An American Tragedy (98 page)

On the other hand, without first sending a trained cross-examiner to Clyde—one, who being about to undertake the defense should be able to extract the facts from him on the plea that on his truthful answers depended his life—he would not be able to say whether there was any hope or not. In his office was a certain Mr. Catchuman, a very able man, who might be sent on such a mission and on whose final report one could base a reasonable opinion. However, there were now various other aspects of such a case as this which, in his estimation, needed to be carefully looked into and decided upon. For, of course, as Mr. Griffiths and his son so well knew, in Utica, New York City, Albany (and now that he came to think of it, more particularly in Albany where were two brothers, Canavan & Canavan, most able in dubious individuals), there were criminal lawyers deeply versed in the abstrusities and tricks of the criminal law. And any of them—no doubt—for a sufficient retainer, and irrespective of the primary look of a situation of this kind, might be induced to undertake such a defense. And, no doubt, via change of venue, motions, appeals, etc., they might and no doubt would be able to delay and eventually effect an ultimate verdict of something less than death, if such were the wish of the head of this very important family. On the other hand, there was the undeniable fact that such a hotly contested trial as this would most assuredly prove to be would result in an enormous amount of publicity, and did Mr. Samuel Griffiths want that? For again, under such circumstances, was it not likely to be said, if most unjustly, of course, that he was using his great wealth to frustrate justice? The public was so prejudiced against wealth in such cases. Yet, some sort of a defense on the part of the Griffiths would certainly be expected by the public, whether subsequently the same necessity for such defense was criticized by them or not.

And in consequence, it was now necessary for Mr. Griffiths and his son to decide how they would prefer to proceed—whether with very distinguished criminal lawyers such as the two he had just named, or with less forceful counsel, or none. For, of course, it would be possible, and that quite inconspicuously, to supply Clyde with a capable and yet thoroughly conservative trial lawyer—some one residing and practising in Bridgeburg possibly—whose duty it would be to see that all blatant and unjustified reference to the family on the part of the newspapers was minimized.

And so, after three more hours of conference, it was finally decided by Samuel himself that at once Mr. Brookhart was to despatch his Mr. Catchuman to Bridgeburg to interview Clyde, and thereafter, whatever his conclusions as to his guilt or innocence, he was to select from the local array of legal talent—for the present, anyhow—such a lawyer as would best represent Clyde fairly. Yet with no assurances of means or encouragement to do more than extract from Clyde the true details of his relationship to this charge. And those once ascertained to center upon such a defense as would most honestly tend to establish only such facts as were honestly favorable to Clyde—in short, in no way, either by legal chicane or casuistry or trickery of any kind, to seek to establish a false innocence and so defeat the ends of justice.

MR. CATCHUMAN did not prove by any means to be the one to extract from Clyde anything more than had either Mason or Smillie. Although shrewd to a degree in piecing together out of the muddled statements of another such data as seemed most probable, still he was not so successful in the realm of the emotions, as was necessary in the case of Clyde. He was too legal, chilling—unemotional. And in consequence, after grilling Clyde for four long hours one hot July afternoon, he was eventually compelled to desist with the feeling that as a plotter of crime Clyde was probably the most arresting example of feeble and blundering incapacity he had ever met.

For since Smillie’s departure Mason had proceeded to the shores of Big Bittern with Clyde. And there discovered the tripod and camera. Also listened to more of Clyde’s lies. And as he now explained to Catchuman that, while Clyde denied owning a camera, nevertheless he had proof that he did own one and had taken it with him when he left Lycurgus. Yet when confronted with this fact by Catchuman, as the latter now noticed, Clyde had nothing to say other than that he had not taken a camera with him and that the tripod found was not the one belonging to any camera of his—a lie which so irritated Catchuman that he decided not to argue with him further.

