The mood of Mason throughout the entire direct examination was that of
a restless harrier anxious to be off at the heels of its prey--of a
foxhound within the last leap of its kill. A keen and surging desire
to shatter this testimony, to show it to be from start to finish the
tissue of lies that in part at least it was, now animated him. And no
sooner had Jephson concluded than he leaped up and confronted Clyde,
who, seeing him blazing with this desire to undo him, felt as though he
was about to be physically attacked.
"Griffiths, you had that camera in your hand at the time she came
toward you in the boat?"
"Yes, sir."
"She stumbled and fell and you accidentally struck her with it?"
"Yes."
"I don't suppose in your truthful and honest way you remember telling
me there in the woods on the shore of Big Bittern that you never had a
camera?"
"Yes, sir--I remember that."
"And that was a lie, of course?"
"Yes, sir."
"And told with all the fervor and force that you are now telling this
other lie?"
"I'm not lying. I've explained why I said that."
"You've explained why you said that! You've explained why you said
that! And because you lied there you expect to be believed here, do
you?"
Belknap rose to object, but Jephson pulled him down.
"Well, this is the truth, just the same."
"And no power under heaven could make you tell another lie here, of
course--not a strong desire to save yourself from the electric chair?"
Clyde blanched and quivered slightly; he blinked his red, tired
eyelids. "Well, I might, maybe, but not under oath, I don't think."
"You don't think! Oh, I see. Lie all you want wherever you are--and at
any time--and under any circumstances--except when you're on trial for
murder!"
"No, sir. It isn't that. But what I just said is so."
"And you swear on the Bible, do you, that you experienced a change of
heart?"
"Yes, sir."
"That Miss Alden was very sad and that was what moved you to experience
this change of heart?"
"Yes, sir. That's how it was."
"Well, now, Griffiths, when she was up there in the country and waiting
for you--she wrote you all those letters there, did she not?"
"Yes, sir."
"You received one on an average of every two days, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you knew she was lonely and miserable there, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir--but then I've explained----"
"Oh, you've explained! You mean your lawyers have explained it for you!
Didn't they coach you day after day in that jail over there as to how
you were to answer when the time came?"
"No, sir, they didn't!" replied Clyde, defiantly, catching Jephson's
eye at this moment.
"Well, then when I asked you up there at Bear Lake how it was that
this girl met her death--why didn't you tell me then and save all this
trouble and suspicion and investigation? Don't you think the public
would have listened more kindly and believingly there than it will now
after you've taken five long months to think it all out with the help
of two lawyers?"
"But I didn't think it out with any lawyers," persisted Clyde, still
looking at Jephson, who was supporting him with all his mental
strength. "I've just explained why I did that."
"You've explained! You've explained!" roared Mason, almost beside
himself with the knowledge that this false explanation was sufficient
of a shield or barrier for Clyde to hide behind whenever he found
himself being too hard pressed--the little rat! And so now he fairly
quivered with baffled rage as he proceeded.
"And before you went up--while she was writing them to you--you
considered them sad, didn't you?"
"Why, yes, sir. That is"--he hesitated incautiously--"some parts of
them anyhow."
"Oh, I see--only some parts of them now. I thought you just said you
considered them sad."
"Well, I do."
"And did."
"Yes, sir--and did." But Clyde's eyes were beginning to wander
nervously in the direction of Jephson, who was fixing him as with a
beam of light.
"Remember her writing you this?" And here Mason picked up and opened
one of the letters and began reading: "Clyde--I shall certainly die,
dear, if you don't come. I am so much alone. I am nearly crazy now.
I wish I could go away and never return or trouble you any more. But
if you would only telephone me, even so much as once every other day,
since you won't write. And when I need you and a word of encouragement
so." Mason's voice was mellow. It was sad. One could feel, as he spoke,
the wave of passing pity that was moving as sound and color not only
through him but through every spectator in the high, narrow courtroom.
"Does that seem at all sad to you?"
"Yes, sir, it does."
"Did it then?"
"Yes, sir, it did."
"You knew it was sincere, didn't you?" snarled Mason.
"Yes, sir. I did."
"Then why didn't a little of that pity that you claim moved you so
deeply out there in the center of Big Bittern move you down there in
Lycurgus to pick up the telephone there in Mrs. Peyton's house where
you were and reassure that lonely girl by so much as a word that you
were coming? Was it because your pity for her then wasn't as great as
it was after she wrote you that threatening letter? Or was it because
you had a plot and you were afraid that too much telephoning to her
might attract attention? How was it that you had so much pity all of a
sudden up at Big Bittern, but none at all down there at Lycurgus? Is it
something you can turn on and off like a faucet?"
"I never said I had none at all," replied Clyde, defiantly, having just
received an eye-flash from Jephson.
"Well, you left her to wait until she had to threaten you because of
her own terror and misery."
"Well, I've admitted that I didn't treat her right."
"Ha, ha! Right! _Right!_ And because of that admission, and in face of
all the other testimony we've had here, your own included, you expect
to walk out of here a free man, do you?"
Belknap was not to be restrained any longer. His objection came--and
with bitter vehemence he addressed the Judge: "This is infamous, your
Honor. Is the district attorney to be allowed to make a speech with
every question?"
"I heard no objection," countered the court. "The district attorney
will frame his questions properly."
Mason took the rebuke lightly and turned again to Clyde. "In that boat
there in the center of Big Bittern you have testified that you had in
your hand that camera that you once denied owning?"
"Yes, sir."
"And she was in the stern of the boat?"
"Yes, sir."
"Bring in that boat, will you, Burton?" he called to Burleigh at
this point, and forthwith four deputies from the district attorney's
office retired through a west door behind the judge's rostrum and soon
returned carrying the identical boat in which Clyde and Roberta had
sat, and put it down before the jury. And as they did so Clyde chilled
and stared. The identical boat! He blinked and quivered as the audience
stirred, stared and strained, an audible wave of curiosity and interest
passing over the entire room. And then Mason, taking the camera and
shaking it up and down, exclaimed: "Well, here you are now, Griffiths!
The camera you never owned. Step down here into this boat and take this
camera here and show the jury just where you sat, and where Miss Alden
sat. And exactly, if you can, how and where it was that you struck Miss
Alden and where and about how she fell."
"Object!" declared Belknap.
A long and wearisome legal argument, finally terminating in the judge
allowing this type of testimony to be continued for a while at least.
And at the conclusion of it, Clyde declaring: "I didn't intentionally
strike her with it though"--to which Mason replied: "Yes, we heard you
testify that way"--then Clyde stepping down and after being directed
here and there finally stepping into the boat at the middle seat and
seating himself while three men held it straight.
"And now, Newcomb--I want you to come here and sit wherever Miss Alden
was supposed to sit and take any position which he describes as having
been taken by her."
"Yes, sir," said Newcomb, coming forward and seating himself while
Clyde vainly sought to catch Jephson's eye but could not since his own
back was partially turned from him.
"And now, Griffiths," went on Mason, "just you show Mr. Newcomb here
how Miss Alden arose and came toward you. Direct him."
