“And now tell us, was it a man’s or a woman’s cry? What
kind of a cry was it?”
“It was a woman’s cry, and something like ‘Oh, oh!’ or ‘Oh,
my!’—very piercing and clear, but distant, of course. A
double scream such as one might make when in pain.”
“You are sure you could not be mistaken as to the kind of a
cry it was—male or female.”
“No, sir. I am positive. It was a woman’s. It was pitched too
high for a man’s voice or a boy’s. It could not have been
anything but a woman’s.”
I see. And now tell us, Mrs. Donahue—you see this dot on
the map showing where the body of Roberta Alden was
found?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you seé this other dot, over those trees, showing
approximately where your boat was?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you think that voice came from where this dot in Moon
Cove is?”
(Objected to. Sustained.)
“And was that cry repeated?”
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971
“No, sir. I waited, and I called my husband’s attention to it,
too, and we waited, but didn’t hear it again.”
Then Belknap, eager to prove that it might have been a
terrified and yet not a pained or injured cry, taking her and
going all over the ground again, and finding that neither she
nor her husband, who was also put on the stand, could be
shaken in any way. Neither, they insisted, could the deep
and sad effect of this woman’s voice be eradicated from
their minds. It had haunted both, and once in their camp
again they had talked about it. Because it was dusk he did
not wish to go seeking after the spot from which it came;
because she felt that some woman or girl might have been
slain in those woods, she did not want to stay any longer,
and the next morning early they had moved on to another
lake.
Thomas Barrett, another Adirondack guide, connected with
a camp at Dam’s Lake, swore that at the time referred to by
Mrs. Donahue, he was walking along the shore toward Big
Bittern Inn and had seen not only a man and woman off
shore in about the position described, but farther back,
toward the south shore of this bay, had noted the tent of
these campers. Also that from no point outside Moon Cove,
unless near the entrance, could one observe any boat
within the cove. The entrance was narrow and any view
from the lake proper completely blocked. And there were
other witnesses to prove this.
At this psychological moment, as the afternoon sun was
already beginning to wane in the tall, narrow courtroom,
and as carefully planned by him beforehand, Mason’s
reading all of Roberta’s letters, one by one, in a most
simple and nondeclamatory fashion, yet with all the
sympathy and emotion which their first perusal had stirred
in him. They had made him cry.
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972
He began with letter number one, dated June eighth, only
three days after her departure from Lycurgus, and on
through them all down to letters fourteen, fifteen, sixteen
and seventeen, in which, in piecemeal or by important
references here and there, she related her whole contact
with Clyde down to his plan to come for her in three weeks,
then in a month, then on July eighth or ninth, and then the
sudden threat from her which precipitated his sudden
decision to meet her at Fonda. And as Mason read them,
all most movingly, the moist eyes and the handkerchiefs
and the coughs in the audience and among the jurors
attested their import:
You said I was not to worry or think so much about how
I feel, and have a good time. That’s all right for you to say, when you’re in Lycurgus and surrounded by your
friends and invited everywhere. It’s hard for me to talk
over there at Wilcox’s with somebody always in earshot
and with you constantly reminding me that I mustn’t say
this or that. But I had so much to ask and no chance
there. And all that you would say was that everything
was all right. But you didn’t say positively that you were
coming on the 27th, that because of something I
couldn’t quite make out—there was so much buzzing
on the wire—you might not be able to start until later.
But that can’t be, Clyde. My parents are leaving for
Hamilton where my uncle lives on the third. And Tom
and Emily are going to my sister’s on the same day. But
I can’t and won’t go there again. I can’t stay here all
alone. So you must, you really must come, as you
agreed. I can’t wait any longer than that, Clyde, in the
condition that I’m in, and so you just must come and
take me away. Oh, please, please, I beg of you, not to
torture me with any more delays now.
And again:
Clyde, I came home because I thought I could trust
you. You told me so solemnly before I left that if I
would, you would come and get me in three weeks at
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973
the most—that it would not take you longer than that to
get ready, have enough money for the time we would
be together, or until you could get something to do
somewhere else. But yesterday, although the third of
July will be nearly a month since I left, you were not at
all sure at first that you could come by then, and when
as I told you my parents are surely leaving for Hamilton
to be gone for ten days. Of course, afterwards, you said
you would come, but you said it as though you were
just trying to quiet me. It has been troubling me awfully
ever since.
For I tell you, Clyde, I am sick, very. I feel faint nearly all
the time. And besides, I am so worried as to what I
shall do if you don’t come that I am nearly out of my
mind.
Clyde, I know that you don’t care for me any more like
you did and that you are wishing things could be
different. And yet, what am I to do? I know you’ll say
that it has all been as much my fault as yours. And the
world, if it knew, might think so, too. But how often did I
beg you not to make me do what I did not want to do,
and which I was afraid even then I would regret,
although I loved you too much to let you go, if you still
insisted on having your way.
Clyde, if I could only die. That would solve all this. And I
have prayed and prayed that I would lately, yes I have.
For life does not mean as much to me now as when I
first met you and you loved me. Oh, those happy days!
If only things were different. If only I were out of your
way. It would all be so much better for me and for all of
us. But I can’t now, Clyde, without a penny and no way
to save the name of our child, except this. Yet if it
weren’t for the terrible pain and disgrace it would bring
to my mother and father and all my family, I would be
willing to end it all in another way. I truly would.
And again:
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974
Oh, Clyde, Clyde, life is so different to-day to what it
was last year. Think—then we were going to Crum and
those other lakes over near Fonda and Gloversville and
Little Falls, but now—now. Only just now some boy and
girl friends of Tom’s and Emily’s came by to get them to
go after strawberries, and when I saw them go and
knew I couldn’t, and that I couldn’t be like that any more
ever, I cried and cried, ever so long.
And finally:
“I have been bidding good-by to some places to-day.
There are so many nooks, dear, and all of them so dear
to me. I have lived here all my life, you know. First,
there was the springhouse with its great masses of
green moss, and in passing it I said good-by to it, for I
won’t be coming to it soon again—maybe never. And
then the old apple tree where we had our playhouse
years ago—Emily and Tom and Gifford and I. Then the
‘Believe,’ a cute little house in the orchard where we
sometimes played.
“Oh, Clyde, you can’t realize what all this means to me,
I feel as though I shall never see my home again after I
leave here this time. And mamma, poor dear mamma,
how I do love her and how sorry I am to have deceived
her so. She is never cross and she always helps me so
much. Sometimes I think if I could tell her, but I can’t.