“Well, yes, that’s true—it was in all of those letters of hers that were read here. But when she refused so flatly, what did you do then?”
“Well, I didn’t know what to do. But I thought maybe if I could get her to go up to her home for a while, while I tried and saved what I could—well . . . maybe . . . once she was up there and saw how much I didn’t want to marry her——” (Clyde paused and fumbled at his lips. This lying was hard.)
“Yes, go on. And remember, the truth, however ashamed of it you may be, is better than any lie.”
“And maybe when she was a little more frightened and not so determined——”
“Weren’t you frightened, too?”
“Yes, sir, I was.”
“Well, go on.”
“That then—well—maybe if I offered her all that I had been able to save up to then—you see I thought maybe I might be able to borrow some from some one too—that she might be willing to go away and not make me marry her—just live somewhere and let me help her.”
“I see. But she wouldn’t agree to that?”
“Well, no—not to my not marrying her, no—but to going up there for a month, yes. I couldn’t get her to say that she would let me off.”
“But did you at that or any other time before or subsequent to that say that you would come up there and marry her?”
“No, sir. I never did.”
“Just what did you say then?”
“I said that . . . as soon as I could get the money,” stuttered Clyde at this point, so nervous and shamed was he, “I would come for her in about a month and we could go away somewhere until—until—well, until she was out of that.”
“But you did not tell her that you would marry her?”
“No, sir. I did not.”
“But she wanted you to, of course.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Had you any notion that she could force you so to do at that time—marry her against your will, I mean?”
“No, sir, I didn’t. Not if I could help it. My plan was to wait as long as I could and save all the money I could and then when the time came just refuse and give her all the money that I had and help her all I could from then on.”
“But you know,” proceeded Jephson, most suavely and diplomatically at this point, “there are various references in these letters here which Miss Alden wrote you”—and he reached over and from the district attorney’s table picked up the original letters of Roberta and weighed them solemnly in his hand—“to a plan which you two had in connection with this trip—or at least that she seemed to think you had. Now, exactly what was that plan? She distinctly refers to it, if I recall aright, as ‘our plan.’ ”
“I know that,” replied Clyde—since for two months now he, along with Belknap and Jephson, had discussed this particular question. “But the only plan I know of”—and here he did his best to look frank and be convincing—“was the one I offered over and over.”
“And what was that?”
“Why, that she go away and take a room somewhere and let me help her and come over and see her once in a while.”
“Well, no, you’re wrong there,” returned Jephson, slyly. “That isn’t and couldn’t be the plan she had in mind. She says in one of these letters that she knows it will be hard on you to have to go away and stay so long, or until she is out of this thing, but that it can’t be helped.”
“Yes, I know,” replied Clyde, quickly and exactly as he had been told to do, “but that was her plan, not mine. She kept saying to me most of the time that that was what she wanted me to do, and that I would have to do it. She told me that over the telephone several times, and I may have said all right, all right, not meaning that I agreed with her entirely but that I wanted to talk with her about it some more later.”
“I see. And so that’s what you think—that she meant one thing and you meant another.”
“Well, I know I never agreed to her plan—exactly. That is, I never did any more than just to ask her to wait and not do anything until I could get money enough together to come up there and talk to her some more and get her to go away—the way I suggested.”
“But if she wouldn’t accede to your plan, then what?”
“Well, then I was going to tell her about Miss X, and beg her to let me go.”
“And if she still wouldn’t?”
“Well, then I thought I might run away, but I didn’t like to think about that very much.”
“You know, Clyde, of course, that some here are of the opinion that there was a plot on your part which originated in your mind about this time to conceal your identity and hers and lure her up there to one of those lone lakes in the Adirondacks and slay her or drown her in cold blood, in order that you might be free to marry this Miss X. Any truth in that? Tell this jury—yes or no—which is it?”
“No! No! I never did plot to kill her, or any one,” protested Clyde, quite dramatically, and clutching at the arms of his chair and seeking to be as emphatic as possible, since he had been instructed so to do. At the same time he arose in his seat and sought to look stern and convincing, although in his heart and mind was the crying knowledge that he had so plotted, and this it was that most weakened him at this moment—most painfully and horribly weakened him. The eyes of all these people. The eyes of the judge and jury and Mason and all the men and women of the press. And once more his brow was wet and cold and he licked his thin lips nervously and swallowed with difficulty because his throat was dry.
And then it was that piecemeal, and beginning with the series of letters written by Roberta to Clyde after she reached her home and ending with the one demanding that he come for her or she would return to Lycurgus and expose him, Jephson took up the various phases of the “alleged” plot and crime, and now did his best to minimize and finally dispel all that had been testified to so far.