And then Clyde, feeling weak and false and hated, arising again and
in a nervous and angular way--the eerie strangeness of all this
affecting him to the point of unbelievable awkwardness--attempting
to show Newcomb just how Roberta had gotten up and half walked and
half crawled, then had stumbled and fallen. And after that, with the
camera in his hand, attempting to show as nearly as he could recall,
how unconsciously his arm had shot out and he had struck Roberta, he
scarcely knowing where--on the chin and cheek maybe, he was not sure,
but not intentionally, of course, and not with sufficient force really
to injure her, he thought at the time. But just here a long wrangle
between Belknap and Mason as to the competency of such testimony since
Clyde declared that he could not remember clearly--but Oberwaltzer
finally allowing the testimony on the ground that it would show,
relatively, whether a light or heavy push or blow was required in order
to upset any one who might be "lightly" or "loosely" poised.
"But how in Heaven's name are these antics as here demonstrated on a
man of Mr. Newcomb's build to show what would follow in the case of a
girl of the size and weight of Miss Alden?" persisted Belknap.
"Well, then we'll put a girl of the size and weight of Miss Alden
in here." And at once calling for Zillah Sanders and putting her in
Newcomb's place. But Belknap none-the-less proceeding with:
"And what of that? The conditions aren't the same. This boat isn't on
the water. No two people are going to be alike in their resistance or
their physical responses to accidental blows."
"Then you refuse to allow this demonstration to be made?" (This was
from Mason, turning and cynically inquiring.)
"Oh, make it if you choose. It doesn't mean anything though, as anybody
can see," persisted Belknap, suggestively.
And so Clyde, under directions from Mason, now pushing at Zillah,
"about as hard," (he thought) as he had accidentally pushed at Roberta.
And she falling back a little--not much--but in so doing being able
to lay a hand on each side of the boat and so save herself. And the
jury, in spite of Belknap's thought that his contentions would have
counteracted all this, gathering the impression that Clyde, on account
of his guilt and fear of death, was probably attempting to conjure
something that had been much more viciously executed, to be sure. For
had not the doctors sworn to the probable force of this and another
blow on the top of the head? And had not Burton Burleigh testified to
having discovered a hair in the camera? And how about the cry that
woman had heard? How about that?
But with that particular incident the court was adjourned for this day.
On the following morning at the sound of the gavel, there was Mason, as
fresh and vigorous and vicious as ever. And Clyde, after a miserable
night in his cell and much bolstering by Jephson and Belknap,
determined to be as cool and insistent and innocent-appearing as he
could be, but with no real heart for the job, so convinced was he that
local sentiment in its entirety was against him--that he was believed
to be guilty. And with Mason beginning most savagely and bitterly:
"You still insist that you experienced a change of heart, do you,
Griffiths?"
"Yes, sir, I do."
"Ever hear of people being resuscitated after they have apparently
drowned?"
"I don't quite understand."
"You know, of course, that people who are supposed to be drowned,
who go down for the last time and don't come up, are occasionally
gotten out of the water and revived, brought back to life by first-aid
methods--working their arms and rolling them over a log or a barrel.
You've heard of that, haven't you?"
"Yes, sir, I think I have. I've heard of people being brought back to
life after they're supposed to be drowned, but I don't think I ever
heard just how."
"You never did?"
"No, sir."
"Or how long they could stay under water and still be revived?"
"No, sir. I never did."
"Never heard, for instance, that a person who had been in the water as
long as fifteen minutes might still be brought to?"
"No, sir."
"So it never occurred to you after you swam to shore yourself that you
might still call for aid and so save her life even then?"
"No, sir, it didn't occur to me. I thought she was dead by then."
"I see. But when she was still alive out there in the water--how about
that? You're a pretty good swimmer, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir, I swim fairly well."
"Well enough, for instance, to save yourself by swimming over five
hundred feet with your shoes and clothes on. Isn't that so?"
"Well, I did swim that distance then--yes, sir."
"Yes, you did indeed--and pretty good for a fellow who couldn't swim
thirty-five feet to an overturned boat, I'll say," concluded Mason.
Here Jephson waved aside Belknap's suggestion that he move to have this
comment stricken out.
Clyde was now dragged over his various boating and swimming experiences
and made to tell how many times he had gone out on lakes in craft as
dangerous as canoes and had never had an accident.
"The first time you took Roberta out on Crum Lake was in a canoe,
wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"But you had no accident then?"
"No, sir."
"You cared for her then very much, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"But the day she was drowned in Big Bittern, in this solid,
round-bottomed row boat, you didn't care for her any more."
"Well, I've said how I felt then."
"And of course there couldn't be any relation between the fact that on
Crum Lake you cared for her but on Big Bittern----"
"I said how I felt then."
"But you wanted to get rid of her just the same, didn't you? The moment
she was dead to run away to that other girl. You don't deny that, do
you?"
"I've explained why I did that," reiterated Clyde.
"Explained! Explained! And you expect any fair-minded, decent,
intelligent person to believe that explanation, do you?" Mason was
fairly beside himself with rage and Clyde did not venture to comment
as to that. The Judge anticipated Jephson's objection to this and
bellowed, "Objection sustained." But Mason went right on. "You couldn't
have been just a little careless, could you, Griffiths, in the handling
of the boat and upset it yourself, say?" He drew near and leered.
"No, sir, I wasn't careless. It was an accident that I couldn't avoid."
Clyde was quite cool, though pale and tired.
"An accident. Like that other accident out there in Kansas City, for
instance. You're rather familiar with accidents of that kind, aren't
you, Griffiths?" queried Mason sneeringly and slowly.
"I've explained how that happened," replied Clyde nervously.
"You're rather familiar with accidents that result in death to girls,
aren't you? Do you always run away when one of them dies?"
"Object," yelled Belknap, leaping to his feet.
"Objection sustained," called Oberwaltzer sharply. "There is nothing
before this court concerning any other accident. The prosecution will
confine itself more closely to the case in hand."
"Griffiths," went on Mason, pleased with the way he had made a return
to Jephson for his apology for the Kansas City accident, "when that
boat upset after that accidental blow of yours and you and Miss Alden
fell into the water--how far apart were you?"
"Well, I didn't notice just then."
"Pretty close, weren't you? Not much more than a foot or two,
surely--the way you stood there in the boat?"
"Well, I didn't notice. Maybe that, yes, sir."
"Close enough to have grabbed her and hung on to her if you had wanted
to, weren't you? That's what you jumped up for, wasn't it, when she
started to fall out?"
"Yes, that's what I jumped up for," replied Clyde heavily, "but I
wasn't close enough to grab her. I know I went right under, and when I
came up she was some little distance away."
"Well, how far exactly? As far as from here to this end of the jury box
or that end, or half way, or what?"
"Well, I say I didn't notice, quite. About as far from here to that
end, I guess," he lied, stretching the distance by at least eight feet.
"Not really!" exclaimed Mason, pretending to evince astonishment. "This
boat here turns over, you both fall in the water close together, and
when you come up you and she are nearly twenty feet apart. Don't you
think your memory is getting a little the best of you there?"
"Well, that's the way it looked to me when I came up."
"Well, now, after that boat turned over and you both came up, where
were you in relation to _it_? Here is the boat now and where were you
out there in the audience, as to distance, I mean?"
"Well, as I say, I didn't exactly notice when I first came up,"
returned Clyde, looking nervously and dubiously at the space before
him. Most certainly a trap was being prepared for him. "About as far as
from here to that railing beyond your table, I guess."
"About thirty to thirty-five feet then," suggested Mason, slyly and
hopefully.
"Yes, sir. About that maybe. I couldn't be quite sure."
"And now with you over there and the boat here, where was Miss Alden at
that time?"
And Clyde now sensed that Mason must have some geometric or mathematic
scheme in mind whereby he proposed to establish his guilt. And at
once he was on his guard, and looking in the direction of Jephson.
