She has had trouble enough, and I couldn’t break her
heart like that. No, if I go away and come back some
time, either married or dead—it doesn’t make so much
difference now—she will never know, and I will not
have caused her any pain, and that means so much
more than life itself to me. So good-by, Clyde, until I do
meet you, as you telephoned. And forgive me all the
trouble that I have caused you.
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“Your sorrowful,
“ROBERTA.”
And at points in the reading, Mason himself crying, and at
their conclusion turning, weary and yet triumphant, a most
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complete and indestructible case, as he saw it, having been
presented, and exclaiming: “The People rest.” And at that
moment, Mrs. Alden, in court with her husband and Emily,
and overwrought, not only by the long strain of the trial but
this particular evidence, uttering a whimpering yet clear cry
and then falling forward in a faint. And Clyde, in his own
overwrought condition, hearing her cry and seeing her fall,
jumping up—the restraining hand of Jephson instantly upon
him, while bailiffs and others assisted her and Titus who
was beside her from the courtroom. And the audience
almost, if not quite, as moved and incensed against Clyde
by that development as though, then and there, he had
committed some additional crime.
But then, that excitement having passed and it being quite
dark, and the hands of the court clock pointing to five, and
all the court weary, Justice Oberwaltzer signifying his
intention of adjourning for the night.
And at once all the newspaper men and feature writers and
artists rising and whispering to each other that on the
morrow the defense would start, and wondering as to who
and where the witnesses were, also whether Clyde would
be permitted to go on the stand in his own defense in the
face of this amazing mass of evidence against him
orWhether his lawyers would content themselves with
some specious argument as to mental and moral weakness
which might end in prison for life—not less.
And Clyde, hissed and cursed as he left the court,
wondering if on the morrow, and as they had planned this
long time since, he would have the courage to rise and go
on the stand—wondering if there was not some way, in
case no one was looking (he was not handcuffed as he
went to and from the jail) maybe to-morrow night when all
were rising, the crowds moving and these deputies coming
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toward him—if—well, if he could only run, or walk easily
and quietly and yet, quickly and seemingly unintentionally,
to that stair and then down and out—to—well—to wherever
it went—that small side door to the main stairs which before
this he had seen from the jail! If he could only get to some
woods somewhere, and then walk and walk, or run and run,
maybe, without stopping, and without eating, for days
maybe, until, well, until he had gotten away—anywhere. It
was a chance, of course. He might be shot, or tracked with
dogs and men, but still it was a chance, wasn’t it?
For this way he had no chance at all. No one anywhere,
after all this, was going to believe him not guilty. And he did
not want to die that way. No, no, not that way!
And so another miserable, black and weary night. And then
another miserable gray and wintry morning.
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Chapter 23
BY eight o’clock the next morning the great city papers were
on the stands with the sprawling headlines, which informed
every one in no uncertain terms:
PROSECUTION IN GRIFFITHS’ CASE CLOSES
WITH IMPRESSIVE DELUGE OF TESTIMONY.
MOTIVE AS WELL AS METHOD HAMMERED
HOME.
DESTRUCTIVE MARKS ON FACE AND HEAD
SHOWN TO CORRESPOND WITH ONE SIDE
OF CAMERA.
MOTHER OF DEAD GIRL FAINTS AT CLOSE
OF DRAMATIC READING OF HER LETTERS.
And the architectonic way in which Mason had built his
case, together with his striking and dramatic presentation of
it, was sufficient to stir in Belknap and Jephson, as well as
Clyde, the momentary conviction that they had been
completely routed—that by no conceivable device could
they possibly convince this jury now that Clyde was not a
quadruple-dyed villain.
And all congratulating Mason on the masterly way he had
presented his case. And Clyde, greatly reduced and
saddened by the realization that his mother would be
reading all that had transpired the day before. He must ask
Jephson to please wire her so that she would not believe it.
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And Frank and Julia and Esta. And no doubt Sondra
reading all this, too, to-day, yet through all these days, all
these black nights, not one word! A reference now and then
in the papers to a Miss X but at no time a single correct
picture of her. That was what a family with money could do
for you. And on this very day his defense would begin and
he would have to go forward as the only witness of any
import. Yet asking himself, how could he?The crowd. Its
temper. The nervous strain of its unbelief and hatred by
now. And after Belknap was through with him, then Mason.
It was all right for Belknap and Jephson. They were in no
danger of being tortured, as he was certain of being
tortured.
Yet in the face of all this, and after an hour spent with
Jephson and Belknap in his cell, finding himself back in the
courtroom, under the persistent gaze of this nondescript
jury and the tensely interested audience. And now Belknap
rising before the jury and after solemnly contemplating each
one of them, beginning:
“Gentlemen—somewhat over three weeks ago you were
told by the district attorney that because of the evidence he
was about to present he would insist that you jurors must
find the prisoner at the bar guilty of the crime of which he
stands indicted. It has been a long and tedious procedure
since then. The foolish and inexperienced, yet in every case
innocent and unintentional, acts of a boy of fifteen or
sixteen have been gone into before you gentlemen as
though they were the deeds of a hardened criminal, and
plainly with the intention of prejudicing you against this
defendant, who, with the exception of one misinterpreted
accident in Kansas City—the most brutally and savagely
misinterpreted accident it has ever been my professional
misfortune to encounter—can be said to have lived as
clean and energetic and blameless and innocent a life as
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any boy of his years anywhere. You have heard him called
a man—a bearded man—a criminal and a crime-soaked
product of the darkest vomiting of Hell. And yet he is but
twenty-one. And there he sits. And I venture to say that if by
some magic of the spoken word I could at this moment strip
from your eye the substance of all the cruel thoughts and
emotions which have been attributed to him by a clamorous
and mistaken and I might say (if I had not been warned not
to do so), politically biased prosecution, you could no more
see him in the light that you do than you could rise out of
that box and fly through those windows.
“Gentlemen of the jury, I have no doubt that you, as well as
the district attorney and even the audience, have wondered
how under the downpour of such linked and at times almost
venomous testimony, I or my colleague or this defendant
could have remained as calm and collected as we
have.” (And here he waved with grave ceremoniousness in
the direction of his partner, who was still waiting his own
hour.) “Yet, as you have seen, we have not only maintained
but enjoyed the serenity of those who not only feel but know
that they have the right and just end of any legal contest.
You recall, of course, the words of the Avon bard—‘Thrice
armed is he who hath his quarrel just.’
“In fact, we know, as the prosecution in this case
unfortunately does not, the peculiarly strange and
unexpected circumstances by which this dramatic and most
unfortunate death came about. And before we are through
you shall see for yourselves. In the meantime, let me tell
you, gentlemen, that since this case opened I have
believed that even apart from the light we propose to throw
on this disheartening tragedy, you gentlemen are not at all
sure that a brutal or bestial crime can be laid upon the
shoulders of this defendant. You cannot be! For after all,
love is love, and the ways of passion and the destroying
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emotion of love in either sex are not those of the ordinary
criminal. Only remember, we were once all boys. And those
of you who are grown women were girls, and know well—
oh, how very well—the fevers and aches of youth that have