The Interpretation of Murder

Part 4
Chapter Sixteen

I will have to act as if I don't love her, as if I have no feelings for her at all. So I told myself while shaving Thursday morning. At ten-thirty I was to call at the Actons' to resume Nora's analysis. I knew I could have her. But that would be exploitation, manipulation, taking advantage of her therapeutic vulnerability — violating the oath of care I took when I became a doctor.

It is impossible to describe what ideas come to mind when I picture this girl, and I picture her nearly every waking moment. Well, not impossible, but inadvisable. What I literally cannot describe is the hollowness in my lungs when I am out of her presence. It is as if I were dying from the want of her.

I feel like Hamlet, paralyzed. With this difference: I feel I will die if I do not act, while Hamlet feels he will die if he does. For Hamlet, 'to be' is not to act. To take action is to die; it is 'not to be':

To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them. To die…

In other words, 'to be' is merely 'to suffer' one's fate, do nothing and thereby live, while 'not to be' is to act, 'to take arms' and 'die.' Because taking action means death, Hamlet says he knows why he has not acted: the fear of death, his soliloquy concludes, or of something after death,' has made him a coward and 'puzzled' his will.

Thus for Hamlet, 'to be' is stasis, suffering, cowardice, inaction, whereas 'not to be' is linked to courage, enterprise, action. Or so everyone has always understood the speech. But I wonder. Yes, in the end, when at last Hamlet acts against his uncle, he will die. Perhaps he knows this is his fate. But being cannot be equated with inaction. Life and action are too much one. To be cannot mean to do nothing. It cannot. Hamlet is paralyzed because, for him, acting has Somehow been equated with not being — and this false equation, this spurious equivalence, has never been fully understood.

But because of Freud, I can no longer think of Hamlet without thinking of Oedipus, and I fear something similar has begun to afflict my feelings for Miss Acton as well. If Freud is right about Miss Acton wishing to sodomize her own father, I believe I couldn't stand it. I know: this is wholly irrational on my part. If Freud is right, everyone has such wishes. No one can help it, and no one ought to be reviled for it. Nevertheless, the moment I entertain the conjecture in Miss Acton's case, I lose my capacity to love her. I lose my hold on love entirely: how can human beings be loved if we carry within us such repugnant desires?

Thursday morning began in uproar at the Acton house. Nora woke at daybreak, staggered out of bed, threw open her door, and fell headlong over Mr Biggs, who was asleep in his chair just outside her bedroom. The news was spread, the alarm sounded: Miss Acton had been attacked in the night.

The two patrolmen posted outside bumbled up the stairs, then down, storming about, accomplishing little. Dr Higginson was summoned once more. The well- intentioned old doctor, visibly distressed at Nora's having been victimized yet again and embarrassed by the location of her burn, gave the girl a soothing ointment she might apply as needed. He thereupon took his leave, shaking his head, assuring the family that she had suffered no other hurt. More policemen arrived on the scene. Detective Littlemore, who had fallen asleep at his desk the night before, got there at eight.

The detective found Nora and her distraught parents in the girl's bedroom. Uniformed officers were examining the carpeted floor and windows. Littlemore handed his dusting equipment to one of the men and instructed him to see if there were any serviceable fingerprints on the doorknob, bedposts, or windowsill. Nora was perched on a corner of her bed, the unmoving center of the whirlwind, still in her nightgown, hair disheveled, her eyes dazed and uncomprehending. Her statement was taken again and again.

It was George Banwell, she told them every time. It was George Banwell with a cigarette and a knife in the nighttime. Wasn't anyone going to arrest George Banwell? That question provoked anxious protests from Mr and Mrs Acton. It couldn't have been George, they said; it couldn't possibly have been. How could Nora be absolutely sure in the middle of the night?

Littlemore had a problem. He wished he had something else on Banwell other than the girl's evidence. After all, Miss Acton's memory was not exactly rock solid. Worse, even she admitted she couldn't really see the man in her room last night; it had been too dark. What she said, and Littlemore wished she hadn't put it this way, was that she 'could just tell' it was Banwell. If Littlemore had Banwell arrested, the mayor would not be happy. His Honor wouldn't like it if Banwell were so much as picked up- for questioning.

All in all, the detective figured he'd better wait for the mayor's orders. 'If you wouldn't mind, Miss Acton,' he said, 'could I ask you a question?'

'Go ahead,' she said.

'Do you know a William Leon?'

'I'm sorry?'

'William Leon,' said Littlemore. 'Chinaman. Also known as Leon Ling.'

'I know no Chinamen, Detective.'

