we take the carriage we all ride together, but I am sure the young people enjoy walking much more; they are capital climbers, and I can tell you they pretty nearly tire me out sometimes.'

'I don't care how soon they go, Hawtrey. You know what my hopes are about Dorothy, and I feel pretty confident that Armstrong has altogether different views on the matter. I have nothing to say against him personally; I admit that he is a downright good fellow. Every one knows he has a good estate, so I have nothing to say against him, except that I see he is doing his best to upset my special plans.'

'I have not seen anything of it at all. I did not notice on our walks that he was more with her than with the others. I imagine that it is only fancy on your part.'

'You do not suppose he would be wasting his time in rambling about here with three girls unless he had some sort of object. It is one of the three, and I have not the least doubt that it is Dorothy.'

'I don't fancy so, for – quite between ourselves, Singleton – I can tell you that she refused him some months since.'

'Umph,' Mr. Singleton grunted, 'that must have been just before she became engaged to Halliburn. Now he is out of the way again, and a better opportunity for love-making than Armstrong has got he could hardly desire.'

'I don't see that I can do anything in the matter, Singleton; even supposing that your suspicions are correct.'

'No, I don't suppose you can,' the other said irritably. 'If we were to go away he would come after us. If he means to ask the question he will ask it. And the worst of it is that he is such a good fellow, so unobjectionable in every way. But it is hard that while the other is spending his time in looking out for evidence that will completely clear Dorothy from these abominable charges, this man should be cutting in and making all the running here.'

'I don't think Dorothy suspects anything of the sort, Singleton.'

'No, I don't suppose she does; but a girl can't be thrown with a pleasant man day after day like this without getting to like him. I am sure she does not know it herself – she is too frank and natural with him; still when the time comes and he asks her the question again it will come upon her how much she does like him, and the contrast between him and Halliburn will be all in his favour. We might move to Chamounix. Pretend you are tired of this place, and see whether all the others will go too.'

'We may as well do that anyhow,' Mr. Hawtrey agreed. 'We have done pretty well all the walks and drives near here. It will be a change, anyhow.' And accordingly at breakfast next morning Mr. Hawtrey said, 'I think we have pretty well done this neighbourhood; it will be a change to move on to Chamounix. We could stay there for a week and then go on to Geneva.'

'I think that would be a very good plan,' Mr. Singleton put in. 'I own I am getting rather tired of this valley. It is all very well for you young people who can climb about among the hills, but I think I know the exterior of every house in the place, and have made the acquaintance of almost every man, woman, and child in it.'

Mr. Fortescue at once assented.

'It makes no difference to me,' Captain Armstrong said, carelessly, 'but I have been thinking for the last day or two that there would be more to be seen at Chamounix. I have rather an idea of climbing Mont Blanc. Fitzwarren finds that time is running short, and has made up his mind to turn his face homewards.'

After some farther talk it was arranged that the carriages should be ordered for the following morning. There was much regret expressed at Mr. Fitzwarren's departure, or as the girls called it, his desertion, but his determination was not to be shaken. He had talked it over with Armstrong on the previous evening when the latter had urged him to stay a week longer.

'I cannot afford it, my dear fellow,' he said. 'It is pleasant, very pleasant, but it is too dangerous a pleasure to be indulged in. However strict a man's principles may be, he's but human. Another week of this might be fatal to me. I cannot afford to marry Clara Fortescue, even if she would have me and her mother were willing, which, by the way, I am perfectly sure she would not be. The way she played duenna the first few days, would have been amusing if it had not been annoying. It was almost heroic. Whenever I happened to be a few yards ahead or a few yards behind with either of her girls, she would be certain to range alongside in the course of two or three minutes, and though naturally she did not express her feelings in words there was no possible mistaking her manner. She was the watch-dog, I was the wolf; and she was prepared to do battle to save her lambs from the devourer. At that time I had no idea of devouring, and indeed I have no idea now; nevertheless I am beginning to feel that the repast would not be an unpleasant one. Against the ordinary temptations that occur in ball-rooms and conservatories, at fêtes, and even country houses, I am proof, but this daily companionship, wandering, and picnicking is beyond me. My armour is giving way, and I feel that flight is the prudent course before I am too severely wounded.'

The next morning, therefore, he took his place on the diligence, and half-an-hour later two carriages started up the valley with the rest of the party. They had sent on a letter the previous day to secure rooms, and were comfortably established there late in the afternoon.

'The dinner-bell will ring in five minutes, Dorothy,' Mr. Hawtrey said, tapping at his daughter's door.

Dorothy was ready, and went down with him to the drawing-room. As they entered, she caught sight of Ada Fortescue's face, which wore a puzzled and disturbed look, and she gave what seemed to Dorothy a warning shake of the head. She moved across the room towards her chair to inquire what she meant. A gentleman stepped aside to make way for her. She looked up, and as their eyes met each gave a slight start, for it was Lord Halliburn who stood before her.