An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser — Read

In connection with the autopsy and its results there was a decided set-back. For while the joint report of the five doctors showed: "An injury to the mouth and nose; the tip of the nose appears to have been slightly flattened, the lips swollen, one front tooth slightly loosened, and an abrasion of the mucous membrane within the lips"--all agreed that these injuries were by no means fatal. The chief injury was to the skull (the very thing which Clyde in his first confession had maintained), which appeared to have been severely bruised by a blow of "some sharp instrument, " unfortunately in this instance, because of the heaviness of the blow of the boat, "signs of fracture and internal haemorrhage which might have produced death."

But--the lungs when placed in water, sinking--an absolute proof that Roberta could not have been dead when thrown into the water, but alive and drowning, as Clyde had maintained. And no other signs of violence or struggle, although her arms and fingers appeared to be set in such a way as to indicate that she might have been reaching or seeking to grasp something. The wale of the boat? Could that be? Might Clyde's story, after all, conceal a trace of truth? Certainly these circumstances seemed to favor him a little. Yet as Mason and the others agreed, all these circumstances most distinctly seemed to prove that although he might not have slain her outright before throwing her into the water, none the less he had struck her and then had thrown her, perhaps unconscious, into the water.