Clyde’s suspicious actions in not writing Roberta. Well, he was afraid of complications in connection with his relatives, his work, everything. And the same with his arranging to meet her in Fonda. He had no plan as to any trip with her anywhere in particular at the time. He only thought vaguely of meeting her somewhere—anywhere—and possibly persuading her to leave him. But July arriving and his plan still so indefinite, the first thing that occurred to him was that they might go off to some inexpensive resort somewhere. It was Roberta who in Utica had suggested some of the lakes north of there. It was there in the hotel, not at the railway station, that he had secured some maps and folders—a fatal contention in one sense, for Mason had one folder with a Lycurgus House stamp on the cover, which Clyde had not noticed at the time. And as he was so testifying, Mason was thinking of this. In regard to leaving Lycurgus by a back street—well, there had been a desire to conceal his departure with Roberta, of course, but only to protect her name and his from notoriety. And so with the riding in separate cars, registering as Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Golden, and so on indefinitely throughout the entire list of shifty concealments and evasions. In regard to the two hats, well, the one hat was soiled and seeing one that he liked he bought it. Then when he lost the hat in the accident he naturally put on the other. To be sure, he had owned and carried a camera, and it was true that he had it at the Cranstons’ on his first visit there on the eighteenth of June. The only reason he denied having it at first was because he was afraid of being identified with this purely accidental death of Roberta in a way that would be difficult to explain. He had been falsely charged with her murder immediately upon his arrest in the woods, and he was fearful of his entire connection with this ill-fated trip, and not having any lawyer or any one to say a word for him, he thought it best to say nothing and so for the time being had denied everything, although at once on being provided counsel he had confided to his attorneys the true facts of the case.
And so, too, with the missing suit, which because it was wet and muddy he had done up in a bundle in the woods and after reaching the Cranstons’ had deposited it behind some stones there, intending to ret
urn and secure it and have it dry-cleaned. But on being introduced to Mr. Belknap and Mr. Jephson he had at once told both and they had secured it and had it cleaned for him.
“But now, Clyde, in regard to your plans and your being out on that lake in the first place—let’s hear about that now.”
And then—quite as Jephson had outlined it to Belknap, came the story of how he and Roberta had reached Utica and afterwards Grass Lake. And yet no plan. He intended, if worst came to worst, to tell her of his great love for Miss X and appeal to her sympathy and understanding to set him free at the same time that he offered to do anything that he could for her. If she refused he intended to defy her and leave Lycurgus, if necessary, and give up everything.
“But when I saw her at Fonda, and later in Utica, looking as tired and worried as she was,” and here Clyde was endeavoring to give the ring of sincerity to words carefully supplied him, “and sort of helpless, I began to feel sorry for her again.”
“Yes, and then what?”
“Well, I wasn’t quite so sure whether in case she refused to let me off I could go through with leaving her.”
“Well, what did you decide then?”
“Not anything just then. I listened to what she had to say and I tried to tell her how hard it was going to be for me to do anything much, even if I did go away with her. I only had fifty dollars.”
“Yes?”
“And then she began to cry, and I decided I couldn’t talk to her any more about it there. She was too run-down and nervous. So I asked her if there wasn’t any place she would like to go to for a day or two to brace herself up a little,” went on Clyde, only here on account of the blackness of the lie he was telling he twisted and swallowed in the weak, stigmatic way that was his whenever he was attempting something which was beyond him—any untruth or a feat of skill—and then added: “And she said yes, maybe to one of those lakes up in the Adirondacks—it didn’t make much difference which one—if we could afford it. And when I told her, mostly because of the way she was feeling, that I thought we could——”
“Then you really only went up there on her account?”
“Yes, sir, only on account of her.”
“I see. Go on.”
“Well, then she said if I would go downstairs or somewhere and get some folders we might be able to find a place up there somewhere where it wasn’t so expensive.”
“And did you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, and then what?”
“Well, we looked them over and we finally hit on Grass Lake.”
“Who did? The two of you—or she?”
“Well, she took one folder and I took another, and in hers she found an ad about an inn up there where two people could stay for twenty-one dollars a week, or five dollars a day for the two. And I thought we couldn’t do much better than that for one day.”
“Was one day all you intended to stay?”
“No, sir. Not if she wanted to stay longer. My idea at first was that we might stay one or two days or three. I couldn’t tell—whatever time it took me to talk things out with her and make her understand and see where I stood.”
“I see. And then . . . ?”
“Well, then we went up to Grass Lake the next morning.”
“In separate cars still?”
“Yes, sir—in separate cars.”
“And when you got there?”
“Why, we registered.”
“How?”
“Clifford Graham and wife.”
“Still afraid some one would know who you were?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you try to disguise your handwriting in any way?”
“Yes, sir—a little.”
“But just why did you always use your own initials—C. G.?”
“Well, I thought that the initials on my bag should be the same as the initials on the register, and still not be my name either.”
