An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (i can read book club .TXT) 📕

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 tomorrow. 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 tomorrow. And now as to those marks on her face, you have never admitted to anyone 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.

The result 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 aroused 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