An American Tragedy (111 page)

And here he paused to rest and seemed to give himself over to deep and even melancholy thought, while Clyde, heartened by this shrewd and defiant beginning was inclined to take more courage. But now Belknap was talking again, and he must listen—not lose a word of all this that was so heartening.

“When Roberta Alden’s body was taken out of the water at Big Bittern, gentlemen, it was examined by a physician. He declared at the time that the girl had been drowned. He will be here and testify and the defendant shall have the benefit of that testimony, and you must render it to him.

“You were told by the district attorney that Roberta Alden and Clyde Griffiths were engaged to be married and that she left her home at Biltz and went forth with him on July sixth last on her wedding journey. Now, gentlemen, it is so easy to slightly distort a certain set of circumstances. ‘Were engaged to be married’ was how the district attorney emphasized the incidents leading up to the departure on July sixth. As a matter of fact, not one iota of any direct evidence exists which shows that Clyde Griffiths was ever formally engaged to Roberta Alden, or that, except for some passages in her letters, he agreed to marry her. And those passages, gentlemen, plainly indicate that it was only under the stress of moral and material worry, due to her condition—for which he was responsible, of course, but which, nevertheless, was with the consent of both—a boy of twenty-one and a girl of twenty-three—that he agreed to marry her. Is that, I ask you, an open and proper engagement—the kind of an engagement you think of when you think of one at all? Mind you, I am not seeking to flout or belittle or reflect in any way on this poor, dead girl. I am simply stating, as a matter of fact and of law, that this boy was not formally engaged to this dead girl. He had not given her his word beforehand that he would marry her . . . Never! There is no proof. You must give him the benefit of that. And only because of her condition, for which we admit he was responsible, he came forward with an agreement to marry her, in case . . . in case” (and here he paused and rested on the phrase), “she was not willing to release him. And since she was not willing to release him, as her various letters read here show, that agreement, on pain of a public exposure in Lycurgus, becomes, in the eyes and words of the district attorney, an engagement, and not only that but a sacred engagement which no one but a scoundrel and a thief and a murderer would attempt to sever! But, gentlemen, many engagements, more open and sacred in the eyes of the law and of religion, have been broken. Thousands of men and thousands of women have seen their hearts change, their vows and faith and trust flouted, and have even carried their wounds into the secret places of their souls, or gone forth, and gladly, to death at their own hands because of them. As the district attorney said in his address, it is not new and it will never be old. Never!

“But it is such a case as this last, I warn you, that you are now contemplating and are about to pass upon—a girl who is the victim of such a change of mood. But that is not a legal, however great a moral or social crime it may be. And it is only a curious and almost unbelievably tight and yet utterly misleading set of circumstances in connection with the death of this girl that chances to bring this defendant before you at this time. I swear it. I truly know it to be so. And it can and will be fully explained to your entire satisfaction before this case is closed.

“However, in connection with this last statement, there is another which must be made as a preface to all that is to follow.

“Gentlemen of the jury, the individual who is on trial here for his life is a mental as well as a moral coward—no more and no less—not a downright, hardhearted criminal by any means. Not unlike many men in critical situations, he is a victim of a mental and moral fear complex. Why, no one as yet has been quite able to explain. We all have one secret bugbear or fear. And it is these two qualities, and no others, that have placed him in the dangerous position in which he now finds himself. It was cowardice, gentlemen—fear of a rule of the factory of which his uncle is the owner, as well as fear of his own word given to the officials above him, that caused him first to conceal the fact that he was interested in the pretty country girl who had come to work for him. And later, to conceal the fact that he was going with her.

