The Interpretation of Murder

Chapter Seventeen

The exquisite Clara Banwell, clad in a green dress matching her eyes, was undressing the equally exquisite, near desperate Nora Acton — quieting her, comforting her, reassuring her. Arriving at the house shortly after Littlemore's departure, Clara had gracefully ushered everyone out of Nora's bedroom, police and family alike. When Nora was naked, Clara drew her a cool bath and helped her step in. Nora, sobbing, begged Clara to let her speak: so many horrible things had happened.

Clara put two fingers to Nora's lips. 'Hush,' she said. 'Don't speak, darling. Close your eyes.'

Nora obeyed. Gently Clara bathed the girl, washed her hair, and dabbed her healing wounds with a smooth wet cloth.

'They don't believe me,' said Nora, holding back tears.

'I know. It's all right.' Clara tried to soothe the distraught girl. She asked Mrs Biggs, who was hovering anxiously in the hallway, to bring the ointment Dr Higginson left.

'Clara?'

'Yes.'

'Why didn't you come earlier?'

'Shh,' answered Clara, cooling Nora's brow. 'I'm here now.'

Later, after the bathwater drained away, Nora lay in the tub, her torso now draped with a white towel, her eyes closed. 'What are you doing to me, Clara?' she asked.

'Shaving you. We need to, to clean this awful burn. Besides, it will be prettier like this.' Clara placed Nora's hand protectively over the girl's most delicate spot. 'There,' she said. 'Press down, darling.' Clara placed her own strong hand atop Nora's, keeping a firm pressure and shifting position every now and then, so that she could do her work. 'Nora, George was with me all last night. The police asked me, and I had to tell them. You must tell them now. Otherwise they are going to take you away. They are already making arrangements with a sanatorium.'

'I shouldn't mind a sanatorium,' said Nora.

'Don't be silly. Wouldn't you rather come with me to the country? That is what we will do, darling. You and I, all by ourselves, just as we like. We can talk it all out there.' Clara finished her razor strokes. She applied to Nora's burn the soothing balm left by the doctor. 'But you must tell them.'

'What must I say?'

'Why, that you did all this to yourself. You were so angry at all of us: George, your mother and father, even me. You were trying to get back at us.'

'No, I could never be angry at you.'

'Oh, darling, nor I at you.' Clara turned her attention to the two lacerations on Nora's thighs. To these too she applied the doctor's ointment, moving her fingers in gentle circles. 'But you must tell them now. Tell them how sorry you are for everything. You will feel so much easier. And then you can come away with me for as long as you want.'

Even the coroner, a man of mercurial temperament, rarely passed from fury to exultation to despondency as quickly as he did when listening to Detective Littlemore's report of the events at the Acton house earlier that morning.

Littlemore had tried to interest the coroner in Elsie Sigel, but Hugel brushed the subject aside. The coroner had only heard about the hue and cry at the Actons' by accident, from one of the messenger boys. Hence his anger: why had they informed Littlemore but not himself? Then, hearing Nora's story, Hugel let out whoops of 'Ha!' and 'Now we have him!' and 'I told you, didn't I?' Finally, learning of the discovery of the lipstick, cigarettes, and whip secreted in the girl's bedroom, he slumped back into his chair.

'It's over,' said Hugel quietly. His face began to darken. 'The girl must be put away.'

'No, wait, Mr Hugel. Listen to this.' Littlemore told the coroner about the discovery of the tiepin.

Hugel barely registered the news. 'Too little, too late,' he said bitterly. He grunted in disgust. 'I believed everything she said. The girl must be put away, do you hear me?'

'You think she's crazy.'

The coroner took a deep breath. 'I congratulate you, Detective, on your razor-sharp logic. The Riverford-Acton case is now closed. Inform the mayor. I am not speaking to him.'

The detective blinked uncomprehendingly. 'You can't close the case, Mr Hugel.'

'There is no case,' said the coroner. 'I cannot prosecute a murder without a corpus delicti. Do you understand? No murder without a body. And I cannot prosecute an assault without an assault. Shall we indict Miss Acton for criminal assault on her own person?'

'Wait, Mr Hugel, I didn't even tell you. Remember the black-haired man? I found out where he went. First he goes to the Hotel Manhattan — how about that? — and then he goes to a cathouse on Fortieth Street. So I go to this cathouse myself, and the lady inside tips me off to Harry Thaw, who — '

'What are you talking about, Littlemore?'

'Harry Thaw, the guy who murdered Stanford White.'

'I know who Harry Thaw is,' said the coroner, with considerable self-restraint.

'You're not going to believe this, Mr Hugel, but if the Chinaman's not the killer, I think Harry Thaw might be our guy.'

'Harry Thaw.'

'He got off, remember? Beat the rap,' said Littlemore. 'Well, at his trial, there was this affidavit from his wife, and — '

'Are you going to bring Harry Houdini into it as well?'

'Houdini? Houdini s the escape artist, Mr Hugel.'

'I know who Houdini is,' said the coroner, very quietly.

'Why would I bring him into it?' asked Littlemore.

'Because Harry Thaw is in a locked cell, Detective. He did not beat the rap. He is incarcerated at the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.'

'He is? I thought he got out. But then — then he can't be the guy.'

'No.'

'I don't get it. This lady at the house where the blackhaired man went — '

'Forget the black-haired man!' the coroner exploded. 'No one listens to me in any event. I write a report; no one reads it. I decide on an arrest; my decision is ignored. I am closing the case.'

'But the threads,' Littlemore answered. 'The hairs. The injuries. You said so, Mr Hugel, you said so yourself.'

'What did I say?'

'You said the same guy who killed Miss Riverford attacked Nora Acton. You said there was proof. That means Miss Acton didn't cook it all up. There was an assault, Mr Hugel. There is a case. Somebody attacked Miss Acton on Monday.'

'What I said, Detective, was that the physical evidence was consistent with the assailant being the same person in both cases, not that it was proof. Read my report.'

'You don't think Miss Acton — you don't think she whipped herself, do you?'

The coroner stared straight ahead with his morose, sleepless eyes. 'Disgusting,' he said.

'But how about the tiepin? You said there was a tiepin with Banwell's initials on it. It's exactly what you were looking for, Mr Hugel.'

'Littlemore, don't you have ears? You heard Riviere. The impression on Elizabeth Riverford's neck was not GB. I made a mistake,' Hugel muttered angrily. 'I made one mistake after another.'

'So what's it doing there — the pin, in the tree?'

'How should I know?' yelled Hugel. 'Why don't you ask her? We have nothing. Nothing. Only that infernal girl. No jury in the country would believe her now. She probably put the pin in the tree herself. She is — she is psychopathic. They must put her away.'

Sandor Ferenczi, smiling and nodding encouragingly, backed himself toward the door of Jung's hotel room like a courtier withdrawing from the royal presence. He had, with some trepidation, conveyed Freud's request to see Jung alone.

'Say that I will call on him in ten minutes,' Jung had answered. 'With pleasure.'

Ferenczi had expected an implacable Swiss in high umbrage, not the serene Jung who had greeted him. Ferenczi would have to inform Freud that Jung's change of temperament struck him as peculiar. More than that, he would have to tell Freud what Jung was doing.

Hundreds of pebbles and small stones, together with an armful of broken twigs and torn-up grass, were strewn about the floor of Jung's room. Ferenczi could not imagine where it had all come from: possibly from empty lots undergoing construction, which seemed ubiquitous in New York. Jung himself was sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing with these materials. He had pushed all the hotel furniture — armchairs, lamps, coffee table — out