The fight had now fairly begun. The district attorney was working up the side of the prosecution¹, aided, I was sure, by the over-zealous sheriff. It remained for me to map out some definite plan of action and organize the defence.
 
As I rode back to Four-Pools in the early evening after the inquest, I continued to dwell upon the evidence, searching blindly for some clue. The question which returned most persistently² to my mind was "What has become of Cat-Eye Mose?" It was clear now that upon the answer to this question hinged the ultimate solution of the mystery. I still clung to the belief that he was guilty and in hiding. But five days had elapsed since the murder, and no trace of him had been discovered. It seemed incredible that a man,however well he might know his ground, could, with a whole county on his track, elude³ detection so effectually.
 
Supposing after all that he were not guilty, but the sheriff's theory that he had been killed and the body concealed⁴, were true; then who, besides Radnor, could have had any motive⁵ for committing the crime? There was nothing from the past that afforded even the suggestion of a clue. The old man seemed to have had no enemies but his sons. His sons? The thought of Jeff suddenly sprang into my mind. If anyone on earth owed the Colonel a grudge⁶ it was his elder son. And Jeff had more than his share of the Gaylord spirit which could not lightly forgive an injury. Could he have returned secretly to the neighborhood, and, following his father into the cave, have quarreled with him? Heaven knows he had cause enough! He may, in his anger, have struck the old man without knowing what he was doing, and overcome with horror at the result, have left him and fled.
 
I was almost as reluctant to believe him guilty of the crime as to believe it of Radnor, but the thought having once come, would not be dismissed. I knew that he had sunk pretty low in the nine years since his disappearance⁷, but I could never think of him otherwise than as I myself remembered him. He had been the hero of my boyhood and I revolted from the thought of deliberately⁸ setting out to prove him guilty of his father's murder.
 
I spurred my horse into a gallop⁹, miserably¹⁰ trying to escape from my suspicion; but the more I put it from me as impossible, the surer I became that at last I had stumbled on a clue. Automatically, I began adjusting the evidence to fit this new theory, and reluctant as I was to see it, every circumstance from the beginning fitted it perfectly¹¹.
 
Jeff had returned secretly to the neighborhood, had taken up his abode¹² in the old negro cabins and made his presence known only to Mose. 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 brokers¹³ 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 investigation¹⁴.
 
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 accusation¹⁵, 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 vehemently¹⁶ insisted on Mose's innocence¹⁷. 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............