At the same time, however, Brookhart having instructed him that, whatever his personal conclusions in regard to Clyde, a lawyer of sorts was indispensable—the charity, if not the honor, of the Griffiths being this much involved the western Griffiths, as Brookhart had already explained to him, having nothing and not being wanted in the case any how—he decided that he must find one before leaving. In consequence, and without any knowledge of the local political situation, he proceeded to the office of Ira Kellogg, president of the Cataraqui County National Bank, who, although Catchuman did not know it, was high in the councils of the Democratic organization. And because of his religious and moral views, this same Kellogg was already highly incensed and irritated by the crime of which Clyde was accused. On the other hand, however, because as he well knew this case was likely to pave the way for an additional Republican sweep at the approaching primaries, he was not blind to the fact that some reducing opposition to Mason might not be amiss. Fate seemed too obviously to be favoring the Republican machine in the person of and crime committed by Clyde.

For since the discovery of this murder, Mason had been basking in such publicity and even nation-wide notoriety as had not befallen any district attorney of this region in years and years. Newspaper correspondents and reporters and illustrators from such distant cities as Buffalo, Rochester, Chicago, New York and Boston, were already arriving as everybody knew or saw, to either interview or make sketches or take photos of Clyde, Mason, the surviving members of the Alden family, et cetera, while locally Mason was the recipient of undiluted praise, even the Democratic voters in the county joining with the Republicans in assuring each other that Mason was all right, that he was handling this young murderer in the way that he deserved to be handled, and that neither the wealth of the Griffiths nor of the family of that rich girl whom he appeared to have been trying to capture, was influencing this young tribune of the people in the least. He was a real attorney. He had not “allowed any grass to grow under his feet, you bet.”

Indeed previous to Catchuman’s visit, a coroner’s jury had been called, with Mason attending and directing even, the verdict being that the dead girl had come to her death through a plot devised and executed by one Clyde Griffiths who was then and there in the county jail of Bridgeburg and that he be held to await the verdict of the County Grand Jury to whom his crime was soon to be presented. And Mason, through an appeal to the Governor, as all now knew was planning to secure a special sitting of the Supreme Court, which would naturally involve an immediate session of the County Grand Jury in order to hear the evidence and either indict or discharge Clyde. And now, Catchuman arriving to inquire where he was likely to find a local lawyer of real ability who could be trusted to erect some sort of a defense for Clyde. And immediately as an offset to all this there popped into Kellogg’s mind the name and reputation of one Hon. Alvin Belknap, of Belknap and Jephson, of this same city—an individual who had been twice state senator, three times Democratic assemblyman from this region, and more recently looked upon by various Democratic politicians as one who would be favored with higher honors as soon as it was possible to arrange an issue which would permit the Democrats to enter into local office. In fact, only three years before, in a contest with Mason for the district attorneyship, this same Belknap had run closer to victory than any other candidate on the Democratic ticket. Indeed, so rounded a man was he politically that this year he had been slated for that very county judgeship nomination which Mason had in view. And but for this sudden and most amazing development in connection with Clyde, it had been quite generally assumed that Belknap, once nominated, would be elected. And although Mr. Kellogg did not quite trouble to explain to Catchuman all the complicated details of this very interesting political situation, he did explain that Mr. Belknap was a very exceptional man, almost the ideal one, if one were looking for an opponent to Mason.

And with this slight introduction, Kellogg now offered personally to conduct Catchuman to Belknap and Jephson’s office, just across the way in the Bowers Block.

And then knocking at Belknap’s door, they were admitted by a brisk, medium-sized and most engaging-looking man of about forty-eight, whose gray-blue eyes at once fixed themselves in the mind of Catchuman as the psychic windows of a decidedly shrewd if not altogether masterful and broad-gauge man. For Belknap was inclined to carry himself with an air which all were inclined to respect. He was a college graduate, and in his youth because of his looks, his means, and his local social position (his father had been a judge as well as a national senator from here), he had seen so much of what might be called near-city life that all those gaucheries as well as sex-inhibitions and sex-longings which still so greatly troubled and motivated and even marked a man like Mason had long since been covered with an easy manner and social understanding which made him fairly capable of grasping any reasonable moral or social complication which life was prepared to offer.

