The Cross-Cut

by Courtney Ryley Cooper

CHAPTER XI

The Rodaines were on the sidewalk when Fairchild came forth from the Richmond home, and true to his instructions from the frightened girl, he brushed past them swiftly and went on down the street, not turning at the muttered invectives which came from the crooked lips of the older man, not seeming even to notice their presence as he hurried on toward Mother Howard's boarding house. Whether Fate had played with him or against him, he did not know,—nor could he summon the brain power to think. Happenings had come too thickly in the last few hours for him to differentiate calmly; everything depended upon what course the Rodaines might care to pursue. If theirs was to be a campaign of destruction, without a care whom it might involve, Fairchild could see easily that he too might soon be juggled into occupying the cell with Harry in the county jail. Wearily he turned the corner to the main street and made his plodding way, along it, his shoulders drooping, his brain fagged from the flaring heat of anger and the strain that the events of the night had put upon it. In his creaky bed in the old boarding house, he again sought to think, but in vain. He could only lie awake and stare into the darkness about him, while through his mind ran a muddled conglomeration of foreboding, waking dreams, revamps of the happenings of the last three weeks, memories which brought him nothing save sleeplessness and the knowledge that, so far, he fought a losing fight.

After hours, daylight began to streak the sky. Fairchild, dull, worn by excitement and fatigue, strove to rise, then laid his head on the pillow for just a moment of rest. And with that perversity which extreme weariness so often exerts, his eyes closed, and he slept,—to wake at last with the realization that it was late morning, and that some one was pounding on the door. Fairchild raised his head.

"Is that you, Mother Howard? I'm getting up, right away."

A slight chuckle answered him.

"But this is n't Mother Howard. May I see you a moment?"

"Who is it?"

"No one you know—yet. I 've come to talk to you about your partner. May I come in?"

"Yes." Fairchild was fully alive now to the activities that the day held before him. The door opened, and a young man, alert, almost cocky in manner, with black, snappy eyes showing behind horn-rimmed glasses, entered and reached for the sole chair that the room contained.

"My name 's Farrell," he announced. "Randolph P. Farrell. And to make a long story short, I 'm your lawyer."

"My lawyer?" Fairchild stared. "I haven't any lawyer in Ohadi. The only—"

"That does n't alter the fact. I 'm your lawyer, and I 'm at your service. And I don't mind telling you that it's just about my first case. Otherwise, I don't guess I 'd have gotten it."

"Why not?" The frankness had driven other queries from Fairchild's mind. Farrell, the attorney, grinned cheerily.

"Because I understand it concerns the Rodaines. Nobody but a fool out of college cares to buck up against them. Besides, nearly everybody has a little money stuck into their enterprises. And seeing I have no money at all, I 'm not financially interested. And not being interested, I 'm wholly just, fair and willing to fight 'em to a standstill. Now what's the trouble? Your partner 's in jail, as I understand it. Guilty or not guilty?"

"Wa—wait a minute!" The breeziness of the man had brought Fairchild to more wakefulness and to a certain amount of cheer. "Who hired you?" Then with a sudden inspiration: "Mother Howard did n't go and do this?"

"Mother Howard? You mean the woman who runs the boarding house? Not at all."

"But—"

"I 'm not exactly at liberty to state."

Suspicion began to assert itself. The smile of comradeship that the other man's manner instilled faded suddenly.

"Under those conditions, I don't believe—"

"Don't say it! Don't get started along those lines. I know what you 're thinking. Knew that was what would happen from the start. And against the wishes of the person who hired me for this work, I—well, I brought the evidence. I might as well show it now as try to put over this secret stuff and lose a lot of time doing it. Here, take a glimpse and then throw it away, tear it up, swallow it, or do anything you want to with it, just so nobody else sees it. Ready? Look."

He drew forth a small visiting card. Fairchild glanced. Then he looked—and then he sat up straight in bed. For before him were the engraved words:

Miss Anita Natalie Richmond.

