An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [314]
“And you don’t happen to know anything about the drowning of a girl up there that you were supposed to be with—Roberta Alden, of Biltz, New York, I believe.”
“Why, my God, no!” replied Clyde, nervously and staccatically, the true name of Roberta and her address being used by this total stranger, and so soon, staggering him. Then they knew! They had obtained a clue. His true name and hers! God! “Am I supposed to have committed a murder?” he added, his voice faint—a mere whisper.
“Then you don’t know that she was drowned last Thursday? And you weren’t with her at that time?” Mr. Kraut fixed a hard, inquisitive, unbelieving eye on him.
“Why, no, of course, I wasn’t,” replied Clyde, recalling now but one thing—that he must deny all—until he should think or know what else to do or say.
“And you didn’t meet three men walking south last Thursday night from Big Bittern to Three Mile Bay at about eleven o’clock?”
“Why, no, sir. Of course I didn’t. I wasn’t up there, I told you.”
“Very well, Mr. Griffiths, I haven’t anything more to say. All I’m supposed to do is to arrest you, Clyde Griffiths, for the murder of Roberta Alden. You’re my prisoner.” He drew forth—more by way of a demonstration of force and authority than anything else—a pair of steel handcuffs, which caused Clyde to shrink and tremble as though he had been beaten.
“You needn’t put those on me, mister,” he pleaded. “I wish you wouldn’t. I never had anything like that on before. I’ll go with you without them.” He looked longingly and sadly about at the trees, into the sheltering depths of which so recently he ought to have plunged. To safety.
“Very well, then,” replied the redoubtable Kraut. “So long as you come along peaceful.” And he took Clyde by one of his almost palsied arms.
“Do you mind if I ask you something else,” asked Clyde, weakly and fearsomely, as they now proceeded, the thought of Sondra and the others shimmering blindingly and reducingly before his eyes. Sondra! Sondra! To go back there an arrested murderer! And before her and Bertine! Oh, no! “Are you, are you intending to take me to that camp back there?”
“Yes, sir, that’s where I’m intending to take you now. Them’s my orders. That’s where the district attorney and the sheriff of Cataraqui County are just now.”
“Oh, I know, I know,” pleaded Clyde, hysterically, for by now he had lost almost all poise, “but couldn’t you—couldn’t you—so long as I go along just as you want—those are all my friends, you know, back there, and I’d hate … couldn’t you just take me around the camp somewhere to wherever you want to take me? I have a very special reason—that is—I—I, oh, God, I hope you won’t take me back there right now—will you please, Mr. Kraut?”
He seemed to Kraut very boyish and weak now—clean of feature, rather innocent as to eye, well-dressed and well-mannered—not at all the savage and brutal or murderous type he had expected to find. Indeed quite up to the class whom he (Kraut) was inclined to respect. And might he not after all be a youth of very powerful connections? The conversations he had listened to thus far had indicated that this youth was certainly identified with one of the best families in Lycurgus. And in consequence he was now moved to a slight show of courtesy and so added: “Very well, young man, I don’t want to be too hard on you. After all, I’m not the sheriff or the district attorney—just the arresting officer. There are others down there who are going to be able to say what to do about you—and when we get down to where they are, you can ask ‘em, and it may be that they won’t find it necessary to take you back in there. But how about your clothes? They’re back there, ain’t they?”
“Oh, yes, but that doesn’t matter,” replied Clyde, nervously and eagerly. “I can get those any time. I just don’t want to go back now, if I can help it.”
“All right, then, come along,” replied Mr. Kraut.
And so it was that they walked on together now in silence, the tall shafts of the trees in the approaching dusk making solemn aisles through which they proceeded as might worshipers along the nave of a cathedral, the eyes of Clyde contemplating nervously and wearily a smear of livid red still visible through the trees to the west.