“Yet no statutory crime of any kind there. You could not possibly try a man for that, whatever privately you might think. And it was cowardice, mental and moral, gentlemen, which prevented him, after he became convinced that he could no longer endure a relationship which had once seemed so beautiful, from saying outright that he could not, and would not continue with her, let alone marry her. Yet, will you slay a man because he is the victim of fear? And again, after all, if a man has once and truly decided that he cannot and will not endure a given woman, or a woman a man—that to live with her could only prove torturesome—what would you have that person do? Marry her? To what end? That they may hate and despise and torture each other forever after? Can you truly say that you agree with that as a rule, or a method, or a law? Yet, as the defense sees it, a truly intelligent and fair enough thing, under the circumstances, was done in this instance. An offer, but without marriage—and alas, without avail—was made. A suggestion for a separate life, with him working to support her while she dwelt elsewhere. Her own letters, read only yesterday in this court, indicate something of the kind. But the oh, so often tragic insistence upon what in so many cases were best left undone! And then that last, long, argumentative trip to Utica, Grass Lake, and Big Bittern. And all to no purpose. Yet with no intention to kill or betray unto death. Not the slightest. And we will show you why.

“Gentlemen, once more I insist that it was cowardice, mental and moral, and not any plot or plan for any crime of any kind, that made Clyde Griffiths travel with Roberta Alden under various aliases to all the places I have just mentioned—that made him write ‘Mr. and Mrs. Carl Graham,’ ‘Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Golden’—mental and moral fear of the great social mistake as well as sin that he had committed in pursuing and eventually allowing himself to fall into this unhallowed relationship with her—mental and moral fear or cowardice of what was to follow.

“And again, it was mental and moral cowardice that prevented him there at Big Bittern, once the waters of the lake had so accidentally closed over her, from returning to Big Bittern Inn and making public her death. Mental and Moral Cowardice—and nothing more and nothing less. He was thinking of his wealthy relatives in Lycurgus, their rule which his presence here on the lake with this girl would show to have been broken—of the suffering and shame and rage of her parents. And besides, there was Miss X—the brightest star in the brightest constellation of all his dreams.

“We admit all that, and we are completely willing to concede that he was, or must have been, thinking of all these things. The prosecution charges, and we admit that such is the fact, that he had been so completely ensnared by this Miss X, and she by him, that he was willing and eager to forsake this first love who had given herself to him, for one who, because of her beauty and her wealth, seemed so much more desirable—even as to Roberta Alden he seemed more desirable than others. And if she erred as to him—as plainly she did—might not—might not he have erred eventually in his infatuated following of one who in the ultimate—who can say?—might not have cared so much for him. At any rate, one of his strongest fear thoughts at this time, as he himself has confessed to us, his counsel, was that if this Miss X learned that he had been up there with this other girl of whom she had not even so much as heard, well then, it would mean the end of her regard for him.

“I know that as you gentlemen view such things, such conduct has no excuse for being. One may be the victim of an internal conflict between two illicit moods, yet nevertheless, as the law and the church see it, guilty of sin and crime. But the truth, none-the-less, is that they do exist in the human heart, law or now law, religion or no religion, and in scores of cases they motivate the actions of the victims. And we admit that they motivated the actions of Clyde Griffiths.

“But did he kill Roberta Alden?

“No!

“And again, no!

“Or did he plot in any way, half-heartedly or otherwise, to drag her up there under the guise of various aliases and then, because she would not set him free, drown her? Ridiculous! Impossible! Insane! His plan was completely and entirely different.

“But, gentlemen,” and here he suddenly paused as though a new or overlooked thought had just come to him, “perhaps you would be better satisfied, with my argument and the final judgment you are to render if you were to have the testimony of one eye-witness at least of Roberta Alden’s death—one who, instead of just hearing a voice, was actually present, and who saw and hence knows how she met her death.”

He now looked at Jephson as much as to say: Now, Reuben, at last, here we are! And Reuben, turning to Clyde, easily and yet with iron in his every motion, whispered: “Well, here we are, Clyde, it’s up to you now. Only I’m going along with you, see? I’ve decided to examine you myself. I’ve drilled and drilled you, and I guess you won’t have any trouble in telling me, will you?” He beamed on Clyde genially and encouragingly, and Clyde, because of Belknap’s strong plea as well as this newest and best development in connection with Jephson, now stood up and with almost a jaunty air, and one out of all proportion to his mood of but four hours before, now whispered: “Gee! I’m glad you’re going to do it. I’ll be all right now, I think.”

