An American Tragedy III

“Oh, please, no! Oh, I hope you won’t do anything like that, will you, Mr. Mason? Oh, I don’t want to go back there if you don’t mind. It isn’t that I’m guilty, but you can get all my things without my going back there. And besides it will mean so much to me just now.” Beads of perspiration once more burst forth on his pale face and hands and he was deadly cold.

“Don’t want to go, eh?” exclaimed Mason, pausing as he heard this. “It would hurt your pride, would it, to have ’em know? Well, then, supposing you just answer some of the things I want to know – and come clean and quick, or off we go – and that without one more moment’s delay! Now, will you answer or won’t you?” And again he turned to confront Clyde, who, with lips trembling and eyes confused and wavering, nervously and emphatically announced:

“Of course I knew her. Of course I did. Sure! Those letters show that. But what of it? I didn’t kill her. And I didn’t go up there with her with any intention of killing her, either. I didn’t. I didn’t, I tell you! It was all an accident. I didn’t even want to take her up there. She wanted me to go – to go away with her somewhere, because – because, well you know – her letters show. And I was only trying to get her to go off somewhere by herself, so she would let me alone, because I didn’t want to marry her. That’s all. And I took her out there, not to kill her at all, but to try to persuade her, that’s all. And I didn’t upset the boat – at least, I didn’t mean to. The wind blew my hat off, and we – she and I – got up at the same time to reach for it and the boat upset – that’s all. And the side of it hit her on the head. I saw it, only I was too frightened the way she was struggling about in the water to go near her, because I was afraid that if I did she might drag me down. And then she went down. And I swam ashore. And that’s the God’s truth!”

His face, as he talked, had suddenly become all flushed, and his hands also. Yet his eyes were tortured, terrified pools of misery. He was thinking – but maybe there wasn’t any wind that afternoon and maybe they would find that out. Or the tripod hidden under a log. If they found that, wouldn’t they think he hit her with that? He was wet and trembling.

But already Mason was beginning to question him again.

“Now, let’s see as to this a minute. You say you didn’t take her up there with any intention of killing her?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

“Well, then, how was it that you decided to write your name two different ways on those registers up there at Big Bittern and Grass Lake?”

“Because I didn’t want any one to know that I was up there with her.”

“Oh, I see. Didn’t want any scandal in connection with the condition she was in?”

“No, sir. Yes, sir, that is.”

“But you didn’t mind if her name was scandalized in case she was found afterwards?”

“But I didn’t know she was going to be drowned,” replied Clyde, slyly and shrewdly, sensing the trap in time.

“But you did know that you yourself weren’t coming back, of course. You knew that, didn’t you?”

“Why, no, sir, I didn’t know that I wasn’t coming back. I thought I was.”

“Pretty clever. Pretty clever,” thought Mason to himself, but not saying so, and then, rapidly: “And so in order to make everything easy and natural as possible for you to come back, you took your own bag with you and left hers up there. Is that the way? How about that?”

“But I didn’t take it because I was going away. We decided to put our lunch in it.”

“We, or you?”

“We.”

“And so you had to carry that big bag in order to take a little lunch along, eh? Couldn’t you have taken it in a paper, or in her bag?”

“Well, her bag was full, and I didn’t like to carry anything in a paper.”

“Oh, I see. Too proud and sensitive, eh? But not too proud to carry a heavy bag all the way, say twelve miles, in the night to Three Mile Bay, and not ashamed to be seen doing it, either, were you?”

“Well, after she was drowned and I didn’t want to be known as having been up there with her, and had to go along – ”

He paused while Mason merely looked at him, thinking of the many, many questions he wanted to ask him – so many, many more, and which, as he knew or guessed, would be impossible for him to explain. Yet it was getting late, and back in the camp were Clyde’s as yet unclaimed belongings – his bag and possibly that suit he had worn that day at Big Bittern – a gray one as he had heard – not this one. And to catechize him here this way in the dusk, while it might be productive of much if only he could continue it long enough, still there was the trip back, and en route he would have ample time to continue his questionings.

And so, although he disliked much so to do at the moment, he now concluded with: “Oh, well, I tell you, Griffiths, we’ll let you rest here for the present. It may be that what you are saying is so – I don’t know. I most certainly hope it is, for your sake. At any rate, you go along there with Mr. Kraut. He’ll show you where to go.”

