An American Tragedy (97 page)

And thereupon Smillie proceeding to Clyde in his cell where brooding most darkly and hopelessly he was wondering how to do. Yet at the mere mention of Smillie’s name shrinking as though struck. The Griffiths—Samuel Griffiths and Gilbert! Their personal representative. And now what would he say? For no doubt, as he now argued with himself, Smillie, having talked with Mason, would think him guilty. And what was he to say now? What sort of a story tell—the truth or what? But without much time to think, for even while he was trying to do so Smillie had been ushered into his presence. And then moistening his dry lips with his tongue, he could only achieve, “Why, how do you do, Mr. Smillie?” to which the latter replied, with a mock geniality, “Why, hello, Clyde, certainly sorry to see you tied up in a place like this.” And then continuing: “The papers and the district attorney over here are full of a lot of stuff about some trouble you’re in, but I suppose there can’t be much to it—there must be some mistake, of course. And that’s what I’m up here to find out. Your uncle telephoned me this morning that I was to come up and see you to find out how they come to be holding you. Of course, you can understand how they feel down there. So they wanted me to come up and get the straight of it so as to get the charge dismissed, if possible—so now if you’ll just let me know the ins and outs of this—you know—that is——”

He paused there, confident because of what the district attorney had just told him, as well as Clyde’s peculiarly nervous and recessive manner, that he would not have very much that was exculpatory to reveal.

And Clyde, after moistening his lips once more, beginning with: “I suppose things do look pretty bad for me, Mr. Smillie. I didn’t think at the time that I met Miss Alden that I would ever get into such a scrape as this. But I didn’t kill her, and that’s the God’s truth. I never even wanted to kill her or take her up to that lake in the first place. And that’s the truth, and that’s what I told the district attorney. I know he has some letters from her to me, but they only show that she wanted me to go away with her—not that I wanted to go with her at all——”

He paused, hoping that Smillie would stamp this with his approval of faith. And Smillie, noting the agreement between his and Mason’s assertions, yet anxious to placate him, returned: “Yes, I know. He was just showing them to me.”

“I knew he would,” continued Clyde, weakly. “But you know how it is sometimes, Mr. Smillie,” his voice, because of his fears that the sheriff or Kraut were listening, pitched very low. “A man can get in a jam with a girl when he never even intended to at first. You know that yourself. I did like Roberta at first, and that’s the truth, and I did get in with her just as those letters show. But you know that rule they have down there, that no one in charge of a department can have anything to do with any of the women under him. Well, that’s what started all the trouble for me, I guess. I was afraid to let any one know about it in the first place, you see.”

“Oh, I see.”

And so by degrees, and growing less and less tense as he proceeded, since Smillie appeared to be listening with sympathy, he now outlined most of the steps of his early intimacy with Roberta, together with his present defense. But with no word as to the camera, or the two hats or the lost suit, which things were constantly and enormously troubling him. How could he ever explain these, really? And with Smillie at the conclusion of this and because of what Mason had told him, asking: “But what about those two hats, Clyde? This man over here was telling me that you admit to having two straw hats—the one found on the lake and the one you wore away from there.”

And Clyde, forced to say something, yet not knowing what, replying: “But they’re wrong as to my wearing a straw hat away from there, Mr. Smillie, it was a cap.”

“I see. But still you did have a straw hat up at Bear Lake, he tells me.”

“Yes, I had one there, but as I told him, that was the one I had with me when I went up to the Cranstons’ the first time. I told him that. I forgot it and left it there.”

“Oh, I see. But now there was something about a suit—a gray one, I believe—that he says you were seen wearing up there but that he can’t find now? Were you wearing one?”

“No. I was wearing the blue suit I had on when I came down here. They’ve taken that away now and given me this one.”

“But he says that you say you had it dry-cleaned at Sharon but that he can’t find any one there who knows anything about it. How about that? Did you have it dry-cleaned there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“By whom?”

“Well, I can’t just remember now. But I think I can find the man if I were to go up there again—he’s near the depot,” but at the same time looking down and away from Smillie.

