An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [357]
“Yes, I think Mason would have a hard time proving that they weren’t made that way,” replied Belknap.
“And as for that tripod, well, we’d better exhume the body and make our own measurements, and measure the thickness of the edge of that boat, so that it may not be so easy for Mason to make any use of the tripod now that he has it, after all.”
Mr. Jephson’s eyes were very small and very clear and very blue, as he said this. His head, as well as his body, had a thin, ferrety look. And it seemed to Clyde, who had been observing and listening to all this with awe, that this younger man might be the one to aid him. He was so shrewd and practical, so very direct and chill and indifferent and yet confidence-inspiring, quite like an uncontrollable machine of a kind which generates power.
And when at last these two were ready to go, he was sorry. For with them near him, planning and plotting in regard to himself, he felt so much safer, stronger, more hopeful, more certain of being free, maybe, at some future date.
Chapter 16
The result of all this, however, was that it was finally decided that perhaps the easiest and safest defense that could be made, assuming that the Griffiths family of Lycurgus would submit to it, would be that of insanity or “brain storm”—a temporary aberration due to love and an illusion of grandeur aroused in Clyde by Sondra Finchley and the threatened disruption by Roberta of all his dreams and plans. But after consultation with Catchuman and Darrah Brookhart at Lycurgus, and these in turn conferring with Samuel and Gilbert Griffiths, it was determined that this would not do. For to establish insanity or “brain storm” would require previous evidence or testimony to the effect that Clyde was of none too sound mind, erratic his whole life long, and with certain specific instances tending to demonstrate how really peculiar he was— relatives (among them the Griffiths of Lycurgus themselves, perhaps), coming on to swear to it—a line of evidence, which, requiring as it would, outright lying and perjury on the part of many as well as reflecting on the Griffiths’ blood and brain, was sufficient to alienate both Samuel and Gilbert to the extent that they would have none of it. And so Brookhart was compelled to assure Belknap that this line of defense would have to be abandoned.
Such being the case, both Belknap and Jephson were once more compelled to sit down and consider. For any other defense which either could think of now seemed positively hopeless.
“I want to tell you one thing!” observed the sturdy Jephson, after thumbing through the letters of both Roberta and Sondra again. “These letters of this Alden girl are the toughest things we’re going to have to face. They’re likely to make any jury cry if they’re read right, and then to introduce those letters from that other girl on top of these would be fatal. It will be better, I think, if we do not mention hers at all, unless he does. It will only make it look as though he had killed that Alden girl to get rid of her. Mason couldn’t want anything better, as I see it.” And with this Belknap agreed most heartily.
At the same time, some plan must be devised immediately. And so, out of these various conferences, it was finally deduced by Jephson, who saw a great opportunity for himself in this matter, that the safest possible defense that could be made, and one to which Clyde’s own suspicious and most peculiar actions would most exactly fit, would be that he had never contemplated murder. On the contrary, being a moral if not a physical coward, as his own story seemed to suggest, and in terror of being exposed and driven out of Lycurgus and of the heart of Sondra, and never as yet having told Roberta of Sondra and thinking that knowledge of this great love for her (Sondra) might influence Roberta to wish to be rid of him, he had hastily and without any worse plan in mind, decided to persuade Roberta to accompany him to any near-by resort