An American Tragedy

by Theodore Dreiser

  “Yes, sir, that’s the truth.” And here Clyde went on to explain once more just what his state was at that time.

  “All right, all right, I believe you,” replied Jephson, seemingly believing what Clyde said but not actually able to conceive it at that. “But you know, of course, that no jury, in the face of all these other circumstances, is going to believe that,” he now announced. “There are too many things that’ll have to be explained and that we can’t very well explain as things now stand. I don’t know about that idea.” He now turned and was addressing Belknap. “Those two hats, that bag—unless we’re going to plead insanity or something like that. I’m not so sure about all this. Was there ever any insanity in your family that you know of?” he now added, turning to Clyde once more.

  “No, sir, not that I know of.”

  “No uncle or cousin or grandfather who had fits or strange ideas or anything like that?”

  “Not that I ever heard of, no, sir.”

  “And your rich relatives down there in Lycurgus—I suppose they’d not like it very much if I were to step up and try to prove anything like that?”

  “I’m afraid they wouldn’t, no, sir,” replied Clyde, thinking of Gilbert.

  “Well, let me see,” went on Jephson after a time. “That makes it rather hard. I don’t see, though, that anything else would be as safe.” And here he turned once more to Belknap and began to inquire as to what he thought of suicide as a theory, since Roberta’s letters themselves showed a melancholy trend which might easily have led to thoughts of suicide. And could they not say that once out on the lake with Clyde and pleading with him to marry her, and he refusing to do so, she had jumped overboard. And he was too astounded and mentally upset to try to save her.

  “But what about his own story that the wind had blown his hat off, and in trying to save that he upset the boat?” interjected Belknap, and exactly as though Clyde were not present.

  “Well, that’s true enough, too, but couldn’t we say that perhaps, since he was morally responsible for her condition, which in turn had caused her to take her life, he did not want to confess to the truth of her suicide?”

  At this Clyde winced, but neither now troubled to notice him. They talked as though he was not present or could have no opinion in the matter, a procedure which astonished but by no means moved him to object, since he was feeling so helpless.

  “But the false registrations! The two hats—the suit—his bag!” insisted Belknap staccatically, a tone which showed Clyde how serious Belknap considered his predicament to be.

  “Well, whatever theory we advance, those things will have to be accounted for in some way,” replied Jephson, dubiously. “We can’t admit the true story of his plotting without an insanity plea, not as I see it—at any rate. And unless we use that, we’ve got that evidence to deal with whatever we do.” He threw up his hands wearily and as if to say: I swear I don’t know what to do about this.

  “But,” persisted Belknap, “in the face of all that, and his refusal to marry her, after his promises referred to in her letters—why, it would only react against him, so that public opinion would be more prejudiced against him than ever. No, that won’t do,” he concluded. “We’ll have to think of something which will create some sort of sympathy for him.”

  And then once more turning to Clyde as though there had been no such discussion. And looking at him as much as to say: “You are a problem indeed.” And then Jephson, observing: “And, oh, yes, that suit you dropped in that lake up there near the Cranstons’—describe the spot to me as near as you can where you threw it—how far from the house was it?” He waited until Clyde haltingly attempted to recapture the various details of the hour and the scene as he could recall it.

  “If I could go up there, I could find it quick enough.”

  “Yes, I know, but they won’t let you go up there without Mason being along,” he returned. “And maybe not even then. You’re in prison now, and you can’t be taken out without the state’s consent, you see. But we must get that suit.” Then turning to Belknap and lowering his voice, he added: “We want to get it and have it cleaned and submit it as having been sent away to be cleaned by him—not hidden, you see.”

  “Yes, that’s so,” commented Belknap idly while Clyde stood listening curiously and a little amazed by this frank program of trickery and deception on his behalf.

  “And now in regard to that camera that fell in the lake—we have to try and find that, too. I think maybe Mason may know about it or suspect that it’s there. At any rate it’s very important that we should find it before he does. You think that about where that pole was that day you were up there is where the boat was when it overturned?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, we must see if we can get that,” he continued, turning to Belknap. “We don’t want that turning up in the trial, if we can help it. For without that, they’ll have to be swearing that he struck her with that tripod or something that he didn’t, and that’s where we may trip ’em up.”

  “Yes, that’s true, too,” replied Belknap.

  “And now in regard to the bag that Mason has. That’s another thing I haven’t seen yet, but I will see it to-morrow. Did you put that suit, as wet as it was, in the bag when you came out of the water?”

  “No, sir, I wrung it out first. And then I dried it as much as I could. And then I wrapped it up in the paper that we had the lunch in and then put some dry pine needles underneath it in the bag and on top of it.”

  “So there weren’t any wet marks in the bag after you took it out, as far as you know?”

  “No, sir, I don’t think so.”

  “But you’re not sure?”

  “Not exactly sure now that you ask me—no, sir.”

  “Well, I’ll see for myself to-morrow. And now as to those marks on her face, you have never admitted to any one around here or anywhere that you struck her in any way?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And the mark on the top of her head was made by the boat, just as you said?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But the others you think you might have made with the camera?”