At the same time he could not see how he was to put Roberta too far
away either. He had said she couldn't swim. Wouldn't she be nearer
the boat than he was? Most certainly. He leaped foolishly--wildly--at
the thought that it might be best to say that she was about half
that distance--not more, very likely. And said so. And at once Mason
proceeded with:
"Well, then she was not more than fifteen feet or so from you or the
boat."
"No, sir, maybe not. I guess not."
"Well then, do you mean to say that you couldn't have swum that little
distance and buoyed her up until you could reach the boat just fifteen
feet beyond her?"
"Well, as I say, I was a little dazed when I came up and she was
striking about and screaming so."
"But there was that boat--not more than thirty-five feet away,
according to your own story--and a mighty long way for a boat to move
in that time, I'll say. And do you mean to say that when you could swim
five hundred feet to shore afterwards that you couldn't have swum to
that boat and pushed it to her in time for her to save herself? She was
struggling to keep herself up, wasn't she?"
"Yes, sir. But I was rattled at first," pleaded Clyde, gloomily,
conscious of the eyes of all the jurors and all the spectators fixed
upon his face, "and ... and ..." (because of the general strain of the
suspicion and incredulity now focused as a great force upon him, his
nerve was all but failing him, and he was hesitating and stumbling) ...
"I didn't think quite quick enough I guess, what to do. Besides I was
afraid if I went near her ..."
"I know. A mental and moral coward," sneered Mason. "Besides very slow
to think when it's to your advantage to be slow and swift when it's to
your advantage to be swift. Is that it?"
"No, sir."
"Well, then, if it isn't, just tell me this, Griffiths, why was it,
after you got out of the water a few moments later you had sufficient
presence of mind to stop and bury that tripod before starting through
the woods, whereas, when it came to rescuing her you got rattled
and couldn't do a thing? How was it that you could get so calm and
calculating the moment you set your foot on land? What can you say to
that?"
"Well ... a ... I told you that afterwards I realized that there was
nothing else to do."
"Yes, we know all about that. But doesn't it occur to you that it takes
a pretty cool head after so much panic in the water to stop at a moment
like that and take such a precaution as that--burying that tripod? How
was it that you could think so well of that and not think anything
about the boat a few moments before?"
"Well ... but ..."
"You didn't want her to live, in spite of your alleged change of heart!
Isn't that it?" yelled Mason. "Isn't that the black, sad truth? She was
drowning, as you wanted her to drown, and you just let her drown! Isn't
that so?"
He was fairly trembling as he shouted this, and Clyde, the actual boat
before him and Roberta's eyes and cries as she sank coming back to him
with all their pathetic and horrible force, now shrank and cowered in
his seat--the closeness of Mason's interpretation of what had really
happened terrifying him. For never, even to Jephson and Belknap, had he
admitted that when Roberta was in the water he had not wished to save
her. Changelessly and secretively he had insisted he had wanted to but
that it had all happened so quickly, and he was so dazed and frightened
by her cries and movements, that he had not been able to do anything
before she was gone.
"I ... I wanted to save her," he mumbled, his face quite gray, "but ...
but ... as I said, I was dazed ... and ... and ..."
"Don't you know that you're lying!" shouted Mason, leaning still
closer, his stout arms aloft, his disfigured face glowering and
scowling like some avenging nemesis or fury of gargoyle design--"that
you deliberately and with cold-hearted cunning allowed that poor,
tortured girl to die there when you might have rescued her as easily
as you could have swum fifty of those five hundred feet you did swim
in order to save yourself?" For by now he was convinced that he knew
just how Clyde had actually slain Roberta, something in his manner and
mood convincing him, and he was determined to drag it out of him if he
could. And although Belknap was instantly on his feet with a protest
that his client was being unfairly prejudiced in the eyes of the jury
and that he was really entitled to--and now demanded--a mistrial--which
complaint Justice Oberwaltzer eventually overruled--still Clyde had
time to reply, but most meekly and feebly: "No! No! I didn't. I wanted
to save her if I could." Yet his whole manner, as each and every juror
noted, was that of one who was not really telling the truth, who was
really all of the mental and moral coward that Belknap had insisted he
was--but worse yet, really guilty of Roberta's death. For after all,
asked each juror of himself as he listened, why couldn't he have saved
her if he was strong enough to swim to shore afterwards--or at least
have swum to and secured the boat and helped her to take hold of it?
"She only weighed a hundred pounds, didn't she?" went on Mason
feverishly.
"Yes, I think so."
"And you--what did you weigh at the time?"
"About a hundred and forty," replied Clyde.
"And a hundred and forty pound man," sneered Mason, turning to the
jury, "is afraid to go near a weak, sick, hundred-pound little girl who
is drowning, for fear she will cling to him and drag him under! And a
perfectly good boat, strong enough to hold three or four up, within
fifteen or twenty feet! How's that?"
And to emphasize it and let it sink in, he now paused, and took from
his pocket a large white handkerchief, and after wiping his neck and
face and wrists--since they were quite damp from his emotional and
physical efforts--turned to Burton Burleigh and called: "You might as
well have this boat taken out of here, Burton. We're not going to need
it for a little while anyhow." And forthwith the four deputies carried
it out.
And then, having recovered his poise, he once more turned to Clyde and
began with: "Griffiths, you knew the color and feel of Roberta Alden's
hair pretty well, didn't you? You were intimate enough with her,
weren't you?"
"I know the color of it or I think I do," replied Clyde wincing--an
anguished chill at the thought of it affecting him almost observably.
"And the feel of it, too, didn't you?" persisted Mason. "In those very
loving days of yours before Miss X came along--you must have touched it
often enough."
"I don't know whether I did or not," replied Clyde, catching a glance
from Jephson.
"Well, roughly. You must know whether it was coarse or fine--silky or
coarse. You know that, don't you?"
"It was silky, yes."
"Well, here's a lock of it," he now added more to torture Clyde than
anything else--to wear him down nervously--and going to his table
where was an envelope and from it extracting a long lock of light brown
hair. "Don't that look like her hair?" And now he shoved it forward at
Clyde who shocked and troubled withdrew from it as from some unclean
or dangerous thing--yet a moment after sought to recover himself--the
watchful eyes of the jury having noted all. "Oh, don't be afraid,"
persisted Mason, sardonically. "It's only your dead love's hair."
And shocked by the comment--and noting the curious eyes of the jury,
Clyde took it in his hand. "That looks and feels like her hair, doesn't
it?" went on Mason.
"Well, it looks like it anyhow," returned Clyde shakily.
"And now here," continued Mason, stepping quickly to the table and
returning with the camera in which between the lid and the taking
mechanism were caught the two threads of Roberta's hair put there by
Burleigh, and then holding it out to him. "Just take this camera. It's
yours even though you did swear that it wasn't--and look at those two
hairs there. See them?" And he poked the camera at Clyde as though he
might strike him with it. "They were caught in there--presumably--at
the time you struck her so lightly that it made all those wounds on her
face. Can't you tell the jury whether those hairs are hers or not?"
"I can't say," replied Clyde most weakly.
"What's that? Speak up. Don't be so much of a moral and mental coward.
Are they or are they not?"
"I can't say," repeated Clyde--but not even looking at them.
"Look at them. Look at them. Compare them with these others. We know
these are hers. And you know that these in this camera are, don't you?
Don't be so squeamish. You've often touched her hair in real life.