“I see. Clever in one sense, not so clever in another—just half clever, which is the worst of all.” At this Mason half rose in his seat as though to object, but evidently changing his mind, sank slowly back again. And once more Jephson’s right eye swiftly and inquiringly swept the jury to his right. “Well, did you finally explain to her that you wanted to be done with it all as you had planned—or did you not?”
“I wanted to talk to her about it just after we got there if I could—the next morning, anyhow—but just as soon as we got off up there and got settled she kept saying to me that if I would only marry her then—that she would not want to stay married long—that she was so sick and worried and felt so bad—that all she wanted to do was to get through and give the baby a name, and after that she would go away and let me go my way, too.”
“And then?”
“Well, and then—then we went out on the lake——”
“Which lake, Clyde?”
“Why, Grass Lake. We went out for a row after we got there.”
“Right away? In the afternoon?”
“Yes, sir. She wanted to go. And then while we were out there rowing around——” (He paused.)
“She got to crying again, and she seemed so much up against it and looked so sick and so worried that I decided that after all she was right and I was wrong—that it wouldn’t be right, on account of the baby and all, not to marry her, and so I thought I had better do it.”
“I see. A change of heart. And did you tell her that then and there?”
“No, sir.”
“And why not? Weren’t you satisfied with the trouble you had caused her so far?”
“Yes, sir. But you see just as I was going to talk to her at that time I got to thinking of all the things I had been thinking before I came up.”
“What, for instance?”
“Why, Miss X and my life in Lycurgus, and what we’d be up against in case we did go away this way.”
“Yes.”
“And . . . well . . . and then I couldn’t just tell her then—not that day, anyhow.”
“Well, when did you tell her then?”
“Well, I told her not to cry any more—that I thought maybe it would be all right if she gave me twenty-four hours more to think things all out—that maybe we’d be able to settle on something.”
“And then?”
“Well, then she said after a while that she didn’t care for Grass Lake. She wished we would go away from there.”
“She did?”
“Yes. And then we got out the maps again and I asked a fellow at the hotel there if he knew about the lakes up there. And he said of all the lakes around there Big Bittern was the most beautiful. I had seen it once, and I told Roberta about it and what the man said, and then she asked why didn’t we go there.”
“And is that why you went there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No other reason?”
“No, sir—none—except that it was back, or south, and we were going that way anyhow.”
“I see. And that was Thursday, July eighth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, now, Clyde, as you have seen, it has been charged here that you took Miss Alden to and out on that lake with the sole and premeditated intent of killing her—murdering her—finding some unobserved and quiet spot and then first striking her with your camera, or an oar, or club, or stone maybe, and then drowning her. Now, what have you to say to that? Is that true, or isn’t it?”
“No, sir! It’s not true!” returned Clyde, clearly and emphatically. “I never went there of my own accord in the first place, and I only went there because she didn’t like Grass Lake.” And here, because he had been sinking down in his chair, he pulled himself up and looked at the jury and the audience with what measure of strength and conviction he could summon—as previously he had been told to do. At the same time he added: “And I wanted to please her in any way that I could so that she might be a little more cheerful.”
“Were you still as sorry for her on this Thursday as you had been the da
y before?”
“Yes, sir—more, I think.”
“And had you definitely made up your mind by then as to what you wanted to do?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, and just what was that?”
“Well, I had decided to play as fair as I could. I had been thinking about it all night, and I realized how badly she would feel and I too if I didn’t do the right thing by her—because she had said three or four times that if I didn’t she would kill herself. And I had made up my mind that morning that whatever else happened that day, I was going to straighten the whole thing out.”
“This was at Grass Lake. You were still in the hotel on Thursday morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you were going to tell her just what?”
“Well, that I knew that I hadn’t treated her quite right and that I was sorry—besides, that her offer was fair enough, and that if after what I was going to tell her she still wanted me, I would go away with her and marry her. But that I had to tell her first the real reason for my changing as I had—that I had been and still was in love with another girl and that I couldn’t help it—that probably whether I married her or not——”
“Miss Alden you mean?”
“Yes, sir—that I would always go on loving this other girl, because I just couldn’t get her out of my mind. But just the same, if that didn’t make any difference to her, that I would marry her even if I couldn’t love her any more as I once did. That was all.”
“But what about Miss X?”
“Well, I had thought about her too, but I thought she was better off and could stand it easier. Besides, I thought perhaps Roberta would let me go and we could just go on being friends and I would help her all I could.”
“Had you decided just where you would marry her?”
“No, sir. But I knew there were plenty of towns below Big Bittern and Grass Lake.”
“But were you going to do that without one single word to Miss X beforehand?”
“Well, no, sir—not exactly. I figured that if Roberta wouldn’t let me off but didn’t mind my leaving her for a few days, I would go down to where Miss X lived and tell her, and then come back. But if she objected to that, why then I was going to write Miss X a letter and explain how it was and then go on and get married to Roberta.”
An American Tragedy Page 90