And then turning to Swenk and Kraut, he exclaimed: “All right, boys. I’ll tell you how we’ll do. It’s getting late and we’ll have to hurry a little if we expect to get anywhere yet tonight. Mr. Kraut, suppose you take this young man down where those other two boats are and wait there. Just halloo a little as you go along to notify the sheriff and Sissel that we’re ready. And then Swenk and I’ll be along in the other boat as soon as we can.”

And so saying and Kraut obeying, he and Swenk proceeded inward through the gathering dusk to the camp, while Kraut with Clyde went west, hallooing for the sheriff and his deputy until a response was had.

Chapter 10

The effect of Mason’s re-appearance in the camp with the news, announced first to Frank Harriet, next to Harley Baggott and Grant Cranston, that Clyde was under arrest – that he actually had confessed to having been with Roberta at Big Bittern, if not to having killed her, and that he, Mason, was there with Swenk to take possession of his property – was sufficient to destroy this pretty outing as by a breath. For although amazement and disbelief and astounded confusion were characteristic of the words of all, nevertheless here was Mason demanding to know where were Clyde’s things, and asserting that it was at Clyde’s request only that he was not brought here to identify his own possessions.

Frank Harriet, the most practical of the group, sensing the truth and authority of this, at once led the way to Clyde’s tent, where Mason began an examination of the contents of the bag and clothes, while Grant Cranston, as well as Baggott, aware of Sondra’s intense interest in Clyde, departed first to call Stuart, then Bertine, and finally Sondra – moving apart from the rest the more secretly to inform her as to what was then occurring. And she, following the first clear understanding as to this, turning white and fainting at the news, falling back in Grant’s arms and being carried to her tent, where, after being restored to consciousness, she exclaimed: “I don’t believe a word of it! It’s not true! Why, it couldn’t be! That poor boy! Oh, Clyde! Where is he? Where have they taken him?” But Stuart and Grant, by no means as emotionally moved as herself, cautioning her to be silent. It might be true at that. Supposing it were! The others would hear, wouldn’t they? And supposing it weren’t – he could soon prove his innocence and be released, couldn’t he? There was no use in carrying on like this now.

But then, Sondra in her thoughts going over the bare possibility of such a thing – a girl killed by Clyde at Big Bittern – himself arrested and being taken off in this way – and she thus publicly – or at least by this group – known to be so interested in him – her parents to know, the public itself to know – maybe –

But Clyde must be innocent. It must be all a mistake. And then her mind turning back and thinking of that news of the drowned girl she had first heard over the telephone there at the Harriets’. And then Clyde’s whiteness – his illness – his all but complete collapse. Oh, no! – not that! Yet his delay in coming from Lycurgus until the Friday before. His failure to write from there. And then, the full horror of the charge returning, as suddenly collapsing again, lying perfectly still and white while Grant and the others agreed among themselves that the best thing to be done was to break up the camp, either now or early in the morning, and depart for Sharon.

And Sondra returning to consciousness after a time tearfully announcing that she must get out of here at once, that she couldn’t “endure this place,” and begging Bertine and all the others to stay close to her and say nothing about her having fainted and cried, since it would only create talk. And thinking all the time of how, if this were all true, she could secure those letters she had written him! Oh, heavens! For supposing now at this time they should fall into the hands of the police or the newspapers, and be published? And yet moved by her love for him and for the first time in her young life shaken to the point where the grim and stern realities of life were thrust upon her gay and vain notice.

And so it was immediately arranged that she leave with Stuart, Bertine and Grant for the Metissic Inn at the eastern end of the Lake, since from there, at dawn, according to Baggott, they might leave for Albany – and so, in a roundabout way for Sharon.

In the meantime, Mason, after obtaining possession of all Clyde’s belongings here, quickly making his way west to Little Fish Inlet and Three Mile Bay, stopping only for the first night at a farmhouse and arriving at Three Mile Bay late on Tuesday night. Yet not without, en route, catechizing Clyde as he had planned, the more particularly since in going through his effects in the tent at the camp he had not found the gray suit said to have been worn by Clyde at Big Bittern.

And Clyde, troubled by this new development, denying that he had worn a gray suit and insisting that the suit he had on was the one he had worn.

“But wasn’t it thoroughly soaked?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, where was it cleaned and pressed afterward?”

“In Sharon.”

“In Sharon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“By a tailor there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What tailor?”

Alas, Clyde could not remember.

“Then you wore it crumpled and wet, did you, from Big Bittern to Sharon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And no one noticed it, of course.”

“Not that I remember – no.”