She's dead. They won't bite you. Are these two hairs--or are they
not--the same as these other hairs here--which we know are hers--the
same color--same feel--all? Look! Answer! Are they or are they not?"
But Clyde, under such pressure and in spite of Belknap, being compelled
to look and then feel them too. Yet cautiously replying, "I wouldn't be
able to say. They look and feel a little alike, but I can't tell."
"Oh, can't you? And even when you know that when you struck her that
brutal vicious blow with that camera--these two hairs caught there and
held."
"But I didn't strike her any vicious blow," insisted Clyde, now
observing Jephson--"and I can't say." He was saying to himself that he
would not allow himself to be bullied in this way by this man--yet,
at the same time, feeling very weak and sick. And Mason, triumphant
because of the psychologic effect, if nothing more, returning the
camera and lock to the table and remarking, "Well, it's been amply
testified to that those two hairs were in that camera when found in the
water. And you yourself swear that it was last in your hand before it
reached the water."
He turned to think of something else--some new point with which to rack
Clyde and now began once more:
"Griffiths, in regard to that trip south through the woods, what time
was it when you got to Three Mile Bay?"
"About four in the morning, I think--just before dawn."
"And what did you do between then and the time that boat down there
left?"
"Oh, I walked around."
"In Three Mile Bay?"
"No, sir--just outside of it."
"In the woods, I suppose, waiting for the town to wake up so you
wouldn't look so much out of place. Was that it?"
"Well, I waited until after the sun came up. Besides I was tired and I
sat down and rested for a while."
"Did you sleep well and did you have pleasant dreams?"
"I was tired and I slept a little--yes."
"And how was it you knew so much about the boat and the time and all
about Three Mile Bay? Hadn't you familiarized yourself with this data
beforehand?"
"Well, everybody knows about the boat from Sharon to Three Mile Bay
around there."
"Oh, do they? Any other reason?"
"Well, in looking for a place to get married, both of us saw it,"
returned Clyde, shrewdly, "but we didn't see that any train went to it.
Only to Sharon."
"But you did notice that it was south of Big Bittern?"
"Why, yes--I guess I did," replied Clyde.
"And that that road west of Gun Lodge led south toward it around the
lower edge of Big Bittern?"
"Well, I noticed after I got up there that there was a road of some
kind or a trail anyhow--but I didn't think of it as a regular road."
"I see. How was it then that when you met those three men in the woods
you were able to ask them how far it was to Three Mile Bay?"
"I didn't ask 'em that," replied Clyde, as he had been instructed by
Jephson to say. "I asked 'em if they knew any road to Three Mile Bay,
and how far it was. I didn't know whether that was the road or not."
"Well, that wasn't how they testified here."
"Well, I don't care what they testified to, that's what I asked 'em
just the same."
"It seems to me that according to you all the witnesses are liars and
you are the only truthful one in the bunch.... Isn't that it? But, when
you reached Three Mile Bay, did you stop to eat? You must have been
hungry, weren't you?"
"No, I wasn't hungry," replied Clyde, simply.
"You wanted to get away from that place as quickly as possible,
wasn't that it? You were afraid that those three men might go up to
Big Bittern and having heard about Miss Alden tell about having seen
you--wasn't that it?"
"No, that wasn't it. But I didn't want to stay around there. I've said
why."
"I see. But after you got down to Sharon where you felt a little more
safe--a little further away, you didn't lose any time in eating, did
you? It tasted pretty good all right down there, didn't it?"
"Oh, I don't know about that. I had a cup of coffee and a sandwich."
"And a piece of pie, too, as we've already proved here," added Mason.
"And after that you joined the crowd coming up from the depot as though
you had just come up from Albany, as you afterwards told everybody.
Wasn't that it?"
"Yes, that was it."
"Well, now for a really innocent man who only so recently experienced
a kindly change of heart, don't you think you were taking an awful
lot of precaution? Hiding away like that and waiting in the dark and
pretending that you had just come up from Albany."
"I've explained all that," persisted Clyde.
Mason's next tack was to hold Clyde up to shame for having been
willing, in the face of all she had done for him, to register Roberta
in three different hotel registers as the unhallowed consort of
presumably three different men in three different days.
"Why didn't you take separate rooms?"
"Well, she didn't want it that way. She wanted to be with me. Besides I
didn't have any too much money."
"Even so, how could you have so little respect for her there and then
be so deeply concerned about her reputation after she was dead that you
had to run away and keep the secret of her death all to yourself, in
order, as you say, to protect her name and reputation?"
"Your Honor," interjected Belknap, "this isn't a question. It's an
oration."
"I withdraw the question," countered Mason, and then went on. "Do
you admit, by the way, that you are a mental and moral coward,
Griffiths--do you?"
"No, sir. I don't."
"You do not?"
"No, sir."
"Then when you lie, and swear to it, you are just the same as any other
person who is not a mental and moral coward, and deserving of all the
contempt and punishment due a person who is a perjurer and a false
witness. Is that correct?"
"Yes, sir. I suppose so."
"Well, if you are not a mental and moral coward, how can you justify
your leaving that girl in that lake--after as you say you accidentally
struck her and when you knew how her parents would soon be suffering
because of her loss--and not say one word to anybody--just walk
off--and hide the tripod and your suit and sneak away like an ordinary
murderer? Wouldn't you think that that was the conduct of a man who had
plotted and executed murder and was trying to get away with it--if you
had heard of it about some one else? Or would you think it was just the
sly, crooked trick of a man who was only a mental and moral coward and
who was trying to get away from the blame for the accidental death of
a girl whom he had seduced and news of which might interfere with his
prosperity? Which?"
"Well, I didn't kill her, just the same," insisted Clyde.
"Answer the question!" thundered Mason.
"I ask the court to instruct the witness that he need not answer such
a question," put in Jephson, rising and fixing first Clyde and then
Oberwaltzer with his eye. "It is purely an argumentative one and has no
real bearing on the facts in this case."
"I so instruct," replied Oberwaltzer. "The witness need not answer."
Whereupon Clyde merely stared, greatly heartened by this unexpected aid.
"Well, to go on," proceeded Mason, now more nettled and annoyed than
ever by this watchful effort on the part of Belknap and Jephson to
break the force and significance of his each and every attack, and all
the more determined not to be outdone--"you say you didn't intend to
marry her if you could help it, before you went up there?"
"Yes, sir."
"That she wanted you to but you hadn't made up your mind?"
"Yes."
"Well, do you recall the cook-book and the salt and pepper shakers and
the spoons and knives and so on that she put in her bag?"
"Yes, sir. I do."
"What do you suppose she had in mind when she left Biltz--with those
things in her trunk--that she was going out to live in some hall
bedroom somewhere, unmarried, while you came to see her once a week or
once a month?"
Before Belknap could object, Clyde shot back the proper answer.
"I can't say what she had in her mind about that."
"You couldn't possibly have told her over the telephone there at Biltz,
for instance--after she wrote you that if you didn't come for her she
was coming to Lycurgus--that you would marry her?"
"No, sir--I didn't."
"You weren't mental and moral coward enough to be bullied into anything
like that, were you?"
"I never said I was a mental and moral coward."
"But you weren't to be bullied by a girl you had seduced?"
"Well, I couldn't feel then that I ought to marry her."
"You didn't think she'd make as good a match as Miss X?"
"I didn't think I ought to marry her if I didn't love her any more."
"Not even to save her honor--and your own decency?"
