An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

up there near the Cranstons’—describe the spot to me as

near as you can where you threw it—how far from the

house was it?” He waited until Clyde haltingly attempted to

recapture the various details of the hour and the scene as

he could recall it.

“If I could go up there, I could find it quick enough.”

“Yes, I know, but they won’t let you go up there without

Mason being along,” he returned. “And maybe not even

then. You’re in prison now, and you can’t be taken out

without the state’s consent, you see. But we must get that

suit.” Then turning to Belknap and lowering his voice, he

added: “We want to get it and have it cleaned and submit it

as having been sent away to be cleaned by him—not

hidden, you see.”

“Yes, that’s so,” commented Belknap idly while Clyde stood

listening curiously and a little amazed by this frank program

of trickery and deception on his behalf.

“And now in regard to that camera that fell in the lake—we

have to try and find that, too. I think maybe Mason may

know about it or suspect that it’s there. At any rate it’s very

important that we should find it before he does. You think

that about where that pole was that day you were up there

is where the boat was when it overturned?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, we must see if we can get that,” he continued,

turning to Belknap. “We don’t want that turning up in the

trial, if we can help it. For without that, they’ll have to be

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swearing that he struck her with that tripod or something

that he didn’t, and that’s where we may trip ’em up.”

“Yes, that’s true, too,” replied Belknap.

“And now in regard to the bag that Mason has. That’s

another thing I haven’t seen yet, but I will see it to-morrow.

Did you put that suit, as wet as it was, in the bag when you

came out of the water?”

“No, sir, I wrung it out first. And then I dried it as much as I

could. And then I wrapped it up in the paper that we had the

lunch in and then put some dry pine needles underneath it

in the bag and on top of it.”

“So there weren’t any wet marks in the bag after you took it

out, as far as you know?”

“No, sir, I don’t think so.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“Not exactly sure now that you ask me—no, sir.”

“Well, I’ll see for myself to-morrow. And now as to those

marks on her face, you have never admitted to any one

around here or anywhere that you struck her in any way?”

“No, sir.”

“And the mark on the top of her head was made by the

boat, just as you said?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But the others you think you might have made with the

camera?”

“Yes, sir. I suppose they were.”

“Well, then, this is the way it looks to me,” said Jephson,

again turning to Belknap. “I think we can safely say when

the time comes that those marks were never made by him

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at all, see?—but by the hooks and the poles with which they

were scraping around up there when they were trying to

find her. We can try it, anyhow. And if the hooks and poles

didn’t do it,” he added, a little grimly and dryly, “certainly

hauling her body from that lake to that railroad station and

from there to here on the train might have.”

“Yes, I think Mason would have a hard time proving that

they weren’t made that way,” replied Belknap.

“And as for that tripod, well, we’d better exhume the body

and make our own measurements, and measure the

thickness of the edge of that boat, so that it may not be so

easy for Mason to make any use of the tripod now that he

has it, after all.”

Mr. Jephson’s eyes were very small and very clear and very

blue, as he said this. His head, as well as his body, had a

thin, ferrety look. And it seemed to Clyde, who had been

observing and listening to all this with awe, that this

younger man might be the one to aid him. He was so

shrewd and practical, so very direct and chill and indifferent

and yet confidence-inspiring, quite like an uncontrollable

machine of a kind which generates power.

And when at last these two were ready to go, he was sorry.

For with them near him, planning and plotting in re gard to

himself, he felt so much safer, stronger, more hopeful, more

certain of being free, maybe, at some future date.

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Chapter 16

THE result of all this, however, was that it was finally

decided that perhaps the easiest and safest defense that

could be made, assuming that the Griffiths family of

Lycurgus would submit to it, would be that of insanity or

“brain storm”—a temporary aberration due to love and an

illusion of grandeur aroused in Clyde by Sondra Finchley

and the threatened disruption by Roberta of all his dreams

and plans. But after consultation with Catchuman and

Darrah Brookhart at Lycurgus, and these in turn conferring

with Samuel and Gilbert Griffiths, it was determined that

this would not do. For to establish insanity or “brain storm”

would require previous evidence or testimony to the effect

that Clyde was of none too sound mind, erratic his whole

life long, and with certain specific instances tending to

demonstrate how really peculiar he was—relatives (among

them the Griffiths of Lycurgus themselves, perhaps),

coming on to swear to it—a line of evidence, which,

requiring as it would, outright lying and perjury on the part

of many as well as reflecting on the Griffiths’ blood and

brain, was sufficient to alienate both Samuel and Gilbert to

the extent that they would have none of it. And so

Brookhart was compelled to assure Belknap that this line of

defense would have to be abandoned.

Such being the case, both Belknap and Jephson were once

more compelled to sit down and consider. For any other

defense which either could think of now seemed positively

hopeless.

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“I want to tell you one thing!” observed the sturdy Jephson,

after thumbing through the letters of both Roberta and

Sondra again. “These letters of this Alden girl are the

toughest things we’re going to have to face. They’re likely to

make any jury cry if they’re read right, and then to introduce

those letters from that other girl on top of these would be

fatal. It will be better, I think, if we do not mention hers at

all, unless he does. It will only make it look as though he

had killed that Alden girl to get rid of her. Mason couldn’t

want anything better, as I see it.” And with this Belknap

agreed most heartily.

At the same time, some plan must be devised immediately.

And so, out of these various conferences, it was finally

deduced by Jephson, who saw a great opportunity for

himself in this matter, that the safest possible defense that

could be made, and one to which Clyde’s own suspicious

and most peculiar actions would most exactly fit, would be

that he had never contemplated murder. On the contrary,

being a moral if not a physical coward, as his own story

seemed to suggest, and in terror of being exposed and

driven out of Lycurgus and of the heart of Sondra, and

never as yet having told Roberta of Sondra and thinking

that knowledge of this great love for her (Sondra) might

influence Roberta to wish to be rid of him, he had hastily

and without any worse plan in mind, decided to persuade

Roberta to accompany him to any near-by resort but not

especially Grass Lake or Big Bittern, in order to tell her all

this and so win his freedom—yet not without offering to pay

her expenses as nearly as he could during her very trying

period.

“All well and good,” commented Belknap. “But that involves

his refusing to marry her, doesn’t it? And what jury is going

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to sympathize with him for that or believe that he didn’t

want to kill her?”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” replied Jephson, a little

testily. “So far it does. Sure. But you haven’t heard me to

the end yet. I said I had a plan.”

“All right, then what is it?” replied Belknap most interested.

“Well, I’ll tell you—my plan’s this—to leave all the facts just

as they are, and just as he tells them, and just as Mason

has discussed them so far, except, of course, his striking her

—and then explain them—the letters, the wounds, the bag,

the two hats, everything—not deny them in any way.”

And here he paused and ran his long, thin, freckled hands