“But wasn’t it thoroughly soaked?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, where was it cleaned and pressed afterward?”
“In Sharon.”
“In Sharon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“By a tailor there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What tailor?”
Alas, Clyde could not remember.
“Then you wore it crumpled and wet, did you, from Big Bittern to Sharon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And no one noticed it, of course.”
“Not that I remember — no.”
“Not that you remember, eh?
Well, we’ll see about that later,” and deciding that unquestionably Clyde was a plotter and a murderer. Also that eventually he could make Clyde show where he had hidden the suit or had had it cleaned. Next there was the straw hat found on the lake.
What about that?
By admitting that the wind had blown his hat off, Clyde had intimated that he had worn a hat on the lake, but not necessarily the straw hat found on the water.
But now Mason was intent on establishing within hearing of these witnesses, the ownership of the hat found on the water as well as the existence of a second hat worn later.
“That straw hat of yours that you say the wind blew in the water?
You didn’t try to get that either at the time, did you?”
“No, sir.”
“Didn’t think of it, I suppose, in the excitement?”
“No, sir.”
“But just the same, you had another straw hat when you went down through the woods there.
Where did you get that one?”
And Clyde, trapped and puzzled by this pausing for the fraction of a second, frightened and wondering whether or not it could be proved that this second straw hat he was wearing was the one he had worn through the woods. Also whether the one on the water had been purchased in Utica, as it had.
And then deciding to lie.
“But I didn’t have another straw hat.”
Without paying any attention to that, Mason reached over and took the straw hat on Clyde’s head and proceeded to examine the lining with its imprint — Stark & Company, Lycurgus.
“This one has a lining, I see.
Bought this in Lycurgus, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When?”
“Oh, back in June.”
“But still you’re sure now it’s not the one you wore down through the woods that night?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, where was it then?”
And Clyde once more pausing like one in a trap and thinking: My God!
How am I to explain this now?
Why did I admit that the one on the lake was mine?
Yet, as instantly recalling that whether he had denied it or not, there were those at Grass Lake and Big Bittern who would remember that he had worn a straw hat on the lake, of course.
“Where was it then?” insisted Mason.
And Clyde at last saying:
“Oh, I was up here once before and wore it then. I forgot it when I went down the last time but I found it again the other day.”
“Oh, I see.
Very convenient, I must say.”
He was beginning to believe that he had a very slippery person to deal with indeed — that he must think of his traps more shrewdly, and at the same time determining to summon the Cranstons and every member of the Bear Lake party in order to discover, whether any recalled Clyde not wearing a straw hat on his arrival this time, also whether he had left a straw hat the time before.
He was lying, of course, and he would catch him.
And so no real peace for Clyde at any time between there and Bridgeburg and the county jail.