"Well, I didn't think we could be happy together then."
"That was before your great change of heart, I suppose."
"It was before we went to Utica, yes."
"And while you were still so enraptured with Miss X?"
"I was in love with Miss X--yes."
"Do you recall, in one of those letters to you that you never answered"
(and here Mason proceeded to take up and read from one of the first
seven letters), "her writing this to you; 'I feel upset and uncertain
about everything although I try not to feel so--now that we have our
plan and you are going to come for me as you said.' Now just what was
she referring to there when she wrote--'now that we have our plan'?"
"I don't know unless it was that I was coming to get her and take her
away somewhere temporarily."
"Not to marry her, of course."
"No, I hadn't said so."
"But right after that in this same letter she says: 'On the way up,
instead of coming straight home, I decided to stop at Homer to see my
sister and brother-in-law, since I am not sure now when I'll see them
again, and I want so much that they shall see me respectable or never
at all any more.' Now just what do you suppose she meant by that word
'respectable'? Living somewhere in secret and unmarried and having a
child while you sent her a little money, and then coming back maybe and
posing as single and innocent or married and her husband dead--or what?
Don't you suppose she saw herself married to you, for a time at least,
and the child given a name? That 'plan' she mentions couldn't have
contemplated anything less than that, could it?"
"Well, maybe as she saw it it couldn't," evaded Clyde. "But I never
said I would marry her."
"Well, well--we'll let that rest a minute," went on Mason doggedly.
"But now take this," and here he began reading from the tenth letter:
"'It won't make any difference to you about your coming a few days
sooner than you intended, will it, dear? Even if we have got to get
along on a little less, I know we can, for the time I will be with you
anyhow, probably no more than six or eight months at the most. I agreed
to let you go by then, you know, if you want to. I can be very saving
and economical. It can't be any other way now, Clyde, although for your
own sake I wish it could.' What do you suppose all that means--'saving
and economical'--and not letting you go until after eight months?
Living in a hall bedroom and you coming to see her once a week? Or
hadn't you really agreed to go away with her and marry her, as she
seems to think here?"
"I don't know unless she thought she could make me, maybe," replied
Clyde, the while various backwoodsmen and farmers and jurors actually
sniffed and sneered, so infuriated were they by the phrase "make me"
which Clyde had scarcely noticed. "I never agreed to."
"Unless she could make you. So that was the way you felt about it, was
it, Griffiths?"
"Yes, sir."
"You'd swear to that as quick as you would to anything else?"
"Well, I have sworn to it."
And Mason as well as Belknap and Jephson and Clyde himself now felt
the strong public contempt and rage that the majority of those present
had for him from the start--now surging and shaking all. It filled the
room. Yet before him were all the hours Mason needed in which he could
pick and choose at random from the mass of testimony as to just what
he would quiz and bedevil and torture Clyde with next. And so now,
looking over his notes--arranged fan-wise on the table by Earl Newcomb
for his convenience--he now began once more with:
"Griffiths, in your testimony here yesterday, through which you
were being led by your counsel, Mr. Jephson" (at this Jephson bowed
sardonically). "You talked about that change of heart that you
experienced after you encountered Roberta Alden once more at Fonda and
Utica back there in July--just as you were starting on this death trip."
Clyde's "yes, sir," came before Belknap could object, but the latter
managed to have "death trip" changed to "trip."
"Before going up there with her you hadn't been liking her as much as
you might have. Wasn't that the way of it?"
"Not as much as I had at one time--no, sir."
"And just how long--from when to when--was the time in which you really
did like her, before you began to dislike her, I mean?"
"Well, from the time I first met her until I met Miss X."
"But not afterwards?"
"Oh, I can't say not entirely afterwards. I cared for her some--a good
deal, I guess--but still not as much as I had. I felt more sorry for
her than anything else, I suppose."
"And now, let's see--that was between December first last, say, and
last April or May--or wasn't it?"
"About that time, I think--yes, sir."
"Well, during that time--December first to April or May first, you were
intimate with her, weren't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Even though you weren't caring for her so much."
"Why--yes, sir," replied Clyde, hesitating slightly, while the rurals
jerked and craned at this introduction of the sex crime.
"And yet at nights, and in spite of the fact that she was alone over
there in her little room--as faithful to you, as you yourself have
testified, as any one could be--you went off to dances, parties,
dinners, and automobile rides, while she sat there."
"Oh, but I wasn't off all the time."
"Oh, weren't you? But you heard the testimony of Tracy and Jill
Trumbull, and Frederick Sells, and Frank Harriet, and Burchard Taylor,
on this particular point, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, were they all liars, or were they telling the truth?"
"Well, they were telling the truth as near as they could remember, I
suppose."
"But they couldn't remember very well--is that it?"
"Well, I wasn't off all the time. Maybe I was gone two or three times a
week--maybe four sometimes--not more."
"And the rest you gave to Miss Alden?"
"Yes, sir."
"Is that what she meant in this letter here?" And here he took up
another letter from the pile of Roberta's letters, and opening it and
holding it before him, read: "'Night after night, almost every night
after that dreadful Christmas day when you left me, I was alone nearly
always.' Is she lying, or isn't she?" snapped Mason fiercely, and
Clyde, sensing the danger of accusing Roberta of lying here, weakly
and shamefacedly replied: "No, she isn't lying. But I did spend some
evenings with her just the same."
"And yet you heard Mrs. Gilpin and her husband testify here that
night after night from December first on Miss Alden was mostly always
alone in her room and that they felt sorry for her and thought it so
unnatural and tried to get her to join them, but she wouldn't. You
heard them testify to that, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"And yet you insist that you were with her some?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yet at the same time loving and seeking the company of Miss X?"
"Yes, sir."
"And trying to get her to marry you?"
"I wanted her to--yes, sir."
"Yet continuing relations with Miss Alden when your other interests
left you any time."
"Well ... yes, sir," once more hesitated Clyde, enormously troubled
by the shabby picture of his character which these disclosures seemed
to conjure, yet somehow feeling that he was not as bad, or at least
had not intended to be, as all this made him appear. Other people
did things like that too, didn't they--those young men in Lycurgus
society--or they had talked as though they did.
"Well, don't you think your learned counsel found a very mild term for
you when they described you as a mental and moral coward?" sneered
Mason--and at the same time from the rear of the long narrow courtroom,
a profound silence seeming to precede, accompany and follow it,--yet
not without an immediate roar of protest from Belknap, came the
solemn, vengeful voice of an irate woodsman: "Why don't they kill the
God-damned bastard and be done with him?"--And at once Oberwaltzer
gaveling for order and ordering the arrest of the offender at the
same time that he ordered all those not seated driven from the
courtroom--which was done. And then the offender arrested and ordered
arraigned on the following morning. And after that, silence, with Mason
once more resuming:
"Griffiths, you say when you left Lycurgus you had no intention of
marrying Roberta Alden unless you could not arrange in any other way."
"Yes, sir. That was my intention at that time."
"And accordingly you were fairly certain of coming back?"
"Yes, sir--I thought I was."
"Then why did you pack everything in your room in your trunk and lock
it?"
"Well ... well ... that is," hesitated Clyde, the charge coming so
quickly and so entirely apart from what had just been spoken of before
that he had scarcely time to collect his wits--"well, you see--I wasn't
absolutely sure. I didn't know but what I might have to go whether I
wanted to or not."
