How was it that you had so much pity all of a sudden up at Big Bittern, but none at all down there at Lycurgus?
Is it something you can turn on and off like a faucet?”
“I never said I had none at all,” replied Clyde, defiantly, having just received an eye-flash from Jephson.
“Well, you left her to wait until she had to threaten you because of her own terror and misery.”
“Well, I’ve admitted that I didn’t treat her right.”
“Ha, ha!
Right! RIGHT!
And because of that admission and in face of all the other testimony we’ve had here, your own included, you expect to walk out of here a free man, do you?”
Belknap was not to be restrained any longer.
His objection came — and with bitter vehemence he addressed the judge:
“This is infamous, your Honor.
Is the district attorney to be allowed to make a speech with every question?”
“I heard no objection,” countered the court.
“The district attorney will frame his questions properly.”
Mason took the rebuke lightly and turned again to Clyde.
“In that boat there in the center of Big Bittern you have testified that you had in your hand that camera that you once denied owning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And she was in the stern of the boat?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring in that boat, will you, Burton?” he called to Burleigh at this point, and forthwith four deputies from the district attorney’s office retired through a west door behind the judge’s rostrum and soon returned carrying the identical boat in which Clyde and Roberta had sat, and put it down before the jury.
And as they did so Clyde chilled and stared.
The identical boat!
He blinked and quivered as the audience stirred, stared and strained, an audible wave of curiosity and interest passing over the entire room.
And then Mason, taking the camera and shaking it up and down, exclaimed:
“Well, here you are now, Griffiths!
The camera you never owned.
Step down here into this boat and take this camera here and show the jury just where you sat, and where Miss Alden sat.
And exactly, if you can, how and where it was that you struck Miss Alden and where and about how she fell.”
“Object!” declared Belknap.
A long and wearisome legal argument, finally terminating in the judge allowing this type of testimony to be continued for a while at least.
And at the conclusion of it, Clyde declaring:
“I didn’t intentionally strike her with it though”— to which Mason replied:
“Yes, we heard you testify that way”— then Clyde stepping down and after being directed here and there finally stepping into the boat at the middle seat and seating himself while three men held it straight.
“And now, Newcomb — I want you to come here and sit wherever Miss Alden was supposed to sit and take any position which he describes as having been taken by her.”
“Yes, sir,” said Newcomb, coming forward and seating himself while Clyde vainly sought to catch Jephson’s eye but could not since his own back was partially turned from him.
“And now, Griffiths,” went on Mason, “just you show Mr. Newcomb here how Miss Alden arose and came toward you.
Direct him.”
And then Clyde, feeling weak and false and hated, arising again and in a nervous and angular way — the eerie strangeness of all this affecting him to the point of unbelievable awkwardness — attempting to show Newcomb just how Roberta had gotten up and half walked and half crawled, then had stumbled and fallen.
And after that, with the camera in his hand, attempting to show as nearly as he could recall, how unconsciously his arm had shot out and he had struck Roberta, he scarcely knowing where — on the chin and cheek maybe, he was not sure, but not intentionally, of course, and not with sufficient force really to injure her, he thought at the time.
But just here a long wrangle between Belknap and Mason as to the competency of such testimony since Clyde declared that he could not remember clearly — but Oberwaltzer finally allowing the testimony on the ground that it would show, relatively, whether a light or heavy push or blow was required in order to upset any one who might be “lightly” or “loosely” poised.
“But how in Heaven’s name are these antics as here demonstrated on a man of Mr. Newcomb’s build to show what would follow in the case of a girl of the size and weight of Miss Alden?” persisted Belknap.
“Well, then we’ll put a girl of the size and weight of Miss Alden in here.”
And at once calling for Zillah Saunders and putting her in Newcomb’s place.
But Belknap none-the-less proceeding with:
“And what of that?
The conditions aren’t the same.
This boat isn’t on the water.
No two people are going to be alike in their resistance or their physical responses to accidental blows.”
“Then you refuse to allow this demonstration to be made?” (This was from Mason, turning and cynically inquiring.)
“Oh, make it if you choose.