And then Smillie, like Mason before him, proceeding to ask about the bag in the boat, and whether it had not been possible, if he could swim to shore with his shoes and suit on, for him to have swam to Roberta and assisted her to cling to the overturned boat. And Clyde explaining, as before, that he was afraid of being dragged down, but adding now, for the first time, that he had called to her to hang on to the boat, whereas previously he had said that the boat drifted away from them. And Smillie recalled that Mason had told him this. Also, in connection with Clyde’s story of the wind blowing his hat off, Mason had said he could prove by witnesses, as well as the U. S. Government reports, that there was not a breath of air stirring on that most halcyon day. And so, plainly, Clyde was lying. His story was too thin. Yet Smillie, not wishing to embarrass him, kept saying, “Oh, I see,” or, “To be sure,” or “That’s the way it was, was it?”

And then finally asking about the marks on Roberta’s face and head. For Mason had called his attention to them and insisted that no blow from a boat would make both abrasions. But Clyde sure that the boat had only struck her once and that all the bruises had come from that or else he could not guess from what they had come. But then beginning to see how hopeless was all this explanation. For it was so plain from his restless, troubled manner that Smillie did not believe him. Quite obviously he considered his not having aided Roberta as dastardly—a thin excuse for letting her die.

And so, too weary and disheartened to lie more, finally ceasing. And Smillie, too sorry and disturbed to wish to catechize or confuse him further, fidgeting and fumbling and finally declaring: “Well, I’m afraid I’ll have to be going now, Clyde. The roads are pretty bad between here and Sharon. But I’ve been mighty glad to hear your side of it. And I’ll present it to your uncle just as you have told it to me. But in the meantime, if I were you, I wouldn’t do any more talking than I could help—not until you hear further from me. I was instructed to find an attorney up here to handle this case for you, if I could, but since it’s late and Mr. Brookhart, our chief counsel, will be back to-morrow, I think I’ll just wait until I can talk to him. So if you’ll take my advice, you’ll just not say anything until you hear from him or me. Either he’ll come or he’ll send some one—he’ll bring a letter from me, whoever he is, and then he’ll advise you.”

And with this parting admonition, leaving Clyde to his thoughts and himself feeling no least doubt of his guilt and that nothing less than the Griffiths’ millions, if so they chose to spend them, could save him from a fate which was no doubt due him.

AND then on the following morning Samuel Griffiths, with his own son Gilbert standing by, in the large drawing room of their Wykeagy Avenue mansion, listening to Smillie’s report of his conference with Clyde and Mason. And Smillie reporting all he had heard and seen. And with Gilbert Griffiths, unbelievably shaken and infuriated by all this, exclaiming at one point:

“Why, the little devil! The little beast! But what did he tell you, Dad? Didn’t I warn you against bringing him on?”

And Samuel Griffiths after meditating on this reference to his earlier sympathetic folly now giving Gilbert a most suggestive and intensely troubled look, which said: Are we here to discuss the folly of my original, if foolish, good intentions, or the present crisis? And Gilbert thinking: The murderer! And that wretched little show-off, Sondra Finchley trying to make something of him in order to spite me, Gilbert, principally, and so getting herself smirched. The little fool! But it served her right. She would get her share of this now. Only it would cause him and his father and all of them infinite trouble also. For was this not an ineradicable stain which was likely to defile all—himself, his fiancée Bella, Myra, his parents—and perhaps cost them their position here in Lycurgus society? The tragedy! Maybe an execution! And in this family!

Yet Samuel Griffiths, on his part, going back in his mind to all that had occurred since Clyde had arrived in Lycurgus.

His being left to work in that basement at first and ignored by the family. Let to his own devices for fully eight months. Might not that have been at least a contributing cause to all this horror? And then being put over all those girls! Was not that a mistake? He could see all this now clearly, although by no means condoning Clyde’s deed in any way—far from it. The wretchedness of such a mind as that—the ungoverned and carnal desires! The uncontrollable brutality of seducing that girl and then because of Sondra—the pleasant, agreeable little Sondra—plotting to get rid of her! And now in jail, and offering no better explanation of all the amazing circumstances, as reported by Smillie, than that he had not intended to kill her at all—had not even plotted to do so—that the wind had blown his hat off! How impossibly weak! And with no suitable explanation for the two hats, or the missing suit, or of not going to the aid of the drowning girl. And those unexplained marks on her face. How strongly all these things pointed to his guilt.

