been directed by but one motive—that the state shall have
justice done. No malice, no pre-conceived notions of any
kind. So late as July 9th last I personally was not even
aware of the existence of this defendant, nor of his victim,
nor of the crime with which he is now charged. But,
gentlemen, as shocked and unbelieving as I was at first
upon hearing that a man of the age, training and
connections of the defendant here could have placed
himself in a position to be accused of such an offense, step
by step I was compelled to alter and then dismiss forever
from my mind my original doubts and to conclude from the
mass of evidence that was literally thrust upon me, that it
was my duty to prosecute this action in behalf of the people.
“But, however that may be, let us proceed to the facts.
There are two women in this action. One is dead. The
other” (and he now turned toward where Clyde sat, and
here he pointed a finger in the direction of Belknap and
Jephson), “by agreement between the prosecution and the
defense is to be nameless here, since no good can come
from inflicting unnecessary injury. In fact, the sole purpose
which I now announce to you to be behind every word and
every fact as it will be presented by the prosecution is that
exact justice, according to the laws of this state and the
crime with which this defendant is charged, shall be done.
Exact justice, gentlemen, exact and fair. But if you do not
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act honesty and render a true verdict according to the
evidence, the people of the state of New York and the
people of the county of Cataraqui will have a grievance and
a serious one. For it is they who are looking to you for a
true accounting for your reasoning and your final decision in
this case.”
And here Mason paused, and then turning dramatically
toward Clyde, and with his right index finger pointing toward
him at times, continued: “The people of the state of New
York charge,” (and he hung upon this one word as though
he desired to give it the value of rolling thunder), “that the
crime of murder in the first degree has been committed by
the prisoner at the bar—Clyde Griffiths. They charge that he
willfully, and with malice and cruelty and deception,
murdered and then sought to conceal forever from the
knowledge and the justice of the world, the body of Roberta
Alden, the daughter of a farmer who has for years resided
near the village of Biltz, in Mimico County. They charge”
(and here Clyde, because of whispered advice from
Jephson, was leaning back as comfortably as possible and
gazing as imperturbably as possible upon the face of
Mason, who was looking directly at him) “that this same
Clyde Griffiths, before ever this crime was committed by
him, plotted for weeks the plan and commission of it, and
then, with malice aforethought and in cold blood, executed
it.
“And in charging these things, the people of the State of
New York expect to, and will, produce before you
substantiations of every one of them. You will be given
facts, and of these facts you, not I, are to be the sole judge.”
And here he paused once more, and shifting to a different
physical position while the eager audience crowded and
leaned forward, hungry and thirsty for every word he should
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942
utter, he now lifted one arm and dramatically pushing back
his curly hair, resumed:
“Gentlemen, it will not take me long to picture, nor will you
fail to perceive for yourselves as this case proceeds, the
type of girl this was whose life was so cruelly blotted out
beneath the waters of Big Bittern. All the twenty years of
her life” (and Mason knew well that she was twenty-three
and two years older than Clyde) “no person who ever knew
her ever said one word in criticism of her character. And no
evidence to that effect, I am positive, will be introduced in
this trial. Somewhat over a year ago—on July 19—she went
to the city of Lycurgus, in order that by working with her
own hands she might help her family.” (And here the sobs
of her parents and sisters and brothers were heard
throughout the courtroom.)
“Gentlemen,” went on Mason, and from this point carrying
on the picture of Roberta’s life from the time she first left
home to join Grace Marr until, having met Clyde on Crum
Lake and fallen out with her friend and patrons, the
Newtons, because of him, she accepted his dictum that she
live alone, amid strange people, concealing the suspicious
truth of this from her parents, and then finally succumbing
to his wiles—the letters she had written him from Biltz
detailing every single progressive step in this story. And
from there, by the same meticulous process, he proceeded
to Clyde—his interest in the affairs of Lycurgus society and
the rich and beautiful Miss X, who because of a purely
innocent and kindly, if infatuated, indication on her part that
he might hope to aspire to her hand—had unwittingly
evoked in him a passion which had been the cause of the
sudden change in his attitude and emotions toward
Roberta, resulting, as Mason insisted he would show, in the
plot that had resulted in Roberta’s death.
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943
“But who is the individual,” he suddenly and most
dramatically exclaimed at this point, “against whom I charge
all these things? There he sits! Is he the son of wastrel
parents—a product of the slums—one who had been
denied every opportunity for a proper or honorable
conception of the values and duties of a decent and
respectable life? Is he? On the contrary. His father is of the
same strain that has given Lycurgus one of its largest and
most constructive industries—the Griffiths Collar & Shirt
Company. He was poor—yes—no doubt of that. But not
more so than Roberta Alden—and her character appears
not to have been affected by her poverty. His parents in
Kansas City, Denver, and before that Chicago and Grand
Rapids, Michigan, appear to have been unordained
ministers of the proselytizing and mission-conducting type—
people who, from all I can gather, are really, sincerely
religious and right-principled in every sense. But this, their
oldest son, and the one who might have been expected to
be deeply influenced by them, early turned from their world
and took to a more garish life. He became a bell-boy in a
celebrated Kansas City hotel, the Green-Davidson.”
And now he proceeded to explain that Clyde had ever been
a rolling stone—one who, by reason of some quirk of
temperament, perhaps, preferred to wander here and there.
Later, as he now explained, he had been given an
important position as head of a department in the well-
known factory of his uncle at Lycurgus. And then gradually
he was introduced into the circles in which his uncle and his
children were familiar. And his salary was such that he
could afford to keep a room in one of the better residences
of the city, while the girl he had slain lived in a mean room
in a back street.
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944
“And yet,” he continued, “how much has been made here of
the alleged youth of this defendant?” (Here he permitted
himself a scornful smile.) “He has been called by his
counsel and others in the newspapers a boy, over and over
again. He is not a boy. He is a bearded man. He has had
more social and educational advantages than any one of
you in the jury box. He has traveled. In hotels and clubs and
the society with which he was so intimately connected in
Lycurgus, he has been in contact with decent, respectable,
and even able and distinguished people. Why, as a matter
of fact, at the time of his arrest two months ago, he was
part of as smart a society and summer resort group as this
region boasts. Remember that! His mind is a mature, not
an immature one. It is fully developed and balanced
perfectly.
“Gentlemen, as the state will soon proceed to prove,” he
went on, “it was no more than four months after his arrival
in Lycurgus that this dead girl came to work for the
defendant in the department of which he was the head. And
it was not more than two months after that before he had
induced her to move from the respectable and religious
home which she had chosen in Lycurgus, to one
concerning which she knew nothing and the principal
advantage of which, as he saw it, was that it offered
secrecy and seclusion and freedom from observation for
that vile purpose which already he entertained in regard to
her.
“There was a rule of the Griffiths Company, as we will later