“Yes, sir — a little.”
“But just why did you always use your own initials — C. G.?”
“Well, I thought that the initials on my bag should be the same as the initials on the register, and still not be my name either.”
“I see.
Clever in one sense, not so clever in another — just half clever, which is the worst of all.”
At this Mason half rose in his seat as though to object, but evidently changing his mind, sank slowly back again.
And once more Jephson’s right eye swiftly and inquiringly swept the jury to his right.
“Well, did you finally explain to her that you wanted to be done with it all as you had planned — or did you not?”
“I wanted to talk to her about it just after we got there if I could — the next morning, anyhow — but just as soon as we got off up there and got settled she kept saying to me that if I would only marry her then — that she would not want to stay married long — that she was so sick and worried and felt so bad — that all she wanted to do was to get through and give the baby a name, and after that she would go away and let me go my way, too.”
“And then?”
“Well, and then — then we went out on the lake —”
“Which lake, Clyde?”
“Why, Grass Lake.
We went out for a row after we got there.”
“Right away?
In the afternoon?”
“Yes, sir.
She wanted to go.
And then while we were out there rowing around —” (He paused.)
“She got to crying again, and she seemed so much up against it and looked so sick and so worried that I decided that after all she was right and I was wrong — that it wouldn’t be right, on account of the baby and all, not to marry her, and so I thought I had better do it.”
“I see.
A change of heart.
And did you tell her that then and there?”
“No, sir.”
“And why not?
Weren’t you satisfied with the trouble you had caused her so far?”
“Yes, sir.
But you see just as I was going to talk to her at that time I got to thinking of all the things I had been thinking before I came up.”
“What, for instance?”
“Why, Miss X and my life in Lycurgus, and what we’d be up against in case we did go away this way.”
“Yes.”
“And . . . well . . . and then I couldn’t just tell her then — not that day, anyhow.”
“Well, when did you tell her then?”
“Well, I told her not to cry any more — that I thought maybe it would be all right if she gave me twenty-four hours more to think things all out — that maybe we’d be able to settle on something.”
“And then?”
“Well, then she said after a while that she didn’t care for Grass Lake.
She wished we would go away from there.”
“SHE did?”
“Yes.
And then we got out the maps again and I asked a fellow at the hotel there if he knew about the lakes up there.
And he said of all the lakes around there Big Bittern was the most beautiful.
I had seen it once, and I told Roberta about it and what the man said, and then she asked why didn’t we go there.”
“And is that why you went there?”
“Yes, sir”
“No other reason?”
“No, sir — none — except that it was back, or south, and we were going that way anyhow.”
“I see.
And that was Thursday, July eighth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, now, Clyde, as you have seen, it has been charged here that you took Miss Alden to and out on that lake with the sole and premeditated intent of killing her — murdering her — finding some unobserved and quiet spot and then first striking her with your camera, or an oar, or club, or stone maybe, and then drowning her.