While across the card was hastily written, in a hand distinctively feminine:

Mr. Fairchild: This is my good friend. He will help you. There is no fee attached. Please destroy.
Anita Richmond.

"Bu—but I don't understand."

"You know Miss—er—the writer of this card, don't you?"

"But why should she—?"

Mr. Farrell, barrister-at-law, grinned broadly.

"I see you don't know Miss—the writer of this card at all. That's her nature. Besides—well, I have a habit of making long stories short. All she 's got to do with me is crook her finger and I 'll jump through. I 'm—none of your business. But, anyway, here I am—"

Fairchild could not restrain a laugh. There was something about the man, about his nervous, yet boyish way of speaking, about his enthusiasm, that wiped out suspicion and invited confidence. The owner of the Blue Poppy mine leaned forward.

"But you did n't finish your sentence about—the writer of that card."

"You mean—oh—well, there 's nothing to that. I 'm in love with her. Been in love with her since I 've been knee-high to a duck. So 're you. So 's every other human being that thinks he's a regular man. So's Maurice Rodaine. Don't know about the rest of you—but I have n't got a chance. Don't even think of it any more—look on it as a necessary affliction, like wearing winter woolens and that sort of thing. Don't let it bother you. The problem right now is to get your partner out of jail. How much money have you got?"

"Only a little more than two thousand."

"Not enough. There 'll be bonds on four charges. At the least, they 'll be around a thousand dollars apiece. Probabilities are that they 'll run around ten thousand for the bunch. How about the Blue Poppy?"

Fairchild shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know what it's worth."

"Neither do I. Neither does the judge. Neither does any one else. Therefore, it's worth at least ten thousand dollars. That 'll do the trick. Get out your deeds and that sort of thing—we 'll have to file them with the bond as security."

"But that will ruin us!"

"How so? A bond 's nothing more than a mortgage. It doesn't stop you from working on the mine. All it does is give evidence that your friend and partner will be on the job when the bailiff yells oyez, oyez, oyez. Otherwise, they 'll take the mine away from you and sell it at public sale for the price of the bond. But that's a happen-so of the future. And there 's no danger if our client—you will notice that I call him our client—is clothed with the dignity and the protecting mantle of innocence and stays here to see his trial out."

"He 'll do that, all right."

"Then we 're merely using the large and ample safe of the court of this judicial district as a deposit vault for some very valuable papers. I 'd suggest now that you get up, seize your deeds and accompany me to the palace of justice. Otherwise, that partner of yours will have to eat dinner in a place called in undignified language the hoosegow!"

It was like warm sunshine on a cold day, the chatter of this young man in horn-rimmed glasses. Soon Fairchild was dressed and walking hurriedly up the street with the voluble attorney. A half-hour more and they were before the court. Fairchild, the lawyer and the jail-worn Harry, his mustache fluttering in more directions than ever.

"Not guilty, Your Honor," said Randolph P. Farrell. "May I ask the extent of the bond?"

The judge adjusted his glasses and studied the information which the district attorney had laid before him.

"In view of the number of charges and the seriousness of each, I must fix an aggregate bond of five thousand dollars, or twelve hundred fifty dollars for each case."

"Thank you; we had come prepared for more. Mr. Fairchild, who is Mr. Harkins' partner, is here to appear as bondsman. The deeds are in his name alone, the partnership existing, as I understand it, upon their word of honor between them. I refer, Your Honor, to the deeds of the Blue Poppy mine. Would Your Honor care to examine them?"

His Honor would. His Honor did. For a long moment he studied them, and Fairchild, in looking about the courtroom, saw the bailiff in conversation with a tall, thin man, with squint eyes and a scar-marked forehead. A moment later, the judge looked over his glasses.

"Bailiff!"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Have you any information regarding the value of the Blue Poppy mining claims?"

"Sir, I have just been talking to Mr. Rodaine. He says they 're well worth the value of the bond."

"How about that, Rodaine?" The judge peered down the court room. Squint Rodaine scratched his hawklike nose with his thumb and nodded.

"They 'll do," was his answer, and the judge passed the papers to the clerk of the court.

"Bond accepted. I 'll set this trial for—"

"If Your Honor please, I should like it at the very, very earliest possible moment," Randolph P. Farrell had cut in. "This is working a very great hardship upon an innocent man and—"

"Can't be done." The judge was scrawling on his docket. "Everything 's too crowded. Can't be reached before the November term. Set it for November 11th."

"Very well, Your Honor." Then he turned with a wide grin to his clients. "That's all until November."

Out they filed through the narrow aisle of the court room, Fairchild's knee brushing the trouser leg of Squint Rodaine as they passed. At the door, the attorney turned toward them, then put forth a hand.

"Drop in any day this week and we 'll go over things," he announced cheerfully. "We put one over on his royal joblots that time, anyway. Hates me from the ground up. Worst we can hope for is a conviction and then a Supreme Court reversal. I 'll get him so mad he 'll fill the case with errors. He used to be an instructor down at Boulder, and I stuck the pages of a lecture together on him one day. That's why I asked for an early trial. Knew he 'd give me a late one. That 'll let us have time to stir up a little favorable evidence, which right now we don't possess. Understand—all money that comes from the mine is held in escrow until this case is decided. But I 'll explain that. Going to stick around here and bask in the effulgence of really possessing a case. S'long!"

And he turned back into the court room, while Fairchild, the dazed Harry stalking beside him, started down the street.

"'Ow do you figure it?" asked the Cornishman at last.

"What?"

"Rodaine. 'E 'elped us out!"

Fairchild stopped. It had not occurred to him before. But now he saw it: that if Rodaine, as an expert on mining, had condemned the Blue Poppy, it could have meant only one thing, the denial of bond by the judge and the lack of freedom for Harry. Fairchild rubbed a hand across his brow.

"I can't figure it," came at last. "And especially since his son is the accuser and since I got the best of them both last night!"

"Got the best of 'em? You?"

The story was brief in its telling. And it brought no explanation of the sudden amiability displayed by the crooked-faced Rodaine. They went on, striving vainly for a reason, at last to stop in front of the post-office, as the postmaster leaned out of the door.

"Your name's Fairchild, isn't it?" asked the person of letters, as he fastened a pair of gimlet eyes on the owner of the Blue Poppy.

"Yes."

"Thought so. Some of the fellows said you was. Better drop in here for your mail once in a while. There 's been a letter for you here for two days!"

"For me?" Vaguely Fairchild went within and received the missive, a plain, bond envelope without a return address. He turned it over and over in his hand before he opened it—then looked at the postmark,—Denver. At last:

"Open it, why don't you?"

Harry's mustache was tickling his ear, as the big miner stared over his shoulder. Fairchild obeyed. They gasped together. Before them were figures and sentences which blurred for a moment, finally to resolve into:

Mr. Robert Fairchild,
Ohadi, Colorado.

Dear Sir;

I am empowered by a client whose name I am not at liberty to state, to make you an offer of $50,000. for your property in Clear Creek County, known as the Blue Poppy mine. In replying, kindly address your letter to
Box 180, Denver, Colo.

Harry whistled long and thoughtfully.

"That's a 'ole lot of money!"

"An awful lot, Harry. But why was the offer made? There 's nothing to base it on. There 's—"

Then for a moment, as they stepped out of the post-office, he gave up the thought, even of comparative riches. Twenty feet away, a man and a girl were approaching, talking as though there never had been the slightest trouble between them. They crossed the slight alleyway, and she laid her hand on his arm, almost caressingly, Fairchild thought, and he stared hard as though in unbelief of their identity. But it was certain. It was Maurice Rodaine and Anita Richmond; they came closer, her eyes turned toward Fairchild, and then—

She went on, without speaking, without taking the trouble to notice, apparently, that he had been standing there.