“Good morning, Katherine Fair,” he said.
Far over by the rock face Nance Allison leaned forward, in her bloody rags and raised a hand slowly to her throat.
The dullness in her clouded brain struggled with her natural keenness for mastery and lost.
Up from the abysmal depths of physical exhaustion which encompassed her came that spirit which had not yet been conquered.
“You!” screamed Cattle Kate, “You! You! It was you who did the trick—not that fool Selwood! I might have guessed!”
Fair sat still and looked at her and at the man beside her whose face was a study.
“Sure you might have guessed,” he said. “When you and your paramour there robbed the Consolidated and wound the coils of guilt around Jack Fair—you might have guessed that his brother would follow you to the ends of the earth to get you. And he’s got you—got you dead to rights.”
He, too, showed a deputy’s star.
“Jack Fair died in prison—of shame and of a broken heart. For three years I worked in New York to get the goods on you, Arnold, and never could—definitely. Then I hired a better man who could—and did. I have a precious package in a safe place with enough proof in it to have sent you over long ago—but I wanted you both—together—a grand finale. It has been a long trail—long—for me—and for Sonny, the child whom you abandoned, Kate, five years ago.”
The woman gasped and raised a clinched fist to let it fall in impotent rage. Fair went on.