'Maybe this will jog your memory, miss,' said the detective. From his vest, he withdrew a photograph and handed it to the girl. It was the picture he had removed from Leon's apartment, showing the Chinese man with two young women. One of them was Nora Acton.

'Where did you get this?' the girl asked.

'If you could just tell me who he is, miss,' said Littlemore. 'It's real important. He may be dangerous.'

'I don't know. I never knew. He insisted on having his picture taken with Clara and me.'

'Clara?'

'Clara Banwell,' said Nora. 'That's her there, next to him. He was one of Elsie Sigel's Chinamen.'

Both these names were acutely interesting to Detective Littlemore. Unless William Leon had a penchant for Elsies, he had just identified not only the other woman in the photograph, but the author of the letters found in the trunk — and, quite possibly, the dead girl found along with them.

'Elsie Sigel,' Littlemore repeated.' Could you tell me about her, miss? A Jewish girl?'

'Good heavens, no,' said Nora. 'Elsie did missionary work. You must have heard of the Sigels. Her grandfather was quite famous. There is a statue of him in Riverside Park.'

Littlemore whistled inwardly. General Franz Sigel was indeed famous, a Civil War hero who became a popular New York politician. At his funeral in 1902, more than ten thousand New Yorkers came to pay their respects to the old man, laid out in full-dress uniform. The granddaughters of Civil War generals were not supposed to write amorous letters to the managers of Chinatown restaurants. They were not supposed to write letters to Chinamen at all. He asked how Miss Sigel was connected to William Leon.

Nora told him what little she knew. Last spring, she and Clara had volunteered their services to one of Mr Riis's charitable associations. They had visited tenement families all over the Lower East Side, offering what help they could. One Sunday, in Chinatown, they had come across Elsie Sigel teaching a Bible class. A pupil of hers had a camera. Nora remembered him well, because he was so different from the others — much better dressed and better spoken. Nora had never learned his name, but Elsie seemed to know him well. It was because of his apparent friendship with Elsie that Clara and she felt they could not refuse his persistent requests for a photograph.

'Do you know where Miss Sigel lives, Miss Acton?' asked Littlemore.

'No, but I doubt you would find her at home anyway, Detective,' said Nora. 'Elsie ran away with a young man in July. To Washington, everyone says.'

Littlemore nodded. He thanked Nora; then he asked Mr Acton if there was a telephone he could use. When he got through to headquarters, he left instructions to track down the parents of one Elsie Sigel, granddaughter of General Franz Sigel. If the Sigels confirmed that they had not seen their daughter since July, they were to be taken down to the morgue.

Returning to Nora's bedroom, Littlemore found only Nora and Mrs Biggs within. The last policeman was just leaving the room: he told Littlemore that he hadn't found any prints at all on the windows or bedposts. As for the doorknobs, too many people had been in and out. Mrs Biggs was attempting to restore order to the mess the patrolmen had left; Nora remained exactly as she was when he had left. Littlemore studied the bedroom. 'Miss Acton,' he said, 'how do you think the man got in here last night?'

'Well, he must have — why, I don't know.'

It was, Littlemore reflected, certainly a puzzle. There were only two doors to the Acton house, the front and the back. These had been manned all night long by two sturdy patrolmen, who swore that no one had passed through either one. To be sure, old Biggs had fallen asleep at the switch. This was acknowledged by all parties. But Biggs had smartly positioned his chair right up against the girl's bedroom door; that was why she had fallen over him in the morning. It would have been very difficult for anybody to get past Biggs without disturbing him.

Could the intruder have climbed in through a window? Nora's bedroom was on the second floor. There was no obvious way the man could have scaled the house, and, because her bedroom faced the park, anyone attempting such a feat would have been in plain view of the officer stationed out front. Could he have lowered himself from the roof? It was conceivable. The roof was accessible from the adjacent buildings. But the neighbors swore that their houses had not been broken into last night. Also, it seemed to Littlemore that a large man would have had a pretty hard time squeezing through one of Nora's windows.

It was during Detective Littlemore's inspection of these windows — which showed no sign of human ingress or egress — that cracks began to appear in Nora's story. The first was the discovery, by Mrs Biggs, of an extinguished cigarette buried in Nora's wastepaper basket. The cigarette had lipstick on it. Mrs Biggs seemed very surprised. The detective was too.

'This yours, miss?' he asked.

'Of course not,' said Nora. 'I don't smoke. I don't even own any lipstick.'

'What's that on your lips now?' asked Littlemore.

