An American Tragedy (93 page)

“So you are Clyde Griffiths, are you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, Mr. Griffiths, my name is Orville Mason. I am the district attorney of the county in which Big Bittern and Grass Lake are situated. I suppose you are familiar enough with those two places by now, aren’t you?”

He paused to see the effect of this sardonic bit of commentary. Yet although he expected to see him wince and quail, Clyde merely gazed at him, his nervous, dark eyes showing enormous strain. “No, sir, I can’t say that I am.”

For with each step through the woods thus far back, there had been growing within him the utter and unshakable conviction that in the face of whatever seeming proof or charges might now appear, he dared not tell anything in regard to himself, his connection with Roberta, his visit to Big Bittern or Grass Lake. He dared not. For that would be the same as a confession of guilt in connection with something of which he was not really guilty. And no one must believe—never—Sondra, or the Griffiths, or any of these fine friends of his, that he could ever have been guilty of such a thought, even. And yet here they were, all within call, and at any moment might approach and so learn the meaning of his arrest. And while he felt the necessity for so denying any knowledge in connection with all this, at the same time he stood in absolute terror of this man—the opposition and irritated mood such an attitude might arouse in him. That broken nose. His large, stern eyes.

And then Mason, eyeing him as one might an unheard-of and yet desperate animal and irritated also by his denial, yet assuming from his blanched expression that he might and no doubt would shortly be compelled to confess his guilt, continuing with: “You know what you are charged with, Mr. Griffiths, of course.”

“Yes, sir, I just heard it from this man here.”

“And you admit it?”

“Why, no sir, of course I don’t admit it,” replied Clyde, his thin and now white lips drawn tight over his even teeth, his eyes full of a deep, tremulous yet evasive terror.

“Why, what nonsense! What effrontery! You deny being up to Grass Lake and Big Bittern on last Wednesday and Thursday?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then,” and now Mason stiffened himself in an angry and at the same time inquisitorial way, “I suppose you are going to deny knowing Roberta Alden—the girl you took to Grass Lake, and then out on Big Bittern in that boat last Thursday—the girl you knew in Lycurgus all last year, who lived at Mrs. Gilpin’s and worked under you in your department at Griffiths & Company—the girl to whom you gave that toilet set last Christmas! I suppose you’re going to say that your name isn’t Clyde Griffiths and that you haven’t been living with Mrs. Peyton in Taylor Street, and that these aren’t letters and cards from your trunk there—from Roberta Alden and from Miss Finchley, all these cards and notes.” And extracting the letters and cards as he spoke and waving them before Clyde. And at each point in this harangue, thrusting his broad face, with its flat, broken nose and somewhat aggressive chin directly before Clyde’s, and blazing at him with sultry, contemptuous eyes, while the latter leaned away from him, wincing almost perceptibly and with icy chills running up and down his spine and affecting his heart and brain. Those letters! All this information concerning him! And back in his bag in the tent there, all those more recent letters of Sondra’s in which she dwelt on how they were to elope together this coming fall. If only he had destroyed them! And now this man might find those—would—and question Sondra maybe, and all these others. He shrunk and congealed spiritually, the revealing effects of his so poorly conceived and executed scheme weighing upon him as the world upon the shoulders of an inadequate Atlas.

And yet, feeling that he must say something and yet not admit anything. And finally replying: “My name’s Clyde Griffiths all right, but the rest of this isn’t true. I don’t know anything about the rest of it.”

“Oh, come now, Mr. Griffiths! Don’t begin by trying to play fast and loose with me. We won’t get anywhere that way. You won’t help yourself one bit by that with me, and besides I haven’t any time for that now. Remember these men here are witnesses to what you say. I’ve just come from Lycurgus—your room at Mrs. Peyton’s—and I have in my possession your trunk and this Miss Alden’s letters to you—indisputable proof that you did know this girl, that you courted and seduced her last winter, and that since then—this spring—when she became pregnant on your account, you induced her first to go home and then later to go away with you on this trip in order, as you told her, to marry her. Well, you married her all right—to the grave—that’s how you married her—to the water at the bottom of Big Bittern Lake! And you can actually stand here before me now, when I tell you that I have all the evidence I need right on my person, and say that you don’t even know her! Well, I’ll be damned!”