  “Yes, sir. I suppose they were.”

  “Well, then, this is the way it looks to me,” said Jephson, again turning to Belknap. “I think we can safely say when the time comes that those marks were never made by him at all, see?—but by the hooks and the poles with which they were scraping around up there when they were trying to find her. We can try it, anyhow. And if the hooks and poles didn’t do it,” he added, a little grimly and dryly, “certainly hauling her body from that lake to that railroad station and from there to here on the train might have.”

  “Yes, I think Mason would have a hard time proving that they weren’t made that way,” replied Belknap.

  “And as for that tripod, well, we’d better exhume the body and make our own measurements, and measure the thickness of the edge of that boat, so that it may not be so easy for Mason to make any use of the tripod now that he has it, after all.”

  Mr. Jephson’s eyes were very small and very clear and very blue, as he said this. His head, as well as his body, had a thin, ferrety look. And it seemed to Clyde, who had been observing and listening to all this with awe, that this younger man might be the one to aid him. He was so shrewd and practical, so very direct and chill and indifferent and yet confidence-inspiring, quite like an uncontrollable machine of a kind which generates power.

  And when at last these two were ready to go, he was sorry. For with them near him, planning and plotting in regard to himself, he felt so much safer, stronger, more hopeful, more certain of being free, maybe, at some future date.

  Chapter 16

  THE results of all this, however, was that it was finally decided that perhaps the easiest and safest defense that could be made, assuming that the Griffiths family of Lycurgus would submit to it, would be that of insanity or “brain storm”—a temporary aberration due to love and an illusion of grandeur arous
ed in Clyde by Sondra Finchley and the threatened disruption by Roberta of all his dreams and plans. But after consultation with Catchuman and Darrah Brookhart at Lycurgus, and these in turn conferring with Samuel and Gilbert Griffiths, it was determined that this would not do. For to establish insanity or “brain storm” would require previous evidence or testimony to the effect that Clyde was of none too sound mind, erratic his whole life long, and with certain specific instances tending to demonstrate how really peculiar he was—relatives (among them the Griffiths of Lycurgus themselves, perhaps), coming on to swear to it—a line of evidence, which, requiring as it would, outright lying and perjury on the part of many as well as reflecting on the Griffiths’ blood and brain, was sufficient to alienate both Samuel and Gilbert to the extent that they would have none of it. And so Brookhart was compelled to assure Belknap that this line of defense would have to be abandoned.

  Such being the case, both Belknap and Jephson were once more compelled to sit down and consider. For any other defense which either could think of now seemed positively hopeless.

  “I want to tell you one thing!” observed the sturdy Jephson, after thumbing through the letters of both Roberta and Sondra again. “These letters of this Alden girl are the toughest things we’re going to have to face. They’re likely to make any jury cry if they’re read right, and then to introduce those letters from that other girl on top of these would be fatal. It will be better, I think, if we do not mention hers at all, unless he does. It will only make it look as though he had killed that Alden girl to get rid of her. Mason couldn’t want anything better, as I see it.” And with this Belknap agreed most heartily.

  At the same time, some plan must be devised immediately. And so, out of these various conferences, it was finally deduced by Jephson, who saw a great opportunity for himself in this matter, that the safest possible defense that could be made, and one to which Clyde’s own suspicious and most peculiar actions would most exactly fit, would be that he had never contemplated murder. On the contrary, being a moral if not a physical coward, as his own story seemed to suggest, and in terror of being exposed and driven out of Lycurgus and of the heart of Sondra, and never as yet having told Roberta of Sondra and thinking that knowledge of this great love for her (Sondra) might influence Roberta to wish to be rid of him, he had hastily and without any worse plan in mind, decided to persuade Roberta to accompany him to any near-by resort but not especially Grass Lake or Big Bittern, in order to tell her all this and so win his freedom—yet not without offering to pay her expenses as nearly as he could during her very trying period.

  “Ah well and good,” commented Belknap. “But that involves his refusing to marry her, doesn’t it? And what jury is going to sympathize with him for that or believe that he didn’t want to kill her?”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” replied Jephson, a little testily. “So far it does. Sure. But you haven’t heard me to the end yet. I said I had a plan.”

  “All right, then what is it?” replied Belknap most interested.

  “Well, I’ll tell you—my plan’s this—to leave all the facts just as they are, and just as he tells them, and just as Mason has discussed them so far, except, of course, his striking her—and then explain them—the letters, the wounds, the bag, the two hats, everything—not deny them in any way.”

  And here he paused and ran his long, thin, freckled hands eagerly through his light hair and looked across the grass of the public square to the jail where Clyde was, then toward Belknap again.

  “All very good, but how?” queried Belknap.

