roundabout way for Sharon.
In the meantime, Mason, after obtaining possession of all
Clyde’s belongings here, quickly making his way west to
Little Fish Inlet and Three Mile Bay, stopping only for the
first night at a farmhouse and arriving at Three Mile Bay late
on Tuesday night. Yet not without, en route, catechizing
Clyde as he had planned, the more particularly since in
going through his effects in the tent at the camp he had not
found the gray suit said to have been worn by Clyde at Big
Bittern.
And Clyde, troubled by this new development, denying that
he had worn a gray suit and insisting that the suit he had on
was the one he had worn.
“But wasn’t it thoroughly soaked?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, where was it cleaned and pressed afterward?”
“In Sharon.”
“In Sharon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“By a tailor there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What tailor?”
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Alas, Clyde could not remember.
“Then you wore it crumpled and wet, did you, from Big
Bittern to Sharon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And no one noticed it, of course.”
“Not that I remember—no.”
“Not that you remember, eh? Well, we’ll see about that
later,” and deciding that unquestionably Clyde was a plotter
and a murderer. Also that eventually he could make Clyde
show where he had hidden the suit or had had it cleaned.
Next there was the straw hat found on the lake. What about
that? By admitting that the wind had blown his hat off,
Clyde had intimated that he had worn a hat on the lake, but
not necessarily the straw hat found on the water. But now
Mason was intent on establishing within hearing of these
witnesses, the ownership of the hat found on the water as
well as the existence of a second hat worn later.
“That straw hat of yours that you say the wind blew in the
water? You didn’t try to get that either at the time, did you?”
“No, sir.”
“Didn’t think of it, I suppose, in the excitement?”
“No, sir.”
“But just the same, you had another straw hat when you
went down through the woods there. Where did you get
that one?”
And Clyde, trapped and puzzled by this pausing for the
fraction of a second, frightened and wondering whether or
not it could be proved that this second straw hat he was
wearing was the one he had worn through the woods. Also
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837
whether the one on the water had been purchased in Utica,
as it had. And then deciding to lie. “But I didn’t have another
straw hat.” Without paying any attention to that, Mason
reached over and took the straw hat on Clyde’s head and
proceeded to examine the lining with its imprint—Stark &
Company, Lycurgus.
“This one has a lining, I see. Bought this in Lycurgus, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When?”
“Oh, back in June.”
“But still you’re sure now it’s not the one you wore down
through the woods that night?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, where was it then?”
And Clyde once more pausing like one in a trap and
thinking: My God! How am I to explain this now? Why did I
admit that the one on the lake was mine? Yet, as instantly
recalling that whether he had denied it or not, there were
those at Grass Lake and Big Bittern who would remember
that he had worn a straw hat on the lake, of course.
“Where was it then?” insisted Mason.
And Clyde at last saying: “Oh, I was up here once before
and wore it then. I forgot it when I went down the last time
but I found it again the other day.”
“Oh, I see. Very convenient, I must say.” He was beginning
to believe that he had a very slippery person to deal with
indeed—that he must think of his traps more shrewdly, and
at the same time determining to summon the Cranstons
and every member of the Bear Lake party in order to
discover, whether any recalled Clyde not wearing a straw
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838
hat on his arrival this time, also whether he had left a straw
hat the time before. He was lying, of course, and he would
catch him.
And so no real peace for Clyde at any time between there
and Bridgeburg and the county jail. For however much he
might refuse to answer, still Mason was forever jumping at
him with such questions as: Why was it if all you wanted to
do was to eat lunch on shore that you had to row all the
way down to that extreme south end of the lake when it isn’t
nearly so attractive there as it is at other points? And:
Where was it that you spent the rest of that afternoon—
surely not just there? And then, jumping back to Sondra’s
letters discovered in his bag. How long had he known her?
Was he as much in love with her as she appeared to be
with him? Wasn’t it because of her promise to marry him in
the fall that he had decided to kill Miss Alden?
But while Clyde vehemently troubled to deny this last
charge, still for the most part he gazed silently and
miserably before him with his tortured and miserable eyes.
And then a most wretched night spent in the garret of a
farmhouse at the west end of the lake, and on a pallet on
the floor, while Sissel, Swenk and Kraut, gun in hand, in
turn kept watch over him, and Mason and the sheriff and
the others slept below stairs. And some natives, because of
information distributed somehow, coming toward morning
to inquire: “We hear the feller that killed the girl over to Big
Bittern is here—is that right?” And then waiting to see them
off at dawn in the Fords secured by Mason.
And again at Little Fish Inlet as well as Three Mile Bay,
actual crowds—farmers, store-keepers, summer residents,
woodsmen, children—all gathered because of word
telephoned on ahead apparently. And at the latter place,
Burleigh, Heit and Newcomb, who, because of previously
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839
telephoned information, had brought before one Gabriel
Gregg, a most lanky and crusty and meticulous justice of
the peace, all of the individuals from Big Bittern necessary
to identify him fully. And now Mason, before this local
justice, charging Clyde with the death of Roberta and
having him properly and legally held as a material witness
to be lodged in the county jail at Bridgeburg. And then
taking him, along with Burton, the sheriff and his deputies,
to Bridgeburg, where he was promptly locked up.
And once there, Clyde throwing himself on the iron cot and
holding his head in a kind of agony of despair. It was three
o’clock in the morning, and just outside the jail as they
approached he had seen a crowd of at least five hundred—
noisy, jeering, threatening. For had not the news been
forwarded that because of his desire to marry a rich girl he
had most brutally assaulted and murdered a young and
charming working-girl whose only fault had been that she
loved him too well. There had been hard and threatening
cries of “There he is, the dirty bastard! You’ll swing for this
yet, you young devil, wait and see!” This from a young
woodsman not unlike Swenk in type—a hard, destroying
look in his fierce young eyes, leaning out from the crowd.
And worse, a waspish type of small-town slum girl, dressed
in a gingham dress, who in the dim light of the arcs, had
leaned forward to cry: “Lookit, the dirty little sneak—the
murderer! You thought you’d get away with it, didnja?”
And Clyde, crowding closer to Sheriff Slack, and thinking:
Why, they actually think I did kill her! And they may even
lynch me! But so weary and confused and debased and
miserable that at the sight of the outer steel jail door
swinging open to receive him, he actually gave vent to a
sigh of relief because of the protection it afforded.
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840
But once in his cell, suffering none the less without
cessation the long night through, from thoughts—thoughts
con, cerning all that had just gone. Sondra! the Griffiths!
Bertine. All those people in Lycurgus when they should
hear in the morning. His mother eventually, everybody.
Where was Sondra now? For Mason had told her, of
course, and all those others, when he had gone back to
secure his things. And they knew him now for what he was
—a plotter of murder! Only, only, if somebody could only
know how it had all come about! If Sondra, his mother, any
one, could truly see!
Perhaps if he were to explain all to this man Mason now,
before it all went any further, exactly how it all had
happened. But that meant a true explanation as to his plot,
his real original intent, that camera, his swimming away.