An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

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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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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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.