An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [294]
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 rich—a scion or representative of whom this young Clyde Griffiths was. If he could but catch him.
At the same time it now suddenly occurred to him that because of the peculiar circumstances attending this case—this girl cohabiting with this man in this way—she might be pregnant. And at once this suspicion was sufficient, not only to make him sexually curious in regard to all the details of the life and courtship that had led to this—but also very anxious to substantiate for himself whether his suspicions were true. Immediately he began to think of a suitable doctor to perform an autopsy—if not here, then in Utica or Albany— also of communicating to Heit his suspicions in the connection, and of having this, as well as the import of the blows upon her face, determined.
But in regard to the bag and its contents, which was the immediate matter before him, he was fortunate in finding one additional bit of evidence of the greatest importance. For, apart from the dresses and hats made by Roberta, her lingerie, a pair of red silk garters purchased at Braunstein’s in Lycurgus and still in their original box, there was the toilet set presented by Clyde to her the Christmas before. And with it the small, plain white card, on which Clyde had written: “For Bert from Clyde—Merry Xmas.” But no family name. And the writing a hurried scrawl, since it had been written at a time when Clyde was most anxious to be elsewhere than with her.
At once it occurred to Mason—how odd that the presence of this toilet set in this bag, together with the card, should not have been known to the slayer. But if it were, and he had not removed the card, could it be possible that this same Clyde was the slayer? Would a man contemplating murder fail to see a card such as this, with his own handwriting on it? What sort of a plotter and killer would that be? Immediately afterward he thought: Supposing the presence of this card could be concealed until the day of the trial and then suddenly produced, assuming the criminal denied any intimacy with the girl, or having given her any toilet set? And for the present he took the card and put it in his pocket, but not before Earl Newcomb, looking at it carefully, had observed: “I’m not positive, Mr. Mason, but that looks to me like the writing on the register up at Big Bittern.