Nora clapped her hands to her mouth. Only then did she remember seeing Banwell put lipstick on her. Somehow she had forgotten this peculiar fact before. The whole episode was so blurred, so strangely cloudy in her mind. She told the detective what Banwell had done. She said he must have put lipstick on the cigarette too and thrown it into the basket before he left. She did not mention the most peculiar feature of her memory: that she saw Banwell from above rather than below. But she did insist that she owned no makeup at all.

'Mind if I have a look around your room, Miss Acton?' asked Littlemore.

'Your men have been examining my room for the last hour,' she answered.

'Would you mind, miss?'

'All right.'

None of the patrolmen thus far had searched Nora's own belongings. Littlemore did so now. In the lowest drawer of her vanity, he found several cosmetic items, including face powder, a vial of perfume, and a lipstick. There was also a pack of cigarettes.

'Those aren't mine,' said Nora. 'I don't know where they came from.'

Littlemore brought his officers back to the room to conduct a more thorough examination. A few minutes later, on an upper shelf of the girl's closet, hidden under a pile of winter sweaters, a policeman found something unexpected. It was a short, bent-handled whip. Littlemore was unfamiliar with medieval practices of scourging, but even he could see that this particular kind of whip would allow a flogging in hard-to-reach places — such as the back of the flogger.

Good thing we didn't arrest Banwell, thought Jimmy Littlemore.

The detective didn't know what to think, however, when another officer presented him with a discovery from the backyard. The patrolman had climbed the tree to see if it was possible to get from there to the roof. It wasn't possible, but on his way down, the patrolman saw what he thought was a coin: a small, shiny metal circle, glinting deep in a notch of the tree trunk about a foot off the ground. He handed the item to Littlemore: a man's round gold tiepin, monogrammed, with a thread of white silk clinging to its catch. The initials on that tiepin were GB.

Brill was late to breakfast for once. When he appeared, he looked dreadful: unshaven, frightened, one of his collar points sticking up. Rose, he told Freud, Ferenczi, and me, had been insomniac all night. An hour ago, he had given her some laudanum; he had hardly slept himself. He said he needed to speak with us out of public view. We therefore repaired, the four of us, to Freud's room, leaving a message downstairs for Jones and another for Jung — although none of us knew whether Jung was even in the hotel.

'I can't do it,' Brill burst out, when we got to Freud's room. 'I'm sorry, but I just can't. I already told Jelliffe.' He was referring, apparently, to his translation of Freud's book. 'If it were only me, I promise you — but I can't endanger Rose. She's all I have. You see that, don't you?'

We induced him to sit. When he calmed down enough to speak coherently, Brill tried to persuade us that the cinders in his home were connected to the biblical telegrams he had been receiving. 'You saw her,' he said, referring to Rose again. 'They turned her into a pillar of salt. It was in the telegram, and it happened.'

'Someone deliberately delivered ash to your home?' asked Ferenczi. 'Why?'

'As a warning,' answered Brill.

'From whom?' I asked.

'The same people who had Prince arrested in Boston.

The same people who are trying to block Freud's lectures at Clark.'

'They know where you live how?' said Ferenczi.

'How do they know Jones is sleeping with his maid?' was Brill's reply.

'We mustn't jump to conclusions,' said Freud, 'but it is certainly true that someone has acquired a great deal of private information about us.'

Brill slipped an envelope from his vest, from which he withdrew a tiny jagged square of burnt paper, with typing visible on it. A u (with an umlaut) was distinctly visible on it. A space or two to its right was a letter that might have been a capital H. Nothing else was visible.

'I found this in my living room,' said Brill. 'They burned my manuscript. Freud's manuscript. And they put the ashes in my apartment. They will burn the whole building down next time. It's in the telegram: a "rain of fire"; "stop before it is too late." If I publish Freud's book they're going to kill Rose and me.'

Ferenczi remonstrated with him, arguing that his fears were out of all proportion to the events, but Freud interrupted. 'Whatever the explanation, Abraham,' he said, placing a hand on Brill's shoulder, 'let us put the book aside for now. The book can wait. It is not as important to me as you are.'

Brill hung his head and put his own hand over Freud's. I thought he might be about to cry. Just then a porter knocked at the door and entered with coffee and a tray of pastries, which Freud had ordered. Brill straightened up.

He accepted a cup of coffee. He seemed enormously relieved by Freud's last remarks, as if a great burden had been lifted from him. Blowing his nose, he said, in an altogether different tone — his old, familiar, half-serious note — 'It's not me you should be worried about anyway. What about Jung? Are you aware, Freud, that Ferenczi and I believe Jung to be psychotic? It is our considered medical opinion. Tell him, Sandor.'

