An American Tragedy (99 page)

Approaching Clyde’s cell door, after a pause, he began with: “Come, come, Clyde! This will never do. You mustn’t give up like this. Your case mayn’t be as hopeless as you think. Wouldn’t you like to sit up and talk to a lawyer fellow who thinks he might be able to do something for you? Belknap is my name—Alvin Belknap. I live right here in Bridgeburg and I have been sent over by that other fellow who was here a while ago—Catchuman, wasn’t that his name? You didn’t get along with him so very well, did you? Well, I didn’t either. He’s not our kind, I guess. But here’s a letter from him authorizing me to represent you. Want to see it?”

He poked it genially and authoritatively through the narrow bars toward which Clyde, now curious and dubious, approached. For there was something so whole-hearted and unusual and seemingly sympathetic and understanding in this man’s voice that Clyde took courage. And without hesitancy, therefore, he took the letter and looked at it, then returned it with a smile.

“There, I thought so,” went on Belknap, most convincingly and pleased with his effect, which he credited entirely to his own magnetism and charm. “That’s better. I know we’re going to get along. I can feel it. You are going to be able to talk to me as easily and truthfully as you would to your mother. And without any fear that any word of anything you ever tell me is going to reach another ear, unless you want it to, see? For I’m going to be your lawyer, Clyde, if you’ll let me, and you’re going to be my client, and we’re going to sit down together to-morrow, or whenever you say so, and you’re going to tell me all you think I ought to know, and I’m going to tell you what I think I ought to know, and whether I’m going to be able to help you. And I’m going to prove to you that in every way that you help me, you’re helping yourself, see?

And I’m going to do my damnedest to get you out of this. Now, how’s that, Clyde?”

He smiled most encouragingly and sympathetically—even affectionately. And Clyde, feeling for the first time since his arrival here that he had found some one in whom he could possibly confide without danger, was already thinking it might be best if he should tell this man all—everything—he could not have said why, quite, but he liked him. In a quick, if dim way he felt that this man understood and might even sympathize with him, if he knew all or nearly all. And after Belknap had detailed how eager this enemy of his—Mason—was to convict him, and how, if he could be devise a reasonable defense, he was sure he could delay the case until this man was out of office. Clyde announced that if he would give him the night to think it all out, to-morrow or any time he chose to come back, he would tell him all.

And then, the next day Belknap sitting on a stool and munching chocolate bars, listened while Clyde before him on his iron cot, poured forth his story—all the details of his life since arriving at Lycurgus—how and why he had come there, the incident of the slain child in Kansas City, without, however, mention of the clipping which he himself had preserved and then forgotten; his meeting with Roberta, and his desire for her; her pregnancy and how he had sought to get her out of it—on and on until, she having threatened to expose him, he had at last, and in great distress and fright, found the item in
The Times-Union
and had sought to emulate that in action. But he had never plotted it personally, as Belknap was to understand. Nor had he intentionally killed her at the last. No, he had not. Mr. Belknap must believe that, whatever else he thought. He had never deliberately struck her. No, no, no! It had been an accident. There had been a camera, and the tripod reported to have been found by Mason was unquestionably his tripod. Also, he had hidden it under a log, after accidentally striking Roberta with the camera and then seeing that sink under the waters, where no doubt it still was, and with pictures of himself and Roberta on the film it contained, if they were not dissolved by the water. But he had not struck her intentionally. No—he had not. She had approached and he had struck, but not intentionally. The boat had upset. And then as nearly as he could, he described how before that he had seemed to be in a trance almost, because having gone so far he could go no farther.