“For God’s sake,” exclaimed Gilbert, “hasn’t he anything better than that to offer, the little fool!” And Smillie replied that that was all he could get him to say, and that Mr. Mason was absolutely and quite dispassionately convinced of his guilt. “Dreadful! Dreadful!” put in Samuel. “I really can’t grasp it yet. I can’t! It doesn’t seem possible that any one of my blood could be guilty of such a thing!” And then getting up and walking the floor in real and crushing distress and fear. His family! Gilbert and his future! Bella, with all her ambitions and dreams! And Sondra! And Finchley!

He clinched his hands. He knitted his brows and tightened his lips. He looked at Smillie, who, immaculate and sleek, showed nevertheless the immense strain that was on him, shaking his head dismally whenever Griffiths looked at him.

And then after nearly an hour and a half more of such questioning and requestioning as to the possibility of some other interpretation than the data furnished by Smillie would permit, Griffiths, senior, pausing and declaring: “Well, it does look bad, I must say. Still, in the face of what you tell me, I can’t find it in me to condemn completely without more knowledge than we have here. There may be some other facts not as yet come to light—he won’t talk, you say, about most things—some little details we don’t know about—some slight excuse of some kind—for without that this does appear to be a most atrocious crime. Has Mr. Brookhart got in from Boston?”

“Yes, sir, he’s here,” replied Gilbert. “He telephoned Mr. Smillie.”

“Well, have him come out here at two this afternoon to see me. I’m too tired to talk more about this right now. Tell him all that you have told me, Smillie. And then come back here with him at two. It maybe that he will have some suggestion to make that will be of value to us, although just what I can’t see. Only one thing I want to say—I hope he isn’t guilty. And I want every proper step taken to discover whether he is or not, and if not, to defend him to the limit of the law. But no more than that. No trying to save anybody who is guilty of such a thing as this—no, no, no!—not even if he is my nephew! Not me! I’m not that kind of a man! Trouble or no trouble—disgrace or no disgrace—I’ll do what I can to help him if he’s innocent—if there’s even the faintest reason for believing so. But guilty? No! Never! If this boy is really guilty, he’ll have to take the consequences. Not a dollar—not a penny—of my money will I devote to any one who could be guilty of such a crime, even if he is my nephew!”

And turning and slowly and heavily moving toward the rear staircase, while Smillie, wide-eyed, gazed after him in awe. The power of him! The decision of him! The fairness of him in such a deadly crisis! And Gilbert equally impressed, also sitting and staring. His father was a man, really. He might be cruelly wounded and distressed, but, unlike himself, he was neither petty nor revengeful.

And next Mr. Darrah Brookhart, a large, well-dressed, well-fed, ponderous and cautious corporation lawyer, with one eye half concealed by a drooping lid and his stomach rather protuberant, giving one the impression of being mentally if not exactly physically suspended, balloon-wise, in some highly rarefied atmosphere where he was moved easily hither and yon by the lightest breath of previous legal interpretations or decisions of any kind. In the absence of additional facts, the guilt of Clyde (to him) seemed obvious. Or, waving that, as he saw it after carefully listening to Smillie’s recounting of all the suspicious and incriminating circumstances, he would think it very difficult to construct an even partially satisfactory defense, unless there were some facts favoring Clyde which had not thus far appeared. Those two hats, that bag—his slipping away like that. Those letters. But he would prefer to read them. For upon the face of the data so far, unquestionably public sentiment would be all against Clyde and in favor of the dead girl and her poverty and her class, a situation which made a favorable verdict in such a backwoods county seat as Bridgeburg almost impossible. For Clyde, although himself poor, was the nephew of a rich man and hitherto in good standing in Lycurgus society. That would most certainly tend to prejudice country-born people against him. It would probably be better to ask for a change of venue so as to nullify the force of such a prejudice.