But in the meantime the audience, hearing that an actual eye-witness was to be produced, and not by the prosecution but the defense, was at once upon its feet, craning and stirring. And Justice Oberwaltzer, irritated to an exceptional degree by the informality characteristic of this trial, was now rapping with his gavel while his clerk cried loudly: “Order! Order! Unless everybody is seated, all spectators will be dismissed! The deputies will please see that all are seated.” And then a hushed and strained silence falling as Belknap called: “Clyde Griffiths, take the witness chair.” And the audience—seeing to its astonishment, Clyde, accompanied by Reuben Jephson, making his way forward—straining and whispering in spite of all the gruff commands of the judge and the bailiffs. And even Belknap, as he saw Jephson approaching, being a little astonished, since it was he who according to the original plan was to have led Clyde through his testimony. But now Jephson drawing near to him as Clyde was being seated and sworn, merely whispered: “Leave him to me, Alvin, I think it’s best. He looks a little too strained and shaky to suit me, but I feel sure I can pull him through.”

And then the audience noting the change and whispering in regard to it. And Clyde, his large nervous eyes turning here and there, thinking: Well, I’m on the witness stand at last. And now everybody’s watching me, of course. I must look very calm, like I didn’t care so very much, because I didn’t really kill her. That’s right, I didn’t. Yet his skin blue and the lids of his eyes red and puffy and his hands trembling slightly in spite of himself. And Jephson, his long, tensile and dynamic body like that of a swaying birch, turning toward him and looking fixedly into Clyde’s brown eyes with his blue ones, beginning:

“Now, Clyde, the first thing we want to do is make sure that the jury and every one else hears our questions and answers. And next, when you’re all set, you’re going to begin with your life as you remember it—where you were born, where you came from, what your father did and your mother, too, and finally, what you did and why, from the time you went to work until now. I may interrupt you with a few questions now and then, but in the main I’m going to let you tell it, because I know you can tell it better than any one.” Yet in order to reassure Clyde and to make him know each moment that he was there—a wall, a bulwark, between him and the eager, straining, unbelieving and hating crowd—he now drew nearer, at times so close as to put one foot on the witness stand, or if not that to lean forward and lay a hand on the arm of the chair in which Clyde sat. And all the while saying, “Yay-uss—Yay-uss.” “And then what?” “And then?” And invariably at the strong and tonic or protective sound of his voice Clyde stirring as with a bolstering force and finding himself able, and without shaking or quavering, to tell the short but straitened story of his youth.

“I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. My parents were conducting a mission there at that time and used to hold open air meetings . . .”

CLYDE’S testimony proceeded to the point where the family had removed from Quincy, Illinois (a place resorted to on account of some Salvation Army work offered his father and mother), to Kansas City, where from his twelfth to his fifteenth year he had browsed about trying to find something to do while still resenting the combination of school and religious work expected of him.

“Were you up with your classes in the public school?”

“No, sir. We had moved too much.”

“In what grade were you when you were twelve years old?”

“Well, I should have been in the seventh but I was only in the sixth. That’s why I didn’t like it.”

“And how about the religious work of your parents?”

“Well, it was all right—only I never did like going out nights on the street corners.”

And so on, through five-and-ten cent store, soda and newspaper carrier jobs, until at last he was a bell-hop at the Green-Davidson, the finest hotel in Kansas City, as he informed them.

“But now, Clyde,” proceeded Jephson who, fearful lest Mason on the cross-examination and in connection with Clyde’s credibility as a witness should delve into the matter of the wrecked car and the slain child in Kansas City and so mar the effect of the story he was now about to tell, was determined to be beforehand in this. Decidedly, by questioning him properly he could explain and soften all that, whereas if left to Mason it could be tortured into something exceedingly dark indeed. And so now he continued: