Lycurgus, and the manager of the department in which Roberta worked.
But this in itself, as Mason and the Aldens themselves at once felt, was something which assuredly could not be taken to mean that the nephew of so great a man could be accused of the murder of Roberta. Wealth! Position! Indeed, in the face of such an accusation Mason was inclined to pause and consider. For the social difference between this man and this girl from his point of view seemed great. At that, it might be so. Why not? Was it not likely that a youth of such a secure position would possibly more than another, since she was so attractive as Heit had said, be the one to be paying casual and secret attention to a girl like Roberta? Did she not work in his uncle’s factory? And was she not poor? Besides, as Fred Heit had already explained, whoever it was that this girl was with at the time of her death, she had not hesitated to cohabit with him before marriage. And was that not part and parcel of a rich and sophisticated youth’s attitude toward a poor girl? By reason of his own early buffetings at the mood of chance and established prosperity the idea appealed to him intensely. The wretched rich! The indifferent rich! And here were her mother and father obviously believing most firmly in her innocence and virtue.
Further questioning of Mrs. Alden only brought out the fact that she had never seen this particular youth, and had never even heard of any other. The only additional data that either she or her husband could furnish was that during her last home-coming of a month Roberta had not been feeling at all well – drooped about the house and rested a good deal. Also that she had written a number of letters which she had given to the postman or placed in the delivery box at the road-crossing below. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Alden knew to whom they were addressed, although the postman would be likely to know, as Mason quickly thought. Also, during this period, she had been busy making some dresses, at least four. And during the latter part of her stay, she had been the recipient of a number of telephone calls – from a certain Mr. Baker, as Titus had heard Mr. Wilcox say. Also, on departing, she had taken only such baggage as she had brought with her – her small trunk and her bag. The trunk she had checked herself at the station, but just where, other than Lycurgus, Titus could not say.
But now, suddenly, since he was attaching considerable importance to the name Baker, there popped into Mason’s mind:
“Clifford Golden! Carl Graham! Clyde Griffiths!” and at once the identity of the intitials as well as the related euphony of the names gave him pause. An astounding coincidence truly, if this same Clyde Griffiths had nothing to do with this crime! Immediately he was anxious to go direct to the mailman and question him.
But since Titus Alden was important not only as a witness in identifying Roberta’s body and the contents of the suitcase left by her at Gun Lodge but also to persuade the postman to talk freely, he now asked him to dress and accompany him, assuring him that he would allow him to return to-morrow.
After cautioning Mrs. Alden to talk to no one in regard to this, he now proceeded to the post office to question the mailman. That individual when found, recalled, upon inquiry, and in the presence of Titus who stood like a galvanized corpse by the side of the district attorney, that not only had there been a few letters – no less than twelve or fifteen even – handed him by Roberta, during her recent stay here, but that all of them had been addressed to some one in Lycurgus by the name of – let him see – Clyde Griffiths – no less – care of General Delivery there. Forthwith, the district attorney proceeded with him to a local notary’s office where a deposition was made, after which he called his office, and learning that Roberta’s body had been brought to Bridgeburg, he drove there with as much speed as he could attain. And once there and in the presence of the body along with Titus, Burton Burleigh, Heit and Earl Newcomb, he was able to decide for himself, even while Titus, half demented, gazed upon the features of his child, first that she truly was Roberta Alden and next as to whether he considered her of the type who would wantonly yield herself to such a liaison as the registration at Grass Lake seemed to indicate. He decided he did not. This was a case of sly, evil seduction as well as murder. Oh, the scoundrel! And still at large. Almost the political value of all this was obscured by an angry social resentfulness against men of means in general.
But this particular contact with the dead, made at ten o’clock at night in the receiving parlors of the Lutz Brothers, Undertakers, and with Titus Alden falling on his knees by the side of his daughter and emotionally carrying her small, cold hands to his lips while he gazed feverishly and protestingly upon her waxy face, framed by her long brown hair, was scarcely such as to promise an unbiased or even legal opinion. The eyes of all those present were wet with tears.
And now Titus Alden injected a new and most dramatic note into the situation. For while the Lutz Brothers, with three of their friends who kept an automobile shop next door, Everett Beeker, the present representative of the Bridgeburg Republican, and Sam Tacksun, the editor and publisher of the Democrat, awesomely gazed over or between the heads of each other from without a side door which gave into the Lutzs’ garage, he suddenly rose and moving wildly toward Mason, exclaimed: “I want you to find the scoundrel who did this, Mr. District Attorney. I want him to be made to suffer as this pure, good girl has been made to suffer. She’s been murdered – that’s all. No one but a murderer would take a girl out on a lake like that and strike her as any one can see she has been struck.” He gestured toward his dead child. “I have no money to help prosecute a scoundrel like that. But I will work. I will sell my farm.”
His voice broke and seemingly he was in danger of falling as he turned toward Roberta again. And now, Orville Mason, swept into this father’s stricken and yet retaliatory mood, pressed forward to exclaim: “Come away, Mr. Alden. We know this is your daughter. I swear all you gentlemen as witnesses to this identification. And if it shall be proved that this little girl of yours was murdered, as it now seems, I promise you, Mr. Alden, faithfully and dutifully as the district attorney of this county, that no time or money or energy on my part will be spared to track down this scoundrel and hale him before the proper authorities! And if the justice of Cataraqui County is what I think it is, you can leave him to any jury which our local court will summon. And you won’t need to sell your farm, either.”
Mr. Mason, because of his deep, if easily aroused, emotion, as well as the presence of the thrilled audience, was in his most forceful as well as his very best oratorical mood.
And one of the Lutz Brothers – Ed – the recipient of all of the county coroner’s business – was moved to exclaim:
“That’s the ticket, Orville. You’re the kind of a district attorney we like.” And Everett Beeker now called out: “Go to it, Mr. Mason. We’re with you to a man when it comes to that.” And Fred Heit, as well as his assistant, touched by Mason’s dramatic stand, his very picturesque and even heroic appearance at the moment, now crowded closer, Heit to take his friend by the hand, Earl to exclaim: “More power to you, Mr. Mason. We’ll do all we can, you bet. And don’t forget that bag that she left at Gun Lodge is over at your office. I gave it to Burton two hours ago.”
“That’s right, too. I was almost forgetting that,” exclaimed Mason, most calmly and practically at the moment, the previous burst of oratory and emotion having by now been somehow merged in his own mind with the exceptional burst of approval which up to this hour he had never experienced in any case with which previously he had been identified.
Chapter 5
As he proceeded to his office, accompanied by Alden and the officials in this case, his thought was running on the motive of this heinous crime – the motive. And because of his youthful sexual deprivations, his mind now tended continually to dwell on that. And meditating on the beauty and charm of Roberta, contrasted with her poverty and her strictly moral and religious upbringing, he was convinced that in all likelihood this man or boy, whoever he was, had seduced her and then later, finding himself growing tired of her, had finally chosen this way to get rid of her – this deceitful, alleged marriage trip to the lake. And at once he conceived an enormous personal hate for the man. The wretched rich! The idle rich! The wastrel and evil