And as he spoke his voice grew so loud that Clyde feared that it could be clearly heard in the camp beyond. And that Sondra herself might hear it and come over. And although at the outrush and jab and slash of such dooming facts as Mason so rapidly outlined, his throat tightened and his hands were with difficulty restrained from closing and clinching vise-wise, at the conclusion of it all he merely replied: “Yes, sir.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” reiterated Mason. “I can well believe now that you would kill a girl and sneak away in just such a way as you did—and with her in that condition! But then to try to deny her own letters to you! Why, you might as well try to deny that you’re here and alive. These cards and notes here—what about them? I suppose they’re not from Miss Finchley? How about those? Do you mean to tell me these are not from her either?”

He waved them before Clyde’s eyes. And Clyde, seeing that the truth concerning these, Sondra being within call, was capable of being substantiated here and now, replied; “No, I don’t deny that those are from her.”

“Very good. But these others from your trunk in the same room are not from Miss Alden to you?”

“I don’t care to say as to that,” he replied, blinking feebly as Mason waved Roberta’s letters before him.

“Tst! Tst! Tst! Of all things,” clicked Mason in high dudgeon. “Such nonsense! Such effrontery! Oh, very well, we won’t worry about all that now. I can easily prove it all when the time comes. But how you can stand there and deny it, knowing that I have the evidence, is beyond me! A card in your own handwriting which you forgot to take out of the bag you had her leave at Gun Lodge while you took yours with you. Mr. Carl Graham, Mr. Clifford Golden, Mr. Clyde Griffiths, —a card on which you wrote ‘From Clyde to Bert, Merry Xmas.’ Do you remember that? Well, here it is.” And here he reached into his pocket and drew forth the small card taken from the toilet set and waved it under Clyde’s nose. “Have you forgotten that, too? Your own handwriting!” And then pausing and getting no reply, finally adding: “Why, what a dunce you are!—what a poor plotter, without even the brains not to use your own initials in getting up those fake names you had hoped to masquerade under—Mr. Carl Graham—Mr. Clifford Golden!”

At the same time, fully realizing the importance of a confession and wondering how it was to be brought about here and now, Mason suddenly—Clyde’s expression, his frozen-faced terror, suggesting the thought that perhaps he was too frightened to talk at once changed his tactics—at least to the extent of lowering his voice, smoothing the formidable wrinkles from his forehead and about his mouth.

“You see, it’s this way, Griffiths,” he now began, much more calmly and simply. “Lying or just foolish thoughtless denial under such circumstances as these can’t help you in the least. It can only harm you, and that’s the truth. You may think I’ve been a little rough so far, but it was only because I’ve been under a great strain myself in connection with this case, trying to catch up with some one I thought would be a very different type from yourself. But now that I see you and see how you feel about it all—how really frightened you are by what has happened—it just occurs to me that there may be something in connection with this case, some extenuating circumstances, which, if they were related by you now, might throw a slightly different light on all this. Of course, I don’t know. You yourself ought to be the best judge, but I’m laying the thought before you for what it’s worth. For, of course, here are these letters. Besides, when we get to Three Mile Bay to-morrow, as we will, I hope, there will be those three men who met you the other night walking south from Big Bittern. And not only those, but the innkeeper from Grass Lake, the innkeeper from Big Bittern, the boatkeeper up there who rented that boat, and the driver who drove you and Roberta Alden over from Gun Lodge. They will identify you. Do you think they won’t know you—not any of them—not be able to say whether you were up there with her or not, or that a jury when the time comes won’t believe them?”

And all this Clyde registered mentally like a machine clicking to a coin, yet said nothing,—merely staring, frozen.

