“Yes, I know.” His voice was thick and heavy. He could
scarcely form the words. They were smothered, choked.
His lips tightened to a thinner white line than before. His
face grew paler still.
“Why, what’s the matter, Clydie?” Sondra asked, of a
sudden, looking at him more closely. “You look so pale!
Your eyes. Anything wrong? Aren’t you feeling well to-night,
or is it this light out here?”
She turned to look at some of the others in order to make
sure, then back at him. And he, feeling the extreme
importance of looking anything but the way she was
describing him now drew himself up as best he could, and
replied: “Oh, no. It must be the light, I guess. Sure, it’s the
light. I had—a—a hard day yesterday, that’s all. I shouldn’t
have come over to-night, I suppose.” And then achieving
the weirdest and most impossible of smiles. And Sondra,
gazing most sympathetically, adding: “Was he so tired? My
Clydie-mydie boy, after his work yesterday. Why didn’t my
baby boy tell me that this morning instead of doing all that
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we did to-day? Want me to get Frank to run you down to
the Cranstons’ now? Or maybe you’d like to go up in his
room and lie down? He won’t mind, I know. Shall I ask
him?”
She turned as if to speak to Frank, but Clyde, all but panic-
stricken by this latest suggestion, and yet angling for an
excuse to leave, exclaimed earnestly and yet shakily:
“Please, please don’t, darling. I—I—don’t want you to. I’ll be
all right. I’ll go up after a bit if I want to, or maybe home a
little early, if you’re going after a while, but not now. I’m not
feeling as good as I should, but I’ll be all right.”
Sondra, because of his strained and as she now fancied
almost peevish tone, desisted with: “All right, honey. All
right. But if you don’t feel well, I wish you would let me get
Frank to take you down or go upstairs. He won’t mind. And
then after a while—about ten-thirty—I’ll excuse myself and
you can go down with me to your place. I’ll take you there
before I go home and whoever else wants to go. Won’t my
baby boy do something like that?”
And Clyde saying: “Well, I think I’ll go up and get a drink,
anyhow.” And disappearing in one of the spacious baths of
the Harriet home, locking the door and sitting down and
thinking, thinking—of Roberta’s body recovered, of the
possibilities of a bruise of some kind, of the possibility of the
print of his own feet in the mud and sandy loam of the
shore; of that suit over at the Cranstons’, the men in the
wood, Roberta’s bag, hat and coat, his own liningless hat
left on the water—and wondering what next to do. How to
act! How to talk! Whether to go downstairs to Sondra now
and persuade her to go, or whether to stay and suffer and
agonize? And what would the morrow’s papers reveal?
What? What? And was it wise, in case there was any news
which would make it look as though eventually he was to
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797
be sought after, or in any way connected with this, to go on
that proposed camping trip to-morrow! Or, wiser, to run
away from here? He had some money now. He could go to
New York, Boston, New Orleans where Ratterer was—but
oh, no—not where any one knew him.
Oh, God! The folly of all his planning in connection with all
this to date! The flaws! Had he ever really planned it right
from the start? Had he ever really imagined, for instance,
that Roberta’s body would be found in that deep water?
And yet, here it was—risen so soon—this first day—to
testify against him! And although he had signed as he had
on those registers up there, was it not possible now, on
account of those three men and that girl on that boat, for
him to be traced? He must think, think, think! And get out of
here as soon as possible, before anything really fatal in
connection with that suit should happen.
Growing momentarily weaker and more terrorized, he now
decided to return to Sondra below, and say that he was
really feeling quite sick and that if she did not object he
would prefer to go home with her, if she could arrange it.
And consequently, at ten-thirty, when the evening still had
hours to go, Sondra announced to Burchard that she was
not feeling well and would he run her and Clyde and Jill
down to her place, but that she would see them all on the
morrow in time for the proposed departure for Bear Lake.
And Clyde, though brooding as to whether this early leaving
on his part was not another of those wretched errors which
had seemed to mark every step of this desperate and
murderous scheme so far, finally entering the swift launch
and being raced to the Cranston lodge in no time. And once
there, excusing himself to Burchard and Sondra as
nonchalantly and apologetically as might be, and then
hurrying to his own room only to find the suit as he had left it
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798
—no least evidence that any one had been there to disturb
the serenity of his chamber. Just the same, nervously and
suspiciously, he now took it out and tied it up, and then
waiting and listening for a silent moment in which to slip
from the house unobserved—finally ambled out as though
going for a short walk. And then, by the shore of the lake—
about a quarter of a mile distant from the house—seeking
out a heavy stone and tying the suit to that. And then
throwing it out into the water, as far as his strength would
permit. And then returning, as silently and gloomily and
nervously as he had gone, and brooding and brooding as to
what the morrow might reveal and what, if any appeared to
question him, he would say.
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Chapter 8
THE morrow dawned after an all but sleepless night,
harrowed by the most torturesome dreams in regard to
Roberta, men who arrived to arrest him, and the hike, until
at last he arose, his nerves and eyes aching. Then,
venturing to come downstairs about an hour later, he saw
Frederick, the chauffeur who had driven him out the day
before, getting one of the cars out. And thereupon
instructing him to bring all the morning Albany and Utica
papers. And about nine-thirty, when he returned,
proceeding to his room with them, where, locking the door
and spreading one of the papers before him, he was
immediately confronted by the startling headlines:
MYSTERY IN GIRL’S DEATH BODY FOUND
YESTERDAY IN ADIRONDACK LAKE MAN COMPAN-
ION MISSING
And at once strained and white he sat down in one of the
chairs near the window and began to read:
Bridgeburg, N. Y., July 9.—The body of an unknown
girl, presumably the wife of a young man who
registered first on Wednesday morning at Grass Lake
Inn, Grass Lake, N. Y., as Carl Graham and wife, and
later, Thursday noon, at Big Bittern Lodge, Big Bittern,
as Clifford Golden and wife was taken from the waters
of the south end of Big Bittern just before noon
yesterday. Because of an upturned boat, as well as a
man’s straw hat found floating on the water in Moon
Cove, dredging with hooks and lines had been going on
all morning…. Up to seven o’clock last evening,
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however, the body of the man had not as yet been
recovered, and according to Coroner Heit of Bridge-
burg, who by two o’clock had been summoned to the
scene of the tragedy, it was not considered at all likely
that it would be. Several marks and abrasions found
upon the dead girl’s head and face, as well as the
testimony of three men who arrived on the scene while
the search was still on and testified to having met a
young man who answered to the description of Golden
or Graham in the woods to the south of the lake the
night before, caused many to conclude that a murder
had been committed and that the murderer was
seeking to make his escape.
The girl’s brown leather traveling bag, as well as a hat
and coat belonging to her, were left, the bag in the
ticket agent’s room at Gun Lodge, which is the railway
station five miles east of Big Bittern, and the hat and
coat in the coatroom of the inn at the Lake, whereas
Graham or Golden is said to have taken his suitcase
with him into the boat.
According to the innkeeper at Big Bittern, the couple on
their arrival registered as Clifford Golden and wife of