An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

accounted for and sworn to) his arrival at Bear Lake, the

pursuit and his capture—to say nothing of the various

phases of his arrest—what he said—this being most

damaging indeed, since it painted Clyde as false, evasive,

and terrified.

But unquestionably, the severest and most damaging

testimony related to the camera and the tripod—the

circumstances surrounding the finding of them—and on the

weight of this Mason was counting for a conviction. His one

aim first was to convict Clyde of lying as to his possession

of either a tripod or a camera. And in order to do that he

first introduced Earl Newcomb, who swore that on a certain

day, when he, Mason and Heit and all the others connected

with the case were taking Clyde over the area in which the

crime had been committed, he and a certain native, one Bill

Swartz, who was afterwards put on the stand, while poking

about under some fallen logs and bushes, had come across

the tripod, hidden under a log. Also (under the leadership of

Mason, although over the objections of both Belknap and

Jephson, which were invariably overruled), he proceeded to

add that Clyde, on being asked whether he had a camera

or this tripod, had denied any knowledge of it, on hearing

which Belknap and Jephson actually shouted their

disapproval.

Immediately following, though eventually ordered stricken

from the records by Justice Oberwaltzer, there was

introduced a paper signed by Heit, Burleigh, Slack, Kraut,

Swenk, Sissel, Bill Swartz, Rufus Forster, county surveyor,

An American Tragedy

966

and New-comb, which set forth that Clyde, on being shown

the tripod and asked whether he had one, “vehemently and

repeatedly denied that he had.” But in order to drive the

import of this home, Mason immediately adding: “Very well,

your Honor, but I have other witnesses who will swear to

everything that is in that paper and more,” and at once

calling “Joseph Frazer! Joseph Frazer!” and then placing on

the stand a dealer in sporting goods, cameras, etc., who

proceeded to swear that some time between May fifteenth

and June first, the defendant, Clyde Griffiths, whom he

knew by sight and name, had applied to him for a camera

of a certain size, with tripod attached, and that the

defendant had finally selected a Sank, 3½ by 5½, for which

he had made arrangements to pay in installments. And

after due examination and consulting certain stock numbers

with which the camera and the tripod and his own book

were marked, Mr. Frazer identifying first the camera now

shown him, and immediately after that the yellow tripod as

the one he had sold Clyde.

And Clyde sitting up aghast. Then they had found the

camera, as well as the tripod, after all. And after he had

protested so that he had no camera with him. What would

that jury and the judge and this audience think of his lying

about that? Would they be likely to believe his story of a

change of heart after this proof that he had lied about a

meaningless camera? Better to have confessed in the first

place.

But even as he was so thinking Mason calling Simeon

Dodge, a young woodsman and driver, who testified that on

Saturday, the sixteenth of July, accompanied by John Pole,

who had lifted Roberta’s body out of the water, he had at

the request of the district attorney, repeatedly dived into the

exact spot where her body was found, and finally

An American Tragedy

967

succeeded in bringing up a camera. And then the camera

itself identified by Dodge.

Immediately after this all the testimony in regard to the

hitherto as yet unmentioned films found in the camera at

the time of its recovery, since developed, and now received

in evidence, four views which showed a person looking

more like Roberta than any one else, together with two,

which clearly enough represented Clyde. Belknap was not

able to refute or exclude them.

Then Floyd Thurston, one of the guests at the Cranston

lodge at Sharon on June eighteenth—the occasion of

Clyde’s first visit there—placed on the stand to testify that

on that occasion Clyde had made a number of pictures with

a camera about the size and description of the one shown

him, but failing to identify it as the particular one, his

testimony being stricken out.

After him again, Edna Patterson, a chambermaid in the

Grass Lake Inn, who, as she swore, on entering the room

which Clyde and Roberta occupied on the night of July

seventh, had seen Clyde with a camera in his hand, which

was of the size and color, as far as she could recall, of the

one then and there before her. She had also at the same

time seen a tripod. And Clyde, in his curious and meditative

and half-hypnotized state, recalling well enough the

entrance of this girl into that room and marveling and

suffering because of the unbreakable chain of facts that

could thus be built up by witnesses from such varying and

unconnected and unexpected places, and so long after, too.

After her, but on different days, and with Belknap and

Jephson contending every inch of the way as to the

admissibility of all this, the testimony of the five doctors

whom Mason had called in at the time Roberta’s body was

first brought to Bridgeburg, and who in turn swore that the

An American Tragedy

968

wounds, both on the face and head, were sufficient,

considering Roberta’s physical condition, to stun her. And

because of the condition of the dead girl’s lungs, which had

been tested by attempting to float them in water, averring

that at the time her body had first entered the water, she

must have been still alive, although not necessarily

conscious. But as to the nature of the instrument used to

make these wounds, they would not venture to guess, other

than to say it must have been blunt. And no grilling on the

part of either Belknap or Jephson could bring them to admit

that the blows could have been of such a light character as

not to stun or render unconscious. The chief injury

appeared to be on the top of the skull, deep enough to

have caused a blood clot, photographs of all of which were

put in evidence.

At this psychological point, when both audience and jury

were most painfully and effectively stirred, a number of

photographs of Roberta’s face, made at the time that Heit,

the doctors and the Lutz Brothers had her in charge, were

introduced. Then the dimensions of the bruises on the right

side of her face were shown to correspond exactly in size

with two sides of the camera. Immediately after that, Burton

Burleigh, placed on the stand to swear how he had

discovered the two strands of hair which corresponded with

the hair on Roberta’s head—or so Mason tried to show—

caught between the lens and the lid. And then, after hours

and hours, Belknap, infuriated and yet made nervous by

this type of evidence and seeking to riddle it with sarcasm,

finally pulling a light hair out of his head and then asking the

jurors and Burleigh if they could venture to tell whether one

single hair from any one’s head could be an indication of

the general color of a person’s hair, and if not, whether they

were ready to believe that this particular hair was from

Roberta’s head or not.

An American Tragedy

969

Mason then calling a Mrs. Rutger Donahue, who

proceeded, in the calmest and most placid fashion, to tell

how on the evening of July eighth last, between five-thirty

and six, she and her husband immediately after setting up a

tent above Moon Cove, had started out to row and fish,

when being about a half-mile off shore and perhaps a

quarter of a mile above the woods or northern fringe of land

which enclosed Moon Cove, she had heard a cry.

“Between half past five and six in the afternoon, you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And on what date again?”

“July eighth.”

“And where were you exactly at that time?”

“We were——”

“Not ‘we.’ Where were you personally?”

“I was crossing what I have since learned was South Bay in

a row-boat with my husband.”

“Yes. Now tell what happened next.”

“When we reached the middle of the bay I heard a cry.”

“What was it like?”

“It was penetrating—like the cry of some one in pain—or in

danger. It was sharp—a haunting cry.”

Here a motion to “strike out,” with the result that the last

phrase was so ordered stricken out.

“Where did it come from?”

“From a distance. From within or beyond the woods.”

An American Tragedy

970

“Did you know at the time that there was another bay or

cove there—below that strip of woods?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, what did you think then—that it might have come

from within the woods below where you were?”

(Objected to—and objection sustained.)