That unintended blow—(and who was going to believe him
as to that)—his hiding the tripod afterwards. Besides once
all that was known would he not be done for just the same
in connection with Sondra, the Griffiths—everybody. And
very likely prosecuted and executed for murder just the
same. Oh, heavens—murder. And to be tried for that now;
this terrible crime against her proved. They would
electrocute him just the same—wouldn’t they? And then the
full horror of that coming upon him,—death, possibly—and
for murder—he sat there quite still. Death! God! If only he
had not left those letters written him by Roberta and his
mother in his room there at Mrs. Peyton’s. If only he had
removed his trunk to another room, say, before he left. Why
hadn’t he thought of that? Yet as instantly thinking, might
not that have been a mistake, too, being seemingly a
suspicious thing to have done then? But how came they to
know where he was from and what his name was? Then,
as instantly returning in mind to the letters in the trunk. For,
as he now recalled, in one of those letters from his mother
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she had mentioned that affair in Kansas City, and Mason
would come to know of that. If only he had destroyed them.
Roberta’s, his mother’s, all! Why hadn’t he? But not being
able to answer why—just an insane desire to keep things
maybe—anything that related to him—a kindness, a
tenderness toward him. If only he had not worn that second
straw hat—had not met those three men in the woods!
God! He might have known they would be able to trace him
in some way. If only he had gone on in that wood at Bear
Lake, taking his suit case and Sondra’s letters with him.
Perhaps, perhaps, who knows, in Boston, or New York, or
somewhere he might have hidden away.
Unstrung and agonized, he was unable to sleep at all, but
walked back and forth, or sat on the side of the hard and
strange cot, thinking, thinking. And at dawn, a bony, aged,
rheumy jailer, in a baggy, worn, blue uniform, bearing a
black, iron tray, on which was a tinful of coffee, some bread
and a piece of ham with one egg. And looking curiously and
yet somehow indifferently at Clyde, while he forced it
through an aperture only wide and high enough for its
admission, though Clyde wanted nothing at all.
And then later Kraut and Sissel and Swenk, and eventually
the sheriff himself, each coming separately, to look in and
say: “Well, Griffiths; how are you this morning?” or, “Hello,
anything we can do for you?”, while their eyes showed the
astonishment, disgust, suspicion or horror with which his
assumed crime had filled them. Yet, even in the face of
that, having one type of interest and even sycophantic pride
in his presence here. For was he not a Griffiths—a member
of the well-known social group of the big central cities to the
south of here. Also the same to them, as well as to the
enormously fascinated public outside, as a trapped and
captured animal, taken in their legal net by their own
superlative skill and now held as witness to it? And with the
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newspapers and people certain to talk, enormous publicity
for them—their pictures in the papers as well as his, their
names persistently linked with his.
And Clyde, looking at them between the bars, attempted to
be civil, since he was now in their hands and they could do
with him as they would.
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Chapter 11
IN CONNECTION with the autopsy and its results there was
a decided set-back. For while the joint report of the five
doctors showed: “An injury to the mouth and nose; the tip of
the nose appears to have been slightly flattened, the lips
swollen, one front tooth slightly loosened, and an abrasion
of the mucous membrane within the lips”—all agreed that
these injuries were by no means fatal. The chief injury was
to the skull (the very thing which Clyde in his first
confession had maintained), which appeared to have been
severely bruised by a blow of “some sharp instrument,”
unfortunately in this instance, because of the heaviness of
the blow of the boat, “signs of fracture and internal
hæmorrhage which might have produced death.”
But—the lungs when placed in water, sinking—an absolute
proof that Roberta could not have been dead when thrown
into the water, but alive and drowning, as Clyde had
maintained. And no other signs of violence or struggle,
although her arms and fingers appeared to be set in such a
way as to indicate that she might have been reaching or
seeking to grasp something. The wale of the boat? Could
that be? Might Clyde’s story, after all, conceal a trace of
truth? Certainly these circumstances seemed to favor him a
little. Yet as Mason and the others agreed, all these
circumstances most distinctly seemed to prove that
although he might not have slain her outright before
throwing her into the water, none the less he had struck her
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and then had thrown her, perhaps unconscious, into the
water.
But with what? If he could but make Clyde say that!
And then an inspiration! He would take Clyde and, although
the law specifically guaranteed accused persons against
compulsions, compel him to retrace the scenes of his
crime. And although he might not be able to make him
commit himself in any way, still, once on the ground and
facing the exact scene of his crime, his actions might reveal
something of the whereabouts of the suit, perhaps, or
possibly some instrument with which he had struck her.
And in consequence, on the third day following Clyde’s
incarceration, a second visit to Big Bittern, with Kraut, Heit,
Mason, Burton, Burleigh, Earl Newcomb and Sheriff Slack
as his companions, and a slow re-canvassing of all the
ground he had first traveled on that dreadful day. And with
Kraut, following instructions from Mason, “playing up” to
him, in order to ingratiate himself into his good graces, and
possibly cause him to make a clean breast of it. For Kraut
was to argue that the evidence, so far was so convincing
that you “never would get a jury to believe that you didn’t do
it,” but that, “if you would talk right out to Mason, he could
do more for you with the judge and the governor than any
one could—get you off, maybe, with life or twenty years,
while this way you’re likely to get the chair, sure.”
Yet Clyde, because of that same fear that had guided him
at Bear Lake, maintaining a profound silence. For why
should he say that he had struck her, when he had not—
intentionally at least? Or with what, since no thought of the
camera had come up as yet.
At the lake, after definite measurements by the county
surveyor as to the distance from the spot where Roberta
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had drowned to the spot where Clyde had landed, Earl New-
comb suddenly returning to Mason with an important
discovery. For under a log not so far from the spot at which
Clyde had stood to remove his wet clothes, the tripod he
had hidden, a little rusty and damp, but of sufficient weight,
as Mason and all these others were now ready to believe,
to have delivered the blow upon Roberta’s skull which had
felled her and so make it possible for him to carry her to the
boat and later drown her. Yet, confronted with this and
turning paler than before, Clyde denying that he had a
camera or a tripod with him, although Mason was instantly
deciding that he would re-question all witnesses to find out
whether any recalled seeing a tripod or camera in Clyde’s
possession.
And before the close of this same day learning from the
guide who had driven Clyde and Roberta over, as well as
the boatman who had seen Clyde drop his bag into the
boat, and a young waitress at Grass Lake who had seen
Clyde and Roberta going out from the inn to the station on
the morning of their departure from Grass Lake, that all now
recalled a “yellow bundle of sticks,” fastened to his bag
which must have been the very tripod.
And then Burton Burleigh deciding that it might not really
have been the tripod, after all with which he had struck her
but possibly and even probably the somewhat heavier body
of the camera itself, since an edge of it would explain the
wound on the top of the head and the flat surface would
explain the general wounds on her face. And because of
this conclusion, without any knowledge on the part of Clyde,
however, Mason securing divers from among the
woodsmen of the region and setting them to diving in the