But in the meantime, Belknap, himself finally wearied and confused by this strange story, the impossibility as he now saw it of submitting to, let alone convincing, any ordinary backwoods jury of this region, of the innocence of these dark and bitter plans and deeds, finally in great weariness and uncertainty and mental confusion, even, getting up and placing his hands on Clyde’s shoulders, saying: “Well, that’ll be enough for this for to-day, Clyde, I think. I see how you felt and how it all came about—also I see how tired you are, and I’m mighty glad you’ve been able to give me the straight of this, because I know how hard it’s been for you to do it. But I don’t want you to talk any more now. There are going to be other days, and I have a few things I want to attend to before I take up some of the minor phases of this with you tomorrow or next day. Just you sleep and rest for the present. You’ll need all you can get for the work both of us will have to do a little later. But just now, you’re not to worry, because there’s no need of it, do you see? I’ll get you out of this—or we will—my partner and I. I have a partner that I’m going to bring around here presently. You’ll like him, too. But there are one or two things that I want you to think about and stick to—and one of these is that you’re not to let anybody frighten you into anything, because either myself or my partner will be around here once a day anyhow, and anything you have to say or want to know you can say or find out from us. Next you’re not to talk to anybody—Mason, the sheriff, these jailers, no one—unless I tell you to. No one, do you hear! And above all things, don’t cry any more. For if you are as innocent as an angel, or as black as the devil himself, the worst thing you can do is to cry before any one. The public and these jail officers don’t understand that—they invariably look upon it, as weakness or a confession of guilt. And I don’t want them to feel any such thing about you now, and especially when I know that you’re really not guilty. I know that now. I believe it. See! So keep a stiff upper lip before Mason and everybody.

“In fact, from now on I want you to try and laugh a little—or at any rate, smile and pass the time of day with these fellows around here. There’s an old saying in law, you know, that the consciousness of innocence makes any man calm. Think and look innocent. Don’t sit and brood and look as though you had lost your last friend, because you haven’t. I’m here, and so is my partner, Mr. Jephson. I’ll bring him around here in a day or two, and you’re to look and act toward him exactly as you have toward me. Trust him, because in legal matters he’s even smarter than I am in some ways. And tomorrow I’m going to bring you a couple of books and some magazines and papers, and I want you to read them or look at the pictures. They’ll help keep your mind off your troubles.”

Clyde achieved a rather feeble smile and nodded his head.

“From now on, too,—I don’t know whether you’re at all religious—but whether you are or not, they hold services here in the jail on Sundays, and I want you to attend ’em regularly—that is, if they ask you to. For this is a religious community and I want you to make as good an impression as you can. Never mind what people say or how they look—you do as I tell you. And if this fellow Mason or any of those fellows around here get to pestering you any more, send me a note.

“And now I’ll be going, so give me a cheerful smile as I go out—and another one as I come in. And don’t talk, see?”

Then shaking Clyde briskly by the shoulders and slapping him on the back, he strode out, actually thinking to himself: “But do I really believe that this fellow is as innocent as he says? Would it be possible for a fellow to strike a girl like that and not know that he was doing it intentionally? And then swimming away afterwards, because, as he says, if he went near her he thought he might drown too. Bad. Bad! What twelve men are going to believe that? And that bag, those two hats, that missing suit! And yet he swears he didn’t intentionally strike her. But what about all that planning—the intent—which is just as bad in the eyes of the law. Is he telling the truth or is he lying even now—perhaps trying to deceive himself as well as me? And that camera—we ought to get hold of that before Mason finds it and introduces it. And that suit. I ought to find that and mention it, maybe, so as to offset the look of its being hidden—say that we had it all the time—send it to Lycurgus to be cleaned. But no, no—wait a minute—I must think about that.”

And so on, point by point, while deciding wearily that perhaps it would be better not to attempt to use Clyde’s story at all, but rather to concoct some other story—this one changed or modified in some way which would make it appear less cruel or legally murderous.

MR. REUBEN JEPHSON was decidedly different from Belknap, Catchuman, Mason, Smillie—in fact any one, thus far, who had seen Clyde or become legally interested in this case. He was young, tall, thin, rugged, brown, cool but not cold spiritually, and with a will and a determination of the tensile strength of steel. And with a mental and legal equipment which for shrewdness and self-interest was not unlike that of a lynx or a ferret. Those shrewd, steel, very light blue eyes in his brown face. The force and curiosity of the long nose. The strength of the hands and the body. He had lost no time, as soon as he discovered there was a possibility of their (Belknap & Jephson) taking over the defense of Clyde, in going over the minutes of the coroner’s inquest as well as the doctors’ reports and the letters of Roberta and Sondra. And now being faced by Belknap who was explaining that Clyde did now actually admit to having plotted to kill Roberta, although not having actually done so, since at the fatal moment, some cataleptic state of mind or remorse had intervened and caused him to unintentionally strike her—he merely stared without the shadow of a smile or comment of any kind.