"I see. And so if you had decided up there unexpectedly--as you did--"
(and here Mason smirked on him as much as to say--you think any one
believes that?) "you wouldn't have had time to come back and decently
pack your things and depart?"
"Well, no, sir--that wasn't the reason either."
"Well then, what was the reason?"
"Well, you see," and here for lack of previous thought on this subject
as well as lack of wit to grasp the essentiality of a suitable and
plausible answer quickly, Clyde hesitated--as every one--first and
foremost Belknap and Jephson--noted--and then went on: "Well, you
see--if I had to go away, even for a short time as I thought I might, I
decided that I might need whatever I had in a hurry."
"I see. You're quite sure it wasn't that in case the police discovered
who Clifford Golden or Carl Graham were, that you might wish to leave
quickly?"
"No, sir. It wasn't."
"And so you didn't tell Mrs. Peyton you were giving up the room either,
did you?"
"No, sir."
"In your testimony the other day you said something about not having
money enough to go up there and take Miss Alden away on any temporary
marriage scheme--even one that would last so long as six months."
"Yes, sir."
"When you left Lycurgus to start on the trip, how much did you have?"
"About fifty dollars."
"'About' fifty? Don't you know exactly how much you had?"
"I had fifty dollars--yes, sir."
"And while you were in Utica and Grass Lake and getting down to Sharon
afterwards, how much did you spend?"
"I spent about twenty dollars on the trip, I think."
"Don't you know?"
"Not exactly--no, sir--somewhere around twenty dollars, though."
"Well, now let's see about that exactly if we can," went on Mason, and
here, once more, Clyde began to sense a trap and grew nervous--for
there was all that money given him by Sondra and some of which he had
spent, too. "How much was your fare from Fonda to Utica for yourself?"
"A dollar and a quarter."
"And what did you have to pay for your room at the hotel at Utica for
you and Roberta?"
"That was four dollars."
"And of course you had dinner that night and breakfast the next
morning, which cost you how much?"
"It was about three dollars for both meals."
"Was that all you spent in Utica?" Mason was taking a side glance
occasionally at a slip of paper on which he had figures and notes, but
which Clyde had not noticed.
"Yes, sir."
"How about the straw hat that it has been proved you purchased while
there?"
"Oh, yes, sir, I forgot about that," said Clyde, nervously. "That was
two dollars--yes, sir." He realized that he must be more careful.
"And your fares to Grass Lake were, of course, five dollars. Is that
right?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then you hired a boat at Grass Lake. How much was that?"
"That was thirty-five cents an hour."
"And you had it how long?"
"Three hours."
"Making one dollar and five cents."
"Yes, sir."
"And then that night at the hotel, they charged you how much? Five
dollars, wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"And then didn't you buy that lunch that you carried out in that lake
with you up there?"
"Yes, sir. I think that was about sixty cents."
"And how much did it cost you to get to Big Bittern?"
"It was a dollar on the train to Gun Lodge and a dollar on the bus for
the two of us to Big Bittern."
"You know these figures pretty well, I see. Naturally, you would. You
didn't have much money and it was important. And how much was your fare
from Three Mile Bay to Sharon afterwards?"
"My fare was seventy-five cents."
"Did you ever stop to figure this all up exactly?"
"No, sir."
"Well, will you?"
"Well, you know how much it is, don't you?"
"Yes, sir, I do. It is twenty-four dollars and sixty-five cents. You
said you spent twenty dollars. But here is a discrepancy of four
dollars and sixty-five cents. How do you account for it?"
"Well, I suppose I didn't figure just exactly right," said Clyde,
irritated by the accuracy of figures such as these.
But now Mason slyly and softly inquiring: "Oh, yes, Griffiths, I
forgot, how much was the boat you hired at Big Bittern?" He was eager
to hear what Clyde would have to say as to this, seeing that he had
worked hard and long on this pitfall.
"Oh--ah--ah--that is," began Clyde, hesitatingly, for at Big Bittern,
as he now recalled, he had not even troubled to inquire the cost of
the boat, feeling as he did at the time that neither he nor Roberta
were coming back. But now here and in this way it was coming up for the
first time. And Mason, realizing that he had caught him here, quickly
interpolated a "Yes?" to which Clyde replied, but merely guessing
at that: "Why, thirty-five cents an hour--just the same as at Grass
Lake--so the boatman said."
But he had spoken too quickly. And he did not know that in reserve was
the boatman who was still to testify that he had not stopped to ask the
price of the boat. And Mason continued:
"Oh, it was, was it? The boatman told you that, did he?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well now, don't you recall that you never asked the boatman at all?
It was not thirty-five cents an hour, but fifty cents. But of course
you do not know that because you were in such a hurry to get out on
the water and you did not expect to have to come back and pay for it
anyway. So you never even asked, you see. Do you see? Do you recall
that now?" And here Mason produced a bill that he had gotten from the
boatman and waved it in front of Clyde. "It was fifty cents an hour,"
he repeated. "They charge more than at Grass Lake. But what I want to
know is, if you are so familiar with these other figures, as you have
just shown that you are, how comes it that you are not familiar with
this figure? Didn't you think of the expense of taking her out in a
boat and keeping the boat from noon until night?" The attack came so
swiftly and bitterly that at once Clyde was confused. He twisted and
turned, swallowed and looked nervously at the floor, ashamed to look at
Jephson who had somehow failed to coach him as to this.
"Well," bawled Mason, "any explanation to make as to that? Doesn't it
strike even you as strange that you can remember every other item of
all your expenditures--but not that item?" And now each juror was once
more tense and leaning forward. And Clyde noting their interest and
curiosity, and most likely suspicion, now returned:
"Well, I don't know just how I came to forget that."
"Oh, no, of course you don't" snorted Mason. "A man who is planning
to kill a girl on a lone lake has a lot of things to think of, and it
isn't any wonder if you forget a few of them. But you didn't forget to
ask the purser the fare to Sharon, once you got to Three Mile Bay, did
you?"
"I don't remember if I did or not."
"Well, he remembers. He testified to it here. You bothered to ask the
price of the room at Grass Lake. You asked the price of the boat there.
You even asked the price of the bus fare to Big Bittern. What a pity
you couldn't think to ask the price of the boat at Big Bittern? You
wouldn't be so nervous about it now, would you?" and here Mason looked
at the jurors as much as to say: You see!
"I just didn't think of it, I guess," repeated Clyde.
"A very satisfactory explanation, I'm sure," went on Mason,
sarcastically. And then as swiftly as possible: "I don't suppose
you happen to recall an item of thirteen dollars and twenty cents
paid for a lunch at the Casino on July ninth--the day after Roberta
Alden's death---do you or do you not?" Mason was dramatic, persistent,
swift--scarcely giving him time to think or breathe, as he saw it.
At this Clyde almost jumped, so startled was he by this question and
charge, for he did not know that they had found out about the lunch.
"And do you remember, too," went on Mason, "that over eighty dollars
was found on you when you were arrested?"
"Yes, I remember it now," he replied.
As for the eighty dollars he had forgotten. Yet now he said nothing,
for he could not think what to say.
"How about that?" went on Mason, doggedly and savagely. "If you only
had fifty dollars when you left Lycurgus and over eighty dollars when
you were arrested, and you spent twenty-four dollars and sixty-five
cents plus thirteen for a lunch, where did you get that extra money
from?"
"Well, I can't answer that just now," replied Clyde, sullenly, for he
felt cornered and hurt. That was Sondra's money and nothing would drag
out of him where he had gotten it.