'Well, psychotic I would not say,' Ferenczi responded. 'But I do see evidence of potential breakdown.'

'Nonsense,' said Freud. 'What evidence?'

'He is hearing voices,' Ferenczi replied. 'He is complaining Brill's floor is soft under feet. Conversation is broken. And is telling everyone he meets that grandfather was falsely accused of murder.'

'I can think of explanations for that other than psychosis,' said Freud. I could see he had something particular in mind, but he didn't elaborate. I was wondering whether to bring up Jung's startling interpretation of Freud's Count Thun dream, but I was concerned that Freud had not divulged it to Brill and Ferenczi. I need not have been.

'And on top of that, he says you dreamt about him ten years ago!' cried Brill. 'The man is mad.'

Freud took a breath and replied. 'Gentlemen, you know as well as I that Jung entertains certain beliefs about clairvoyance and the occult. I am glad you share my skepticism on that subject, but Jung is hardly alone in taking a broader view.'

'A broader view,' said Brill. 'If I took that broad a view, you would tell me I was delusional. He takes a broader view of the Oedipal complex too. He no longer accepts the sexual aetiology, you know.'

'You wish that to be so,' replied Freud calmly, 'so that I will throw him off. Jung accepts the sexual theory without reserve. In fact, he is presenting a case of infantile sexuality at Clark next week.'

'Really? Have you asked him what he intends to say at Fordham?'

Freud did not answer but eyed Brill narrowly.

'Jelliffe told me that he and Jung have been talking it over, and Jung is very concerned about overemphasizing the role of sex in the psychoneuroses. That was his word: overemphasizing.'

'Well, certainly he does not want to overemphasize it,' snapped Freud. 'I don't want to overemphasize it either. Listen to me, both of you. I know you have suffered from Jung's anti-Semitism. He spares me and therefore takes it out with greater energy on you. I also know very well — I assure you — about Jung's difficulties with the sexual theory. But you must remember: it was harder for him to follow me than it was for you. It will be harder for Younger here as well. A Gentile must overcome much greater inner resistance. And Jung is not only a Christian, he is a pastor's son.'

No one said anything, so I ventured an objection. 'I'm sorry, Dr Freud, but why should it matter if one is a Christian or Jew?'

'My boy,' Freud responded gruffly, 'you put me in mind of one of those novels by James's brother; what is his name?'

'Henry, sir?'

'Yes, Henry.' If I imagined Freud was going to say more in answer to my question, I was mistaken. Instead he returned to Ferenczi and Brill. 'You would prefer psychoanalysis to be a Jewish national affair? Of course it is unjust of me to promote Jung, when others have been with me longer. But we Jews must be prepared to endure a certain amount of injustice if we want to make our way in the world. There is no other choice. Had my name been Jones, you can be sure my ideas, despite everything, would have met with far less resistance. Look at Darwin. He disproved Genesis, and he is acclaimed as a hero. Only a Gentile can bring psychoanalysis to the promised land. We must hold Jung to die Sache. All our hopes depend on him.'

The words Freud spoke in German meant the cause. I don't know why he didn't use English. For several minutes no one spoke. We engaged ourselves with the breakfast things. Brill, however, did not eat. He was biting his nails instead. I imagined that there would be no further discussion of Jung, but I was wrong again.

'And what about his disappearances?' asked Brill. 'Jelliffe told me that Jung left the Balmoral no later than midnight Sunday, but the clerk here swears Jung didn't return to the hotel until two. That's two hours unaccounted for after midnight. The next day, Jung claims he was in his room all afternoon napping, but the clerk says he was out until evening. You knocked at Jung's door Monday afternoon, Younger. I did too, long and hard. I don't think he was there at all. Where was he?'

I interrupted. 'I'm sorry. Did you just say Jung was at the Balmoral on Sunday night?'

'That's right,' Brill answered. 'Jelliffe's building. You were there last night.'

'Oh,' I said. 'I didn't realize.'

'Realize what?' asked Brill.

'Nothing,' I said. 'Just an odd coincidence.'

'What coincidence?'

'The other girl — the girl who was murdered — was killed at the Balmoral.' I shifted in my chair uncomfortably. 'On Sunday night. Between midnight and two.'

Brill and Ferenczi looked at each other.

'Gentlemen,' said Freud, 'don't be ridiculous.'

'And Nora was attacked on Monday evening,' Brill pointed out. 'Where?'

'Abraham,' said Freud.

'No one is accusing anyone,' Brill replied innocently, but with an overexcited expression. 'I'm just asking Younger where Nora's house is.'

'On Gramercy Park,' I answered.