Indeed he was one who naturally would approach a case such as Clyde’s with less vehemence and fever than did Mason. For once, in his twentieth year, he himself had been trapped between two girls, with one of whom he was merely playing while being seriously in love with the other. And having seduced the first and being confronted with an engagement or flight, he had chosen flight. But not before laying the matter before his father, by whom he was advised to take a vacation, during which time the services of the family doctor were engaged with the result that for a thousand dollars and expenses necessary to house the pregnant girl in Utica, the father had finally extricated his son and made possible his return, and eventual marriage to the other girl.

And therefore, while by no means sympathizing with the more cruel and drastic phases of Clyde’s attempt at escape—as so far charged (never in all the years of his law practice had he been able to grasp the psychology of a murderer) still because of the rumored existence and love influence of a rich girl whose name had not as yet been divulged he was inclined to suspect that Clyde had been emotionally betrayed or bewitched. Was he not poor and vain and ambitious? He had heard so: had even been thinking that he—the local political situation being what it was might advantageously to himself—and perhaps most disruptingly to the dreams of Mr. Mason be able to construct a defense—or at least a series of legal contentions and delays which might make it not so easy for Mr. Mason to walk away with the county judgeship as he imagined. Might it not, by brisk, legal moves now—and even in the face of this rising public sentiment, or because of it,—be possible to ask for a change of venue—or time to develop new evidence in which case a trial might not occur before Mr. Mason was out of office. He and his young and somewhat new associate, Mr. Reuben Jephson, of quite recently the state of Vermont, had been thinking of it.

And now Mr. Catchuman accompanied by Mr. Kellogg. And thereupon a conference with Mr. Catchuman and Mr. Kellogg, with the latter arguing quite politically the wisdom of his undertaking such a defense. And his own interest in the case being what it was, he was not long in deciding, after a conference with his younger associate, that he would. In the long run it could not possibly injure him politically, however the public might feel about it now.

And then Catchuman having handed over a retainer to Belknap as well as a letter introducing him to Clyde, Belknap had Jephson call up Mason to inform him that Belknap & Jephson, as counsel for Samuel Griffiths on behalf of his nephew, would require of him a detailed written report of all the charges as well as all the evidence thus far accumulated, the minutes of the autopsy and the report of the coroner’s inquest. Also information as to whether any appeal for a special term of the Supreme Court had as yet been acted upon, and if so what judge had been named to sit, and when and where the Grand Jury would be gathered. Incidentally, he said, Messrs. Belknap and Jephson, having heard that Miss Alden’s body had been sent to her home for burial, would request at once a counsel’s agreement whereby it might be exhumed in order that other doctors now to be called by the defense might be permitted to examine it—a proposition which Mason at once sought to oppose but finally agreed to rather than submit to an order from a Supreme Court judge.

These details having been settled, Belknap announced that he was going over to the jail to see Clyde. It was late and he had had no dinner, and might get none now, but he wanted to have a “heart to heart” with this youth, whom Catchuman informed him he would find very difficult. But Belknap, buoyed up as he was by his opposition to Mason, his conviction that he was in a good mental state to understand Clyde, was in a high degree of legal curiosity. The romance and drama of this crime! What sort of a girl was this Sondra Finchley, of whom he had already heard through secret channels? And could she by any chance be brought to Clyde’s defense? He had already understood that her name was not to be mentioned—high politics demanding this. He was really most eager to talk to this sly and ambitious and futile youth.

However, on reaching the jail, and after showing Sheriff Slack a letter from Catchuman and asking as a special favor to himself that he be taken upstairs to some place near Clyde’s cell in order that, unannounced, he might first observe Clyde, he was quietly led to the second floor and, the outside door leading to the corridor which faced Clyde’s cell being opened for him, allowed to enter there alone. And then walking to within a few feet of Clyde’s cell he was able to view him—at the moment lying face down on his iron cot, his arms above his head, a tray of untouched food standing in the aperture, his body sprawled and limp. For, since Catchuman’s departure, and his second failure to convince any one of his futile and meaningless lies, he was more despondent than ever. In fact, so low was his condition that he was actually crying, his shoulders heaving above his silent emotion. At sight of this, and remembering his own youthful escapades, Belknap now felt intensely sorry for him. No soulless murderer, as he saw it, would cry.