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By Root 20377 0

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