half-determining since Clyde did not appear, that he would proclaim himself and proceed to search for and seize his belongings here, Ed Swenk re-appearing and with a motion of the head indicating that Mason was to follow him. And once well within the shadow of the surrounding trees, indicating no less an individual than Nicholas Kraut, attended by a slim, neatly-dressed youth of about Clyde’s reported years, who, on the instant and because of the waxy paleness of his face, he assumed must be Clyde. And at once he now approached him, as might an angry wasp or hornet, only pausing first to ask of Swenk where he had been captured and by whom – then gazing at Clyde critically and austerely as befitted one who represented the power and majesty of the law.
“So you are Clyde Griffiths, are you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, Mr. Griffiths, my name is Orville Mason. I am the district attorney of the county in which Big Bittern and Grass Lake are situated. I suppose you are familiar enough with those two places by now, aren’t you?”
He paused to see the effect of this sardonic bit of commentary. Yet although he expected to see him wince and quail, Clyde merely gazed at him, his nervous, dark eyes showing enormous strain. “No, sir, I can’t say that I am.”
For with each step through the woods thus far back, there had been growing within him the utter and unshakable conviction that in the face of whatever seeming proof or charges might now appear, he dared not tell anything in regard to himself, his connection with Roberta, his visit to Big Bittern or Grass Lake. He dared not. For that would be the same as a confession of guilt in connection with something of which he was not really guilty. And no one must believe – never – Sondra, or the Griffiths, or any of these fine friends of his, that he could ever have been guilty of such a thought, even. And yet here they were, all within call, and at any moment might approach and so learn the meaning of his arrest. And while he felt the necessity for so denying any knowledge in connection with all this, at the same time he stood in absolute terror of this man – the opposition and irritated mood such an attitude might arouse in him. That broken nose. His large, stern eyes.
And then Mason, eyeing him as one might an unheard-of and yet desperate animal and irritated also by his denial, yet assuming from his blanched expression that he might and no doubt would shortly be compelled to confess his guilt, continuing with: “You know what you are charged with, Mr. Griffiths, of course.”
“Yes, sir, I just heard it from this man here.”
“And you admit it?”
“Why, no sir, of course I don’t admit it,” replied Clyde, his thin and now white lips drawn tight over his even teeth, his eyes full of a deep, tremulous yet evasive terror.
“Why, what nonsense! What effrontery! You deny being up to Grass Lake and Big Bittern on last Wednesday and Thursday?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, then,” and now Mason stiffened himself in an angry and at the same time inquisitorial way, “I suppose you are going to deny knowing Roberta Alden – the girl you took to Grass Lake, and then out on Big Bittern in that boat last Thursday – the girl you knew in Lycurgus all last year, who lived at Mrs. Gilpin’s and worked under you in your department at Griffiths & Company – the girl to whom you gave that toilet set last Christmas! I suppose you’re going to say that your name isn’t Clyde Griffiths and that you haven’t been living with Mrs. Peyton in Taylor Street, and that these aren’t letters and cards from your trunk there – from Roberta Alden and from Miss Finchley, all these cards and notes.” And extracting the letters and cards as he spoke and waving them before Clyde. And at each point in this harangue, thrusting his broad face, with its flat, broken nose and somewhat aggressive chin directly before Clyde’s, and blazing at him with sultry, contemptuous eyes, while the latter leaned away from him, wincing almost perceptibly and with icy chills running up and down his spine and affecting his heart and brain. Those letters! All this information concerning him! And back in his bag in the tent there, all those more recent letters of Sondra’s in which she dwelt on how they were to elope together this coming fall. If only he had destroyed them! And now this man might find those – would – and question Sondra maybe, and all these others. He shrunk and congealed spiritually, the revealing effects of his so poorly conceived and executed scheme weighing upon him as the world upon the shoulders of an inadequate Atlas.
And yet, feeling that he must say something and yet not admit anything. And finally replying: “My name’s Clyde Griffiths all right, but the rest of this isn’t true. I don’t know anything about the rest of it.”
“Oh, come now, Mr. Griffiths! Don’t begin by trying to play fast and loose with me. We won’t get anywhere that way. You won’t help yourself one bit by that with me, and besides I haven’t any time for that now. Remember these men here are witnesses to what you say. I’ve just come from Lycurgus – your room at Mrs. Peyton’s – and I have in my possession your trunk and this Miss Alden’s letters to you – indisputable proof that you did know this girl, that you courted and seduced her last winter, and that since then – this spring – when she became pregnant on your account, you induced her first to go home and then later to go away with you on this trip in order, as you told her, to marry her. Well, you married her all right – to the grave – that’s how you married her – to the water at the bottom of Big Bittern Lake! And you can actually stand here before me now, when I tell you that I have all the evidence I need right on my person, and say that you don’t even know her! Well, I’ll be damned!”
And as he spoke his voice grew so loud that Clyde feared that it could be clearly heard in the camp beyond. And that Sondra herself might hear it and come over. And although at the outrush and jab and slash of such dooming facts as Mason so rapidly outlined, his throat tightened and his hands were with difficulty restrained from closing and clinching vise-wise, at the conclusion of it all he merely replied: “Yes, sir.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!” reiterated Mason. “I can well believe now that you would kill a girl and sneak away in just such a way as you did – and with her in that condition! But then to try to deny her own letters to you! Why, you might as well try to deny that you’re here and alive. These cards and notes here – what about them? I suppose they’re not from Miss Finchley? How about those? Do you mean to tell me these are not from her either?”
He waved them before Clyde’s eyes. And Clyde, seeing that the truth concerning these, Sondra being within call, was capable of being substantiated here and now, replied: “No, I don’t deny that those are from her.”
“Very good. But these others from your trunk in the same room are not from Miss Alden to you?”
“I don’t care to say as to that,” he replied, blinking feebly as Mason waved Roberta’s letters before him.
“Tst! Tst! Tst! Of all things,” clicked Mason in high dudgeon. “Such nonsense! Such effrontery! Oh, very well, we won’t worry about all that now. I can easily prove it all when the time comes. But how you can stand there and deny it, knowing that I have the evidence, is beyond me! A card in your own handwriting which you forgot to take out of the bag you had her leave at Gun Lodge while you took yours with you. Mr. Carl Graham, Mr. Clifford Golden, Mr. Clyde Griffiths – a card on which you wrote ‘From Clyde to Bert, Merry Xmas.’ Do you remember that? Well, here it is.” And here he reached into his pocket and drew forth the small card taken from the toilet set and waved it under Clyde’s nose. “Have you forgotten that, too? Your own handwriting!” And then pausing and getting no reply, finally adding: “Why, what a dunce you are! – what a poor plotter, without even the brains not to use your own initials in getting up those fake names you had hoped to masquerade under – Mr. Carl Graham – Mr. Clifford Golden!”
At the same time, fully realizing the importance of a confession and wondering
