An American Tragedy III. Теодор Драйзер

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ under which previously she had worked, and what she had received, and what she had done with the money – a humble story which he was quite able to appreciate.

      Arriving at Lycurgus with Titus by his side, he made his way as quickly as possible to the Lycurgus House, where he took a room for the father in order that he might rest. And after that to the office of the local district attorney, from whom he must obtain authority to proceed, as well as an officer who would execute his will for him here. And then being supplied with a stalwart detective in plain clothes, he proceeded to Clyde’s room in Taylor Street, hoping against hope that he might find him there. But Mrs. Peyton appearing and announcing that Clyde lived there but that at present he was absent (having gone the Tuesday before to visit friends at Twelfth Lake, she believed), he was rather painfully compelled to announce, first, that he was the district attorney of Cataraqui County, and, next, that because of certain suspicious circumstances in connection with the drowning of a girl in Big Bittern, with whom they had reason to believe that Clyde was at the time, they would now be compelled to have access to his room, a statement which so astonished Mrs. Peyton that she fell back, an expression of mixed amazement, horror, and unbelief overspreading her features.

      “Not Mr. Clyde Griffiths! Oh, how ridiculous! Why, he’s the nephew of Mr. Samuel Griffiths and very well known here. I’m sure they can tell you all about him at their residence, if you must know. But anything like – oh, impossible!” And she looked at both Mason and the local detective who was already displaying his official badge, as though she doubted both their honesty and authority.

      At the same time, the detective, being all too familiar with such circumstances, had already placed himself beyond Mrs. Peyton at the foot of the stairs leading to the floor above. And Mason now drew from his pocket a writ of search, which he had been careful to secure.

      “I am sorry, Madam, but I am compelled to ask you to show us his room. This is a search warrant and this officer is here at my direction.” And at once struck by the futility of contending with the law, she now nervously indicated Clyde’s room, feeling still that some insane and most unfair and insulting mistake was being made.

      But the two having proceeded to Clyde’s room, they began to look here and there. At once both noted one small and not very strong trunk, locked and standing in one corner, which Mr. Faunce, the detective, immediately began to lift to decide upon its weight and strength, while Mason began to examine each particular thing in the room – the contents of all drawers and boxes, as well as the pockets of all clothes. And in the chiffonier drawers, along with some discarded underwear and shirts and a few old invitations from the Trumbulls, Starks, Griffiths, and Harriets, he now found a memorandum sheet which Clyde had carried home from his desk and on which he had written: “Wednesday, Feb. 20th, dinner at Starks” – and below that, “Friday, 22nd, Trumbulls” – and this handwriting Mason at once compared with that on the card in his pocket, and being convinced by the similarity that he was in the room of the right man, he took the invitations and then looked toward the trunk which the detective was now contemplating.

      “What about this, chief? Will you take it away or open it here?”

      “I think,” said Mason solemnly, “we’d better open that right here, Faunce. I’ll send for it afterwards, but I want to see what’s in it now.” And at once the detective extracted from his pocket a heavy chisel, while he began looking around for a hammer.

      “It isn’t very strong,” he said, “I think I can kick it open if you say so.”

      At this point, Mrs. Peyton, most astounded by these developments, and anxious to avoid any such rough procedure, exclaimed: “You can have a hammer if you wish, but why not wait and send for a key man? Why, I never heard of such a thing in all my life.”

      However, the detective having secured the hammer and jarred the lock loose, there lay revealed in a small top crate various unimportant odds and ends of Clyde’s wardrobe – socks, collars, ties, a muffler, suspenders, a discarded sweater, a pair of not too good high-top winter shoes, a cigarette holder, a red lacquer ash tray, and a pair of skates. But in addition among these, in the corner in one compact bundle, the final fifteen letters of Roberta, written him from Biltz, together with a small picture of herself given him the year before, as well as another small bundle consisting of all the notes and invitations written him by Sondra up to the time she had departed for Pine Point, The letters written from there Clyde had taken with him – laid next his heart. And, even more incriminating, a third bundle, consisting of eleven letters from his mother, the first two addressed to Harry Tenet, care of general delivery, Chicago – a most suspicious circumstance on the surface – whereas the others of the bundle were addressed to Clyde Griffiths, not only care of the Union League, Chicago, but to Lycurgus.

      Without waiting further to see what else the trunk might contain, the district attorney began opening these and reading – first three from Roberta, after which the reason she had gone to Biltz was made perfectly plain – then the three first letters from his mother, on most pathetically commonplace stationery, as he could see, hinting at the folly of the life as well as the nature of the accident that had driven him from Kansas City, and at the same time advising him most solicitously and tenderly as to the proper path for his feet in the future, the general effect of which was to convey to a man of Mason’s repressed temperament and limited social experience the impression that from the very beginning this individual had been of a loose, wayward and errant character.

      At the same time, and to his surprise, he now learned that except for what his rich uncle might have done for him here, Clyde was obviously of a poor, as well as highly religious, branch of the Griffiths family, and while ordinarily this might have influenced him in Clyde’s favor a little, still now, in view of the notes of Sondra, as well as the pathetic letters of Roberta and his mother’s reference to some earlier crime in Kansas City, he was convinced that not only was Clyde of such a disposition as could plot such a crime but also one who could execute it in cold blood. That crime in Kansas City. He must wire the district attorney there for particulars.

      And with this thought in mind, he now scanned more briefly but none the less sharply and critically the various notes or invitations or love messages from Sondra, all on heavily perfumed and monogrammed stationery, which grew more and more friendly and intimate as the correspondence progressed, until toward the last they invariably began:

      “Clydie–Mydie,” or “Sweetest Black Eyes,” or “My sweetest boy,” and were signed “Sonda,” or “Your own Sondra.” And some of them dated so recently as May 10th, May 15th, May 26th, or up to the very time at which, as he instantly noted, Roberta’s most doleful letters began to arrive.

      It was all so plain, now. One secretly betrayed girl in the background while he had the effrontery to ingratiate himself into the affections of another, this time obviously one of much higher social position here.

      Although fascinated and staggered by this interesting development, he at the same time realized that this was no hour in which to sit meditating. Far from it. This trunk must be transferred at once to his hotel. Later he must go forth to find out, if he could, exactly where this individual was, and arrange for his capture. And while he ordered the detective to call up the police department and arrange for the transfer of the trunk to his room at the Lycurgus House, he hurried next to the residence of Samuel Griffiths, only to learn that no member of the family was then in the city. They were all at Greenwood Lake. But a telephone message to that place brought the information that in so far as they knew, this same Clyde Griffiths, their nephew, was at the Cranston lodge on Twelfth Lake, near Sharon, adjoining the Finchley lodge. The name Finchley, together with the town of Sharon, being already identified in Mason’s mind with Clyde, he at once decided that if he were still anywhere in this region, he would be there – at the summer home perhaps of this girl who had written him the various notes and invitations he had seen – this Sondra Finchley. Also had not the captain of the “Cygnus” declared that he had seen the youth who had come down from Three Mile Bay СКАЧАТЬ