“And not only that,” went on Mason, very softly and most ingratiatingly, “but there’s Mrs. Peyton. She saw me take these letters and cards out of that trunk of yours in your room and from the top drawer of your chiffonier. Next, there are all those girls in that factory where you and Miss Alden worked. Do you suppose they’re not going to remember all about you and her when they learn that she is dead? Oh, what nonsense! You ought to be able to see that for yourself, whatever you think. You certainly can’t expect to get away with that. It makes a sort of a fool out of you. You can see that for yourself.”

He paused again, hoping for a confession. But Clyde still convinced that any admission in connection with Roberta or Big Bittern spelled ruin, merely stared while Mason proceeded to add:

“All right, Griffiths, I’m now going to tell you one more thing, and I couldn’t give you better advice if you were my ow son or brother and I were trying to get you out of this instead of merely trying to get you to tell the truth. If you hope to do anything at all for yourself now, it’s not going to help you to deny everything in the way you are doing. You are simply making trouble and condemning yourself in other people’s eyes. Why not say that you did know her and that you were up there with her and that she wrote you those letters, and be done with it? You can’t get out of that, whatever else you may hope to get out of. Any sane person—your own mother, if she were here—would tell you the same thing. It’s too ridiculous and indicates guilt rather than innocence. Why not come clean here and now as to those facts, anyhow, before it’s too late to take advantage of any mitigating circumstances in connection with all this—if there are any? And if you do
now,
and I can help you in any way, I promise you here and now that I’ll be only too glad to do so. For, after all, I’m not out here just to hound a man to death and make him confess to something that he hasn’t done, but merely to get at the truth in the case. But if you’re going to deny that you even knew this girl when I tell you I have all the evidence and can prove it, why then——” and here the district attorney lifted his hands aloft most wearily and disgustedly.

But now as before Clyde remained silent and pale. In spite of all Mason had revealed, and all that this seemingly friendly, intimate advice seemed to imply, still he could not conceive that it would be anything less than disastrous for him to admit that he even knew Roberta. The fatality of such a confession in the eyes of these others here. The conclusion of all his dreams in connection with Sondra and this life. And so, in the fact of this—silence, still. And at this, Mason, irritated beyond measure, finally exclaiming: “Oh, very well, then. So you’ve finally decided not to talk, have you?” And Clyde, blue and weak, replied: “I had nothing to do with her death. That’s all I can say now,” and yet even as he said it thinking that perhaps he had better not say that—that perhaps he had better say—well, what? That he knew Roberta, of course, had been up there with her, for that matter—but that he had never intended to kill her—that her drowning was an accident. For he had not struck her at all, except by accident, had he? Only it was best not to confess to having struck her at all, wasn’t it? For who under such circumstances would believe that he had struck her with a camera by accident. Best not to mention the camera, since there was no mention anywhere in the papers that he had had one with him.

And he was still cogitating while Mason was exclaiming: “Then you admit that you knew her?”

“No, sir.”

“Very well, then,” he now added, turning to the others. “I suppose there’s nothing for it but to take him back there and see what they know about him. Perhaps that will get something out of this fine bird—to confront him with his friends. His bag and things are still back there in one of those tents, I believe. Suppose we take him down there, gentlemen, and see what these other people know about him.”

And now, swiftly and coldly he turned, while Clyde, already shrinking at the horror of what was coming, exclaimed: “Oh, please, no! You don’t mean to do that, do you? Oh, you won’t do that! Oh, please, no!”

And at this point Kraut speaking up and saying: “He asked me back there in the woods if I wouldn’t ask you not to take him in there.” “Oh, so that’s the way the wind blows, is it?” exclaimed Mason at this. “Too thin-skinned to be shown up before ladies and gentlemen of the Twelfth Lake colony, but not even willing to admit that you knew the poor little working-girl who worked for you. Very good. Well, then, my fine friend, suppose you come through with what you really do know now, or down there you go.” And he paused a moment to see what effect that would have. “We’ll call all those people together and explain just how things are, and then see if you will be willing to stand there and deny everything!” But noting still a touch of hesitation in Clyde he now added: “Bring him along, boys.” And turning toward the camp he proceeded to walk in that direction a few paces while Kraut taking one arm, and Swenk another, and beginning to move Clyde he ended by exclaiming: