An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

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