  “There’s no other way, I tell you,” went on Jephson quite to himself, and ignoring his senior, “and I think this will do it.” He turned to look out the window again, and began as though talking to some one outside: “He goes up there, you see, because he’s frightened and because he has to do something or be exposed. And he signs those registers just as he did because he’s afraid to have it known by anybody down there in Lycurgus that he is up there. And he has this plan about confessing to her about this other girl. BUT,” and now he paused and looked fixedly at Belknap, “and this is the keystone of the whole thing—if this won’t hold water, then down we go! Listen! He goes up there with her, frightened, and not to marry her or to kill her but to argue with her to go away. But once up there and he sees how sick she is, and tired, and sad—well, you know how much she still loves him, and he spends two nights with her, see?”

  “Yes, I see,” interrupted Belknap, curiously, but not quite so dubiously now. “And that might explain those nights.”

  “MIGHT? Would!” replied Jephson, slyly and calmly, his harebell eyes showing only cold, eager, practical logic, no trace of emotion or even sympathy of any kind, really. “Well, while he’s up there with her under those conditions—so close to her again, you see” (and his facial expression never altered so much as by a line) “he experiences a change of heart. You get me? He’s sorry for her. He’s ashamed of himself—his sin against her. That ought to appeal to these fellows around here, these religious and moral people, oughtn’t it?”

  “It might,” quietly interpolated Belknap, who by now was very much interested and a little hopeful.

  “He sees that he’s done her a wrong,” continued Jephson, intent, like a spider spinning a web, on his own plan, “and in spite of all his affection for this other girl, he’s now ready to do the right thing by this Alden girl, do you see, because he’s sorry and ashamed of himself. That takes the black look off his plotting to kill her while spending those two nights in Utica and Grass Lake with her.”

  “He still loves the other girl, though?” interjected Belknap.

  “Well, sure. He likes her at any rate, has been fascinated by that life down there and sort of taken out of himself, made over into a different person, but now he’s ready to marry Roberta, in case, after telling her all about this other girl and his love for her, she still wants him to.”

  “I see. But how about the boat now and that bag and his going up to this Finchley girl’s place afterwards?”

  “Just a minute! Just a minute! I’ll tell you about that,” continued Jephson, his blue eyes boring into space like a powerful electric ray. “Of course, he goes out in the boat with her, and of course he takes that bag, and of course he signs those registers falsely, and walks away through those woods to that other girl, after Roberta is drowned. But why? Why? Do you want to know why? I’ll tell you! He felt sorry for her, see, and he wanted to marry her, or at least he wanted to do the right thing by her at the very last there. Not before, not before remember, but after he had spent a night with her in Utica and another one in Grass Lake. But once she was drowned—and accidentally, of course, as he says, there was his love for that other girl. He hadn’t ceased loving her even though he was willing to sacrifice her in order to do the right thing by Roberta. See?”

  “I see.”

  “And how are they going to prove that he didn’t experience a change of heart if he says he did and sticks to it?”

  “I see, but he’ll have to tell a mighty convincing story,” added Belknap, a little heavily. “And how about those two hats? They’re going to have to be explained.”

  “Well, I’m coming to those now. The one he had was a little soiled. And so he decided to buy another. As for that story he told Mason about wearing a cap, well, he was frightened and lied because he thought he would have to get out of it. Now, of course, before he goes to that other girl afterwards—while Roberta is still alive, I mean, there’s his relationship with the other girl, what he intends to do about her. He’s talking to Roberta, now you see,” he continued, “and that has to be disposed of in some way. But, as I see it, that’s easy, for of course after he experiences a change of heart and wants to do the right thing by Roberta, all he has to do is to write that other girl or go to her and tell her—about the wrong he has done Roberta.”

  “Yes.”

  “For, as I see it now, she can’t be kept out of the case entirely, after all.
We’ll have to ring her in, I’m afraid.”

  “All right; then we have to,” said Belknap.

  “Because you see, if Roberta still feels that he ought to marry her—he’ll go first and tell that Finchley girl that he can’t marry her—that he’s going away—that is, if Roberta doesn’t object to his leaving her that long, don’t you see?”

  “Yes.”

  “If she does, he’ll marry her, either at Three Mile Bay or some other place.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you don’t want to forget that while she’s still alive he’s puzzled and distressed. And it’s only after that second night, at Grass Lake, that he begins to see how wrong all his actions have been, you understand. Something happens. Maybe she cries or talks about wanting to die, like she does in those letters.”

  “Yes.”

  “And so he wants a quiet place where they can sit down in peace and talk, where no one else will see or hear them.”

  “Yes, yes—go on.”

  “Well, he thinks of Big Bittern. He’s been up there once before or they’re near there, then, and just below there, twelve miles, is Three Mile Bay, where, if they decide to marry, they can.”

  “I see.”

  “If not, if she doesn’t want to marry him after his full confession, he can row her back to the inn, can’t be, and he or she can stay there or go on.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “In the meantime, not to have any delay or be compelled to hang about that inn—it’s rather expensive, you know, and he hasn’t any too much money—he takes that lunch in his bag. Also his camera, because he wants to take some pictures. For if Mason should turn up with that camera, it’s got to be explained, and it will be better explained by us than it will be by him, won’t it?”

  “I see, I see,” exclaimed Belknap, intensely interested by now and actually smiling and beginning to rub his hands.

  “So they go out on the lake.”