"Otherwise," he replied, "I should not have ventured to send for her. Mr. Emery, we must not allow a chance to escape us; we must take advantage of everything that suggests or presents itself that is likely to assist us. I am blind; if Mr. Nisbet stood before me I should not know it. My uncle has not seen him; you are under the impression that you would be certain to recognize him, but there are thousands of men with red hair and gold eyeglasses. The only one of us who can be positive is Barbara."
I saw that he was resolved, and that it would be useless to remonstrate. What struck me, also, was that he seemed already to have assumed the command of the expedition, and to have placed himself at the head of it. Undoubtedly he had the right to take the initiative, for if a foul deed had been committed it was the lady he loved who had been the victim.
"Mr. Elsdale," I said, "I am satisfied with what you have done."
"Thank you, Mr. Emery," was his response. "There is here a mystery to be solved, a horrible wrong to be righted, a criminal to be brought to the bar of justice. I do not pretend to say that in so short a time I have reduced to order the terrible suggestions and possibilities that have presented themselves to my mind, but a man's duty is before me, and I will perform it faithfully and inexorably. Mere worldly considerations do not weigh in the scale. Though I lived to be an old man with this mystery still unsolved, I would not relinquish it. I will pursue it unflinchingly to the end, if I walk the earth barefoot. To you has come a spiritual sign and a spiritual mandate, and, through you, it has come to me." He drew me aside. "Is the apparition that first appeared to you in that ill-fated house visible to you? Is it here with us in the room?"
"It will appear again; be sure that it will appear again; and when justice is satisfied it will disappear, and you will no longer be troubled by it." He turned to Bob, and included him in the conversation. "Another reason why it is necessary and right that the little girl, Barbara, should accompany us is that we go not only to seek Mr. Nisbet, but to seek her sister. The young woman may have fallen under the spell of Mr. Nisbet's evil influence; he may have made her his slave. If that is the case, the efforts of strangers like ourselves to enlist her on our side would be futile; the love she bore her sister may help us here."