“But he wasn’t in such a state when he went out there with her, though?”

“No.”

“Nor when he swam away afterwards?”

“No.”

“Nor when he went through the woods, or changed to another suit and hat, or hid that tripod?”

“No.”

“Of course you know, constructively, in the eyes of the law, if we use his own story, he’s just as guilty as though he had struck her, and the judge would have to so instruct.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve thought of all that.”

“Well, then——”

“Well, I’ll tell you, Jephson, it’s a tough case and no mistake. It looks to me now as though Mason has all the cards. If we can get this chap off, we can get anybody off. But as I see it, I’m not so sure that we want to mention that cataleptic business yet—at least not unless we want to enter a plea of insanity or emotional insanity, or something like that—about like that Harry Thaw case, for instance.” He paused and scratched his slightly graying temple dubiously.

“You think he’s guilty, of course?” interpolated Jephson, dryly.

“Well, now, as astonishing as it may seem to you, no. At least, I’m not positive that I do. To tell you the truth, this is one of the most puzzling cases I have ever run up against. This fellow is by no means as hard as you think, or as cold—quite a simple, affectionate chap, in a way, as you’ll see for yourself—his manner, I mean. He’s only twenty-one or two. And for all his connections with these Griffiths, he’s very poor—just a clerk, really. And he tells me that his parents are poor, too. They run a mission of some kind out west—Denver, I believe—and before that in Kansas City. He hasn’t been home in four years. In fact, he got into some crazy boy scrape out there in Kansas City when he was working for one of the hotels as a bell-boy, and had to run away. That’s something we’ve got to look out for in connection with Mason—whether he knows about that or not. It seems he and a bunch of other bell-hops took some rich fellow’s car without his knowing it, and then because they were afraid of being late, they ran over and killed a little girl. We’ve got to find out about that and prepare for it, for if Mason does know about it, he’ll spring it at the trial, and just when he thinks we’re least expecting it.”

“Well, he won’t pull that one,” replied Jephson, his hard, electric, blue eyes gleaming, “not if I have to go to Kansas City to find out.”

And Belknap went on to tell Jephson all that he knew about Clyde’s life up to the present time—how he had worked at dish-washing, waiting on table, soda-clerking, driving a wagon, anything and everything, before he had arrived in Lycurgus—how he had always been fascinated by girls—how he had first met Roberta and later Sondra. Finally how he found himself trapped by one and desperately in love with the other, whom he could not have unless he got rid of the first one.

“And notwithstanding all that, you feel a doubt as to whether he did kill her?” asked Jephson, at the conclusion of all this.

“Yes, as I say, I’m not at all sure that he did. But I do know that he is still hipped over this second girl. His manner changed whenever he or I happened to mention her. Once, for instance, I asked him about his relations with her—and in spite of the fact that he’s accused of seducing and killing this other girl, he looked at me as though I had said something I shouldn’t have—insulted him or her.” And here Belknap smiled a wry smile, while Jephson, his long, bony legs propped against the walnut desk before him, merely stared at him.

“You don’t say,” he finally observed.

“And not only that,” went on Belknap, “but he said, ‘Why, no, of course not. She wouldn’t allow anything like that, and besides,’ and then he stopped. ‘And besides what, Clyde,’ I asked. ‘Well, you don’t want to forget who she is.’ ‘Oh, I see,’ I said. And then, will you believe it, he wanted to know if there wasn’t some way by which her name and those letters she wrote him couldn’t be kept out of the papers and this case—her family prevented from knowing so that she and they wouldn’t be hurt too much.”

“Not really? But what about the other girl?”