"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 was 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 every 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 there--
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 look
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 Sissel 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.
Chapter 26
The remainder of the trial consisted of the testimony of eleven
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