An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser [best business books of all time txt] 📗

driven from the courtroom⁠—which was done. And then the offender arrested and ordered arraigned on the following morning. And after that, silence, with Mason once more resuming:

“Griffiths, you say when you left Lycurgus you had no intention of marrying Roberta Alden unless you could not arrange in any other way.”

“Yes, sir. That was my intention at that time.”

“And accordingly you were fairly certain of coming back?”

“Yes, sir⁠—I thought I was.”

“Then why did you pack everything in your room in your trunk and lock it?”

“Well⁠ ⁠… well⁠ ⁠… that is,” hesitated Clyde, the charge coming so quickly and so entirely apart from what had just been spoken of before that he had scarcely time to collect his wits⁠—“well, you see⁠—I wasn’t absolutely sure. I didn’t know but what I might have to go whether I wanted to or not.”

“I see. And so if you had decided up there unexpectedly as you did⁠—” (and here Mason smirked on him as much as to say⁠—you think anyone believes that?) “you wouldn’t have had time to come back and decently pack your things and depart?”

“Well, no, sir⁠—that wasn’t the reason either.”

“Well then, what was the reason?”

“Well, you see,” and here for lack of previous thought on this subject as well as lack of wit to grasp the essentiality of a suitable and plausible answer quickly, Clyde hesitated⁠—as everyone⁠—first and foremost Belknap and Jephson⁠—noted⁠—and then went on: “Well, you see⁠—if I had to go away, even for a short time as I thought I might, I decided that I might need whatever I had in a hurry.”

“I see. You’re quite sure it wasn’t that in case the police discovered who Clifford Golden or Carl Graham were, that you might wish to leave quickly?”

“No, sir. It wasn’t.”

“And so you didn’t tell Mrs. Peyton you were giving up the room either, did you?”

“No, sir.”

“In your testimony the other day you said something about not having money enough to go up there and take Miss Alden away on any temporary marriage scheme⁠—even one that would last so long as six months.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When you left Lycurgus to start on the trip, how much did you have?”

“About fifty dollars.”

“ ‘About’ fifty? Don’t you know exactly how much you had?”

“I had fifty dollars⁠—yes, sir.”

“And while you were in Utica and Grass Lake and getting down to Sharon afterwards, how much did you spend?”

“I spent about twenty dollars on the trip, I think.”

“Don’t you know?”

“Not exactly⁠—no, sir⁠—somewhere around twenty dollars, though.”

“Well, now let’s see about that exactly if we can,” went on Mason, and here, once more, Clyde began to sense a trap and grew nervous⁠—for there was all that money given him by Sondra and some of which he had spent, too. “How much was your fare from Fonda to Utica for yourself?”

“A dollar and a quarter.”

“And what did you have to pay for your room at the hotel at Utica for you and Roberta?”

“That was four dollars.”

“And of course you had dinner that night and breakfast the next morning, which cost you how much?”

“It was about three dollars for both meals.”

“Was that all you spent in Utica?” Mason was taking a side glance occasionally at a slip of paper on which he had figures and notes, but which Clyde had not noticed.

“Yes, sir.”

“How about the straw hat that it has been proved you purchased while there?”

“Oh, yes, sir, I forgot about that,” said Clyde, nervously. “That was two dollars⁠—yes, sir.” He realized that he must be more careful.

“And your fares to Grass Lake were, of course, five dollars. Is that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you hired a boat at Grass Lake. How much was that?”

“That was thirty-five cents an hour.”

“And you had it how long?”

“Three hours.”

“Making one dollar and five cents.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And then that night at the hotel, they charged you how much? Five dollars, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And then didn’t you buy that lunch that you carried out in that lake with you up there?”

“Yes, sir. I think that was about sixty cents.”

“And how much did it cost you to get to Big Bittern?”

“It was a dollar on the train to Gun Lodge and a dollar on the bus for the two of us to Big Bittern.”

“You know these figures pretty well, I see. Naturally, you would. You didn’t have much money and it was important. And how much was your fare from Three Mile Bay to Sharon afterwards?”

“My fare was seventy-five cents.”

“Did you ever stop to figure this all up exactly?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, will you?”

“Well, you know how much it is, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir, I do. It was twenty-four dollars and sixty-five cents. You said you spent twenty dollars. But here is a discrepancy of four dollars and sixty-five cents. How do you account for it?”

“Well, I suppose I didn’t figure just exactly right,” said Clyde, irritated by the accuracy of figures such as these.

But now Mason slyly and softly inquiring: “Oh, yes, Griffiths, I forgot, how much was the boat you hired at Big Bittern?” He was eager to hear what Clyde would have to say as to this, seeing that he had worked hard and long on this pitfall.

“Oh⁠—ah⁠—ah⁠—that is,” began Clyde, hesitatingly, for at Big Bittern, as he now recalled, he had not even troubled to inquire the cost of the boat, feeling as he did at the time that neither he nor Roberta were coming back. But now here and in this way it was coming up for the first time. And Mason, realizing that he had caught him here, quickly interpolated a “Yes?” to which Clyde replied, but merely guessing at that: “Why, thirty-five cents an hour⁠—just the same as at Grass Lake⁠—so the boatman said.”

But he had spoken too quickly. And he did not know that in reserve was the boatman who was still to testify that he had not stopped to ask the price of the boat. And Mason continued:

“Oh, it was, was it? The boatman told you that, did he?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well now, don’t you recall that you never asked the boatman at all? It was not thirty-five cents