'Gentlemen, I will hear no more of this,' Freud declared.

Another knock on the door; Jung himself entered. We exchanged greetings with him — stiffly, as might be expected. Jung, who did not seem to notice our discomfort, spooned sugar into his coffee and inquired whether we had enjoyed our dinner at Jelliffe's.

'Oh, Jung,' Brill broke in, 'you were spotted on Monday.'

'I beg your pardon?' Jung replied.

'You told us,' chided Brill, 'you spent Monday afternoon sleeping in your room. But it turns out you were spotted up and about the town.'

Freud, shaking his head, went to the window. He pushed it farther open.

'I never said I was in my room all Monday afternoon,' Jung answered evenly.

'Strange,' said Brill. 'I would have sworn you did. That reminds me, Jung, we are thinking of visiting Gramercy Park today. I don't suppose you'll join us?'

'I see,' said Jung.

'See what?' asked Brill.

'Why don't you just say it?' Jung retorted.

'I can't imagine what you're talking about,' was Brill's reply. He was deliberately making himself sound like a bad actor unsuccessfully feigning ignorance.

'So: I was observed at Gramercy Park,' replied Jung coldly. 'What are you going to do, report me to the police?' He turned to Freud. 'Well, as it seems your purpose in bringing me here was to interrogate me, you will forgive me if I don't breakfast with you.' He opened the door to let himself out and stared at Brill. 'I am ashamed of nothing.'

Due to the late General Sigel's prominence, the police had no difficulty locating his granddaughter Elsie's address. She lived with her parents on Wadsworth Avenue near 180th

Street. An officer from the Washington Heights station, dispatched to the house, escorted Mr and Mrs Sigel, together with their niece Mabel, to the Van den Heuvel building. There, in a waiting room outside the morgue, they met Detective Littlemore.

He learned from them that the nineteen-year-old Elsie had indeed gone missing almost a month ago, never returning from a trip to visit Grandmother Ellie in Brooklyn. In the first days after her disappearance, the Sigels had received a telegram from Elsie in Washington, D. C, indicating that she was there with a young man, evidently married to him. She begged her parents not to worry about her, assured them she was fine, and promised to be home by autumn. The parents had kept this wire, which they showed to the detective. The telegram had indeed been sent from a hotel in the capital, and Elsie's name was at the bottom, but there was of course no way to verify that she was the sender. Mr Sigel had not yet contacted the police, hoping to hear again from his daughter and anxious to avoid a scandal.

Littlemore showed the Sigels the letters from William Leon's trunk. They recognized the handwriting. The detective next showed them the silver pendant found on the dead girl and the hat with the bird on it. Neither Mr nor Mrs Sigel had ever seen these objects before — and indeed positively stated they did not belong to Elsie — but Mabel contradicted them. The pendant was hers; she had given it to Elsie in June.

Littlemore, drawing Mr Sigel aside, told the father he had better have a look at the body found in Leon's apartment. Downstairs in the morgue, Mr Sigel could not at first identify the corpse; it was too decayed. Somberly, he told the detective he would know the truth if he looked at the teeth; his daughter's left eye tooth pointed the wrong way. And so did that of the small decomposing body lying on the marble slab. 'It's her,' said Mr Sigel quietly.

When the two men returned to the waiting room, Mr Sigel cast a stony and accusing eye on his wife. The woman must have understood; she fell into convulsions. It took a long time to quiet her. Then her husband told the story.

Mrs Sigel did the Lord's work in Chinatown. For years she had toiled to convert the heathen Chinamen to Christianity. Last December, she had begun bringing Elsie with her to the mission house. Elsie had taken to the work with a passion that delighted her mother but disturbed her father. Despite Mr Sigel's strong disapproval, the girl was soon eagerly traveling on her own to Chinatown several times a week and teaching her own Sunday Bible classes. One of her most avid pupils, Mr Sigel recalled bitterly, had dared to call at their house a few months ago. Mr Sigel did not know his name. Littlemore showed him a photograph of William Leon; the father shut his eyes and nodded.

After the Sigels left the morgue, to endure as they might both their misery and their notoriety — newspapermen were already waiting outside — Detective Littlemore wondered where Mr Hugel was. Littlemore had assumed the coroner would have wanted to conduct the autopsy himself and to hear the Sigels' evidence. But the coroner was absent. Instead, one of his assistant physicians, Dr O'Hanlon, had examined the body. He informed Littlemore that Miss Sigel had been strangled to death, that she had been dead three to four weeks — and that Coroner Hugel was upstairs in his office, professing a complete lack of interest in the case.