"Why can't you answer it?" roared Mason. "Where do you think you are,
anyhow? And what do you think we are here for? To say what you will or
will not answer? You are on trial for your life--don't forget that! You
can't play fast and loose with law, however much you may have lied to
me. You are here before these twelve men and they are waiting to know.
Now, what about it? Where did you get that money?"
"I borrowed it from a friend."
"Well, give his name. What friend?"
"I don't care to."
"Oh, you don't! Well, you're lying about the amount of money you had
when you left Lycurgus--that's plain. And under oath, too. Don't forget
that! That sacred oath that you respect so much. Isn't that true?"
"No, it isn't," finally observed Clyde, stung to reason by this charge.
"I borrowed that money after I got to Twelfth Lake."
"And from whom?"
"Well, I can't say."
"Which makes the statement worthless," retorted Mason.
Clyde was beginning to show a disposition to balk. He had been sinking
his voice and each time Mason commanded him to speak up and turn around
so the jury could see his face, he had done so, only feeling more and
more resentful toward this man who was thus trying to drag out of him
every secret he possessed. He had touched on Sondra, and she was still
too near his heart to reveal anything that would reflect on her. So now
he sat staring down at the jurors somewhat defiantly, when Mason picked
up some pictures.
"Remember these?" he now asked Clyde, showing him some of the dim and
water-marked reproductions of Roberta besides some views of Clyde and
some others--none of them containing the face of Sondra--which were
made at the Cranstons' on his first visit, as well as four others made
at Bear Lake later, and with one of them showing him holding a banjo,
his fingers in position. "Recall where these were made?" asked Mason,
showing him the reproduction of Roberta first.
"Yes, I do."
"Where was it?"
"On the south shore of Big Bittern the day we were there." He knew that
they were in the camera and had told Belknap and Jephson about them,
yet now he was not a little surprised to think that they had been able
to develop them.
"Griffiths," went on Mason, "your lawyers didn't tell you that they
fished and fished for that camera you swore you didn't have with you
before they found that I had it, did they?"
"They never said anything to me about it," replied Clyde.
"Well, that's too bad. I could have saved them a lot of trouble. Well,
these were the photos that were found in that camera and that were made
just after that change of heart you experienced, you remember?"
"I remember when they were made," replied Clyde, sullenly.
"Well, they were made before you two went out in that boat for the last
time--before you finally told her whatever it was you wanted to tell
her--before she was murdered out there--at a time when, as you have
testified, she was very sad."
"No, that was the day before," defied Clyde.
"Oh, I see. Well, anyhow, these pictures look a little cheerful for one
who was as depressed as you say she was."
"Well--but--she wasn't nearly as depressed then as she was the day
before," flashed Clyde, for this was the truth and he remembered it.
"I see. But just the same, look at these other pictures. These three
here, for instance. Where were they made?"
"At the Cranston Lodge on Twelfth Lake, I think."
"Right. And that was June eighteenth or nineteenth, wasn't it?"
"On the nineteenth, I think."
"Well, now, do you recall a letter Roberta wrote you on the nineteenth?"
"No, sir."
"You don't recall any particular one?"
"No, sir."
"But they were all very sad, you have said."
"Yes, sir--they were."
"Well, this is that letter written at the time these pictures were
made." He turned to the jury.
"I would like the jury to look at these pictures and then listen
to just one passage from this letter written by Miss Alden to this
defendant on the same day. He has admitted that he was refusing to
write or telephone her, although he was sorry for her," he said,
turning to the jury. And here he opened a letter and read a long sad
plea from Roberta. "And now here are four more pictures, Griffiths."
And he handed Clyde the four made at Bear Lake. "Very cheerful, don't
you think? Not much like pictures of a man who has just experienced a
great change of heart after a most terrific period of doubt and worry
and evil conduct--and has just seen the woman whom he had most cruelly
wronged, but whom he now proposed to do right by, suddenly drowned.
They look as though you hadn't a care in the world, don't they?"
"Well, they were just group pictures. I couldn't very well keep out of
them."
"But this one in the water here. Didn't it trouble you the least bit to
go in the water the second or third day after Roberta Alden had sunk to
the bottom of Big Bittern, and especially when you had experienced such
an inspiring change of heart in regard to her?"
"I didn't want any one to know I had been up there with her."
"We know all about that. But how about this banjo picture here. Look at
this!" And he held it out. "Very gay, isn't it?" he snarled. And now
Clyde, dubious and frightened, replied:
"But I wasn't enjoying myself just the same!"
"Not when you were playing the banjo here? Not when you were playing
golf and tennis with your friends the very next day after her death?
Not when you were buying and eating thirteen-dollar lunches? Not when
you were with Miss X again, and where you yourself testified that you
preferred to be?"
Mason's manner was snarling, punitive, sinister, bitterly sarcastic.
"Well, not just then, anyhow--no, sir."
"What do you mean--'not just then'? Weren't you where you wanted to be?"
"Well, in one way I was--certainly," replied Clyde, thinking of what
Sondra would think when she read this, as unquestionably she would.
Quite everything of all this was being published in the papers each
day. He could not deny that he was with her and that he wanted to be
with her. At the same time he had not been happy. How miserably unhappy
he had been, enmeshed in that shameful and brutal plot! But now he
must explain in some way so that Sondra, when she should read it, and
this jury, would understand. And so now he added, while he swallowed
with his dry throat and licked his lips with his dry tongue: "But I
was sorry about Miss Alden just the same. I couldn't be happy then--I
couldn't be. I was just trying to make people think that I hadn't had
anything to do with her going up there--that's all. I couldn't see that
there was any better way to do. I didn't want to be arrested for what I
hadn't done."
"Don't you know that is false! Don't you know you are lying!" shouted
Mason, as though to the whole world, and the fire and the fury of his
unbelief and contempt was sufficient to convince the jury, as well as
the spectators, that Clyde was the most unmitigated of liars. "You
heard the testimony of Rufus Martin, the second cook up there at Bear
Lake?"
"Yes, sir."
"You heard him swear that he saw you and Miss X at a certain point
overlooking Bear Lake and that she was in your arms and that you were
kissing her. Was that true?"
"Yes, sir."
"And that exactly four days after you had left Roberta Alden under the
waters of Big Bittern. Were you afraid of being arrested then?"
"Yes, sir."
"Even when you were kissing her and holding her in your arms?"
"Yes, sir," replied Clyde, drearily and hopelessly.
"Well, of all things!" bawled Mason. "Could you imagine such stuff
being whimpered before a jury, if you hadn't heard it with your own
ears? Do you really sit there and swear to this jury that you could
bill and coo with one deceived girl in your arms and a second one in
a lake a hundred miles away, and yet be miserable because of what you
were doing?"
"Just the same, that's the way it was," replied Clyde.
"Excellent! Incomparable," shouted Mason.
And here he wearily and sighfully drew forth his large white
handkerchief once more and surveying the courtroom at large proceeded
to mop his face as much as to say: Well, this is a task indeed, then
continuing with more force than ever:
"Griffiths, only yesterday on the witness stand you swore that you
personally had no plan to go to Big Bittern when you left Lycurgus."
"No, sir, I hadn't."
"But when you two got in that room at the Renfrew House in Utica
and you saw how tired she looked, it was you that suggested that a
vacation of some kind--a little one--something within the range of your
joint purses at the time--would be good for her. Wasn't that the way of
it?"
"Yes, sir. That was the way of it," replied Clyde.
"But up to that time you hadn't even thought of the Adirondacks
specifically."
"Well, no, sir--no particular lake, that is. I did think we might go to
some summer place maybe--they're mostly lakes around here--but not to
any particular one that I knew of."
"I see. And after you suggested it, it was she that said that you had
better get some folders or maps, wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"And then it was that you went downstairs and got them?"
"Yes, sir."
"At the Renfrew House in Utica?"
"Yes, sir."
"Not anywhere else by any chance?"
"No, sir."
"And afterwards, in looking over those maps, you saw Grass Lake and Big
Bittern and decided to go up that way. Was that the way of it?"
"Yes, we did," lied Clyde, most nervously, wishing now that he had not
testified that it was in the Renfrew House that he had secured the
folders. There might be some trap here again.
"You and Miss Alden?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you picked on Grass Lake as being the best because it was the
cheapest. Wasn't that the way of it?"
"Yes, sir. That was the way."
"I see. And now do you remember these?" he added, reaching over and
taking from his table a series of folders all properly identified as
part and parcel of the contents of Clyde's bag at Bear Lake at the time
he was arrested, and which he now placed in Clyde's hands. "Look them
over. Are those the folders I found in your bag at Bear Lake?"
"Well, they look like the ones I had there."
"Are these the ones you found in the rack at the Renfrew House and took
upstairs to show Miss Alden?"
Not a little terrified by the care with which this matter of folders
was now being gone into by Mason, Clyde opened them and turned them
over. Even now, because the label of the Lycurgus House ("Compliments
of Lycurgus House, Lycurgus, N. Y.") was stamped in red very much like
the printed red lettering on the rest of the folder, he failed to
notice it at first.
He turned and turned them over, and then having decided that there was
no trap here, replied: "Yes, I think these are the ones."
"Well, now," went on Mason, slyly, "in which one of these was it that
you found that notice of Grass Lake Inn and the rate they charged up
there? Wasn't it in this one?" And here he returned the identical
stamped folder, on one page of which--and the same indicated by Mason's
left forefinger--was the exact notice to which Clyde had called
Roberta's attention. Also in the center was a map showing the Indian
Chain together with Twelfth, Big Bittern, and Grass Lakes, as well as
many others, and at the bottom of this map a road plainly indicated as
leading from Grass Lake and Gun Lodge south past the southern end of
Big Bittern to Three Mile Bay. Now seeing this after so long a time
again, he suddenly decided that it must be his knowledge of this road
that Mason was seeking to establish, and a little quivery and creepy
now, he replied: "Yes, it may be the one. It looks like it. I guess it
is, maybe."
"Don't you know that it is?" insisted Mason, darkly and dourly. "Can't
you tell from reading that item there whether it is or not?"
"Well, it looks like it," replied Clyde, evasively after examining the
item which had inclined him toward Grass Lake in the first place. "I
suppose maybe it is."
"You suppose! You suppose! Getting a little more cautious now that
we're getting down to something practical. Well, just look at that map
there again and tell me what you see. Tell me if you don't see a road
marked as leading south from Grass Lake."
"Yes," replied Clyde, a little sullenly and bitterly after a time,
so flayed and bruised was he by this man who was so determined to
harry him to his grave. He fingered the map and pretended to took as
directed, but was seeing only all that he had seen long before there in
Lycurgus, so shortly before he departed for Fonda to meet Roberta. And
now here it was being used against him.
"And where does it run, please? Do you mind telling the jury where it
runs--from where to where?"
And Clyde, nervous and fearful and physically very much reduced, now
replied: "Well, it runs from Grass Lake to Three Mile Bay."
"And to what or near what other places in between?" continued Mason,
looking over his shoulder.
"Gun Lodge. That's all."
"What about Big Bittern? Doesn't it run near that when it gets to the
south of it?"
"Yes, sir, it does here."
"Ever notice or study that map before you went to Grass Lake from
Utica?" persisted Mason, tensely and forcefully.
"No, sir--I did not."
"Never knew the road was on there?"
"Well, I may have seen it," replied Clyde, "but if so I didn't pay any
attention to it."
"And, of course, by no possible chance could you have seen or studied
this folder and that road before you left Utica?"
"No, sir. I never saw it before."
"I see. You're absolutely positive as to that?"
"Yes, sir. I am."
"Well then, explain to me, or to this jury, if you can, and under
your solemn oath which you respect so much, how it comes that this
particular folder chances to be marked, 'Compliments of the Lycurgus
House, Lycurgus, N. Y.'" And here he folded the folder and presenting
the back, showed Clyde the thin red stamp in between the other red
lettering. And Clyde, noting it, gazed as one in a trance. His
ultra-pale face now blanched gray again, his long thin fingers opened
and shut, the red and swollen and weary lids of his eyes blinked and
blinked to break the strain of the damning fact before him.
"I don't know," he said, a little weakly, after a time. "It must have
been in the Renfrew House rack."
"Oh, must it? And if I bring two witnesses here to swear that on July
third--three days before you left Lycurgus for Fonda--you were seen by
them to enter the Lycurgus House and take four or five folders from
the rack there, will you still say that it 'musta been in the rack at
the Renfrew House' on July sixth?" As he said this, Mason paused and
looked triumphantly about as much as to say: There, answer that if you
can! and Clyde, shaken and stiff and breathless for the time being,
was compelled to wait at least fifteen seconds before he was able
sufficiently to control his nerves and voice in order to reply: "Well,
it musta been. I didn't get it in Lycurgus."
"Very good. But in the meantime we'll just let these gentlemen here
look at this," and he now turned the folder over to the foreman of the
jury, who in turn passed it to the juryman next to him, and so on, the
while a distinct whisper and buzz passed over the entire courtroom.
And when they had concluded--and much to the surprise of the audience,
which was expecting more and more attacks and exposures almost without
cessation--Mason turned and explained: "That's all." And at once
many of the spectators in the room beginning to whisper: "Trapped!
Trapped!" And Justice Oberwaltzer at once announcing that because of
the lateness of the hour, and in the face of a number of additional
witnesses for the defense, as well as a few in rebuttal for the
prosecution, he would prefer it if the work for the day ended here.
And both Belknap and Mason gladly agreeing. And Clyde--the doors of
the courtroom being stoutly locked until he should be in his cell
across the way--being descended upon by Kraut and Sissell and by them
led through and down the very door and stairs which for days he had
been looking at and pondering about. And once he was gone, Belknap
and Jephson looking at each other but not saying anything until once
more safely locked in their own office, when Belknap began with: "...
not carried off with enough of an air. The best possible defense but
not enough courage. It just isn't in him, that's all." And Jephson,
flinging himself heavily into a chair, his overcoat and hat still on,
and saying: "No, that's the real trouble, no doubt. It musta been that
he really did kill her. But I suppose we can't give up the ship now. He
did almost better than I expected, at that." And Belknap adding: "Well,
I'll do my final best and damnedest in my summing up, and that's all I
can do." And Jephson replying, a little wearily: "That's right, Alvin,
it's mostly up to you now, I'm sorry. But in the meantime, I think I'll
go around to the jail and try and hearten 'im up a bit. It won't do to
let him look too winged or lame tomorrow. He has to sit up and make the
jury feel that he, himself, feels that he isn't guilty whatever they
think." And rising he shoved his hands in the side pockets of his long
coat and proceeded through the winter's dark and cold of the dreary
town to see Clyde.