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

“I know that,” replied Clyde⁠—since for two months now he, along with Belknap and Jephson, had discussed this particular question. “But the only plan I know of”⁠—and here he did his best to look frank and be convincing⁠—“was the one I offered over and over.”

“And what was that?”

“Why, that she go away and take a room somewhere and let me help her and come over and see her once in a while.”

“Well, no, you’re wrong there,” returned Jephson, slyly. “That isn’t and couldn’t be the plan she had in mind. She says in one of these letters that she knows it will be hard on you to have to go away and stay so long, or until she is out of this thing, but that it can’t be helped.”

“Yes, I know,” replied Clyde, quickly and exactly as he had been told to do, “but that was her plan, not mine. She kept saying to me most of the time that that was what she wanted me to do, and that I would have to do it. She told me that over the telephone several times, and I may have said all right, all right, not meaning that I agreed with her entirely but that I wanted to talk with her about it some more later.”

“I see. And so that’s what you think⁠—that she meant one thing and you meant another.”

“Well, I know I never agreed to her plan⁠—exactly. That is, I never did any more than just to ask her to wait and not do anything until I could get money enough together to come up there and talk to her some more and get her to go away⁠—the way I suggested.”

“But if she wouldn’t accede to your plan, then what?”

“Well, then I was going to tell her about Miss X, and beg her to let me go.”

“And if she still wouldn’t?”

“Well, then I thought I might run away, but I didn’t like to think about that very much.”

“You know, Clyde, of course, that some here are of the opinion that there was a plot on your part which originated in your mind about this time to conceal your identity and 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 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 anyone,” 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 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 anyone to say a word for him, he thought it best to say nothing and so for the time being had