Either Chance, or something stronger, had done the rest. The finding of the stolen horse and the carelessly made cache near the mouth of the Blue Poppy mine would be sufficient in the eyes of any jury. The evidence was both direct and circumstantial. To Fairchild's mind, there was small chance for escape by Harry, once his case went to trial. Nor did the pounding insistence of intuitive knowledge that the whole thing had been a deliberately staged plot on the part of the Rodaines, father and son, make the slightest difference in Fairchild's estimation. How could he prove it? By personal animosity? There was the whole town of Ohadi to testify that the highwayman was a big man, of the build of Harry, and that he spoke with a Cornish accent. There were the sworn members of the posse to show that they, without guidance, had discovered the horse and the cache,—and the Rodaines were nowhere about to help them. And experience already had told Fairchild that the Rodaines, by a deliberately constructed system, held a ruling power; that against their word, his would be as nothing. Besides, where would be Harry's alibi? He had none; he had been at the mine, alone. There was no one to testify for him, not even Fairchild.
The world was far from bright. Down the dark street the man wandered, his hands sunk deep in his pockets, his head low between his shoulders,—only to suddenly galvanize into intensity, and to stop short that he might hear again the voice which had come to him. At one side was a big house,—a house whose occupants he knew instinctively, for he had seen the shadow of a woman, hands outstretched, as she passed the light-strewn shade of a window on the second floor. More, he had heard her voice, supplemented by gruffer tones. And then it came again.
It was pleading, and at the same time angered with the passion of a person approaching hysteria. A barking sentence answered her, something that Fairchild could not understand. He left the old board sidewalk and crept to the porch that he might hear the better. Then every nerve within him jangled, and the black of the darkness changed to red. The Rodaines were within; he had heard first the cold voice of the father, then the rasping tones of the son, in upbraiding. More, there had come the sobbing of a woman; instinctively Fairchild knew that it was Anita Richmond. And then:
It was her voice, high, screaming. Hysteria had come,—the wild, racking hysteria of a person driven to the breaking point:
"Leave this house—hear me! Leave this house! Can't you see that you're killing him? Don't you dare touch me—leave this house! No—I won't be quiet—I won't—you 're killing him, I tell you—!"
And Fairchild waited for nothing more. A lunge, and he was on the veranda. One more spring and he had reached the door, to find it unlocked, to throw it wide and to leap into the hall. Great steps, and he had cleared the stairs to the second floor.
A scream came from a doorway before him; dimly, as through a red screen, Fairchild saw the frightened face of Anita Richmond, and on the landing, fronting him angrily, stood the two Rodaines. For a moment, Fairchild disregarded them and turned to the sobbing, disheveled little being in the doorway.
"What's happened?"
"They were threatening me—and father!" she moaned. "But you shouldn't have come in—you should n't have—"
"I heard you scream. I could n't help it. I heard you say they were killing your father—"