Mose had stolen the chicken for him, and the various other missing articles.
They had resurrected the ha'nt to frighten the negroes away from the laurel walk, and the night of the party Rad, in his masquerade, had accidentally discovered his brother.
Jeff demanded money, and Rad undertook to supply it in order to get him away without his father's knowing.
That was why he had borrowed the hundred dollars from me, and had written to his brokers to sell the bonds.
It was Jeff who was sitting beside Radnor the night they drove across the lawn.
But unknown to Rad, Jeff had found his way back and had robbed the safe, and Rad suspecting it, had refused to make an investigation.
During the eleven days that intervened between the robbery and the murder Jeff had still been hiding in the vicinity—possibly in the neighborhood of Luray, certainly no longer in the cabins, for he had no desire to meet his brother.
But on the day of the picnic they had met and quarreled.
Rad had charged him with the robbery and they had parted in a high state of anger.
This would explain Rad's actions in the hotel, his white face later when I found him in the summer house.
And Jeff, still quivering from the boy's accusation, had gone back into the cave and met his father as the old man was coming from the little gallery of the broken column with Polly Mathers's coat.
What had happened there I did not like to consider; they both had uncontrolled tempers, and in the past there had been wrongs on both sides.
Probably Jeff's blow had been harder than he meant.
In the evening when Mattison and I brought the news of the murder, Rad must have known instantly who was the real culprit.
That was why he had kept silent; that was why he so vehemently insisted on Mose's innocence.
I had found the light at last—though the darkness had been almost better.
What must I do? I asked myself.
Was it my duty to search out Jefferson and convict him of this crime?
No one could tell what provocation he may have had.
Why not let matters take their course?
There was nothing but circumstantial evidence against Radnor.
Surely no jury would convict him on that.
I could work up a sufficient case against Mose to assure his acquittal.
He would be released with a blot on his name, he would be regarded for the rest of his life with suspicion; but in any event there seemed to be no outcome which would not involve the family in endless trouble and disgrace.
And besides, if he himself elected to be silent, had I any right to speak?
Then I pulled myself together.
Yes, it was not only right for me to speak; it was my duty.
Rad should not be allowed to sacrifice himself.
The truth, at whatever cost, must be brought out.
My first move must be to discover Jeff's whereabouts on the day of his father's murder.
It ought not to be difficult to trace a man who had come more than once under the surveillance of the police.
Having made up my mind as to the necessary course, I lost no time in putting it into action.
I barely waited to snatch a hasty supper before riding back to the village.
From there I sent a fifty-word telegram to the chief of police in Seattle asking for any information as to the whereabouts of Jefferson Gaylord on the nineteenth of May.
It was ten o'clock the next morning before an answer came.
So sure was I of what it was going to contain, that I read the words twice before comprehending them.
"Jefferson Gaylord spent May nineteenth in lumber camp thirty miles from Seattle.
Well-known character.
Mistaken identity impossible.
"Henry Waterson, "Police Commissioner."
I had become so obsessed with the horror of my new theory; so sure that Jeff was the murderer of his father that I could not readjust my thoughts to the idea that he had been at the time of the crime three thousand miles away.
The case, then, still stood exactly where it had stood from the beginning.
Six days had passed since the murder and I was not one inch nearer the truth.
Six days!
I realized it with a dull feeling of hopelessness.
Every day now that was allowed to pass only lessened the chance of our ever finding Mose and solving the mystery.
I still stood with the telegram in my hand staring at the words.
I was vaguely aware that a boy from
"Miller's place" had ridden up to the house on a bicycle, but not until Solomon approached with a second yellow envelope in his hand was I jostled back into a state of comprehension.
"Nurr telegram, Mars' Arnold."