hers and lure her up there to one of those lone lakes in the
Adirondacks and slay her or drown her in cold blood, in
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order that you might be free to marry this Miss X. Any truth
in that? Tell this jury—yes or no—which is it?”
“No! No! I never did plot to kill her, or any one,” protested
Clyde, quite dramatically, and clutching at the arms of his
chair and seeking to be as emphatic as possible, since he
had been instructed so to do. At the same time he arose in
his seat and sought to look stern and convincing, although
in his heart and mind was the crying knowledge that he had
so plotted, and this it was that most weakened him at this
moment—most painfully and horribly weakened him. The
eyes of all these people. The eyes of the judge and jury and
Mason and all the men and women of the press. And once
more his brow was wet and cold and he licked his thin lips
nervously and swallowed with difficulty because his throat
was dry.
And then it was that piecemeal, and beginning with the
series of letters written by Roberta to Clyde after she
reached her home and ending with the one demanding that
he come for her or she would return to Lycurgus and
expose him, Jephson took up the various phases of the
“alleged” plot and crime, and now did his best to minimize
and finally dispel all that had been testified to so far.
Clyde’s suspicious actions in not writing Roberta. Well, he
was afraid of complications in connection with his relatives,
his work, everything. And the same with his arranging to
meet her in Fonda. He had no plan as to any trip with her
anywhere in particular at the time. He only thought vaguely
of meeting her somewhere—anywhere—and possibly
persuading her to leave him. But July arriving and his plan
still so indefinite, the first thing that occurred to him was that
they might go off to some inexpensive resort somewhere. It
was Roberta who in Utica had suggested some of the lakes
north of there. It was there in the hotel, not at the railway
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station, that he had secured some maps and folders—a
fatal contention in one sense, for Mason had one folder with
a Lycurgus House stamp on the cover, which Clyde had not
noticed at the time. And as he was so testifying, Mason was
thinking of this. In regard to leaving Lycurgus by a back
street—well, there had been a desire to conceal his
departure with Roberta, of course, but only to protect her
name and his from notoriety. And so with the riding in
separate cars, registering as Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Golden,
and so on indefinitely throughout the entire list of shifty
concealments and evasions. In regard to the two hats, well,
the one hat was soiled and seeing one that he liked he
bought it. Then when he lost the hat in the accident he
naturally put on the other. To be sure, he had owned and
carried a camera, and it was true that he had it at the
Cranstons’ on his first visit there on the eighteenth of June.
The only reason he denied having it at first was because he
was afraid of being identified with this purely accidental
death of Roberta in a way that would be difficult to explain.
He had been falsely charged with her murder immediately
upon his arrest in the woods, and he was fearful of his
entire connection with this ill-fated trip, and not having any
lawyer or any one to say a word for him, he thought it best
to say nothing and so for the time being had denied
everything, although at once on being provided counsel he
had confided to his attorneys the true facts of the case.
And so, too, with the missing suit, which because it was wet
and muddy he had done up in a bundle in the woods and
after reaching the Cranstons’ had deposited it behind some
stones there, intending to return and secure it and have it
dry-cleaned. But on being introduced to Mr. Belknap and
Mr. Jephson he had at once told both and they had secured
it and had it cleaned for him.
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“But now, Clyde, in regard to your plans and your being out
on that lake in the first place—let’s hear about that now.”
And then—quite as Jephson had outlined it to Belknap,
came the story of how he and Roberta had reached Utica
and afterwards Grass Lake. And yet no plan. He intended, if
worst came to worst, to tell her of his great love for Miss X
and appeal to her sympathy and understanding to set him
free at the same time that he offered to do anything that he
could for her. If she refused he intended to defy her and
leave Lycurgus, if necessary, and give up everything.
“But when I saw her at Fonda, and later in Utica, looking as
tired and worried as she was,” and here Clyde was
endeavoring to give the ring of sincerity to words carefully
supplied him, “and sort of helpless, I began to feel sorry for
her again.”
“Yes, and then what?”
“Well, I wasn’t quite so sure whether in case she refused to
let me off I could go through with leaving her.”
“Well, what did you decide then?”
“Not anything just then. I listened to what she had to say
and I tried to tell her how hard it was going to be for me to
do anything much, even if I did go away with her. I only had
fifty dollars.”
“Yes?”
“And then she began to cry, and I decided I couldn’t talk to
her any more about it there. She was too run-down and
nervous. So I asked her if there wasn’t any place she would
like to go to for a day or two to brace herself up a little,”
went on Clyde, only here on account of the blackness of the
lie he was telling he twisted and swallowed in the weak,
stigmatic way that was his whenever he was attempting
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something which was beyond him—any untruth or a feat of
skill—and then added: “And she said yes, maybe to one of
those lakes up in the Adirondacks—it didn’t make much
difference which one—if we could afford it. And when I told
her, mostly because of the way she was feeling, that I
thought we could——”
“Then you really only went up there on her account?”
“Yes, sir, only on account of her.”
“I see. Go on.”
“Well, then she said if I would go downstairs or somewhere
and get some folders we might be able to find a place up
there somewhere where it wasn’t so expensive.”
“And did you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, and then what?”
“Well, we looked them over and we finally hit on Grass
Lake.”
“Who did? The two of you—or she?”
“Well, she took one folder and I took another, and in hers
she found an ad about an inn up there where two people
could stay for twenty-one dollars a week, or five dollars a
day for the two. And I thought we couldn’t do much better
than that for one day.”
“Was one day all you intended to stay?”
“No, sir. Not if she wanted to stay longer. My idea at first
was that we might stay one or two days or three. I couldn’t
tell—whatever time it took me to talk things out with her and
make her understand and see where I stood.”
“I see. And then …?”
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“Well, then we went up to Grass Lake the next morning.”
“In separate cars still?”
“Yes, sir—in separate cars.”
“And when you got there?”
“Why, we registered.”
“How?”
“Clifford Graham and wife.”
“Still afraid some one would know who you were?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you try to disguise your handwriting in any way?”
“Yes, sir—a little.”
“But just why did you always use your own initials—C. G.?”
“Well, I thought that the initials on my bag should be the
same as the initials on the register, and still not be my
name either.”
“I see. Clever in one sense, not so clever in another—just
half clever, which is the worst of all.” At this Mason half rose
in his seat as though to object, but evidently changing his
mind, sank slowly back again. And once more Jephson’s
right eye swiftly and inquiringly swept the jury to his right.
“Well, did you finally explain to her that you wanted to be
done with it all as you had planned—or did you not?”
“I wanted to talk to her about it just after we got there if I
could—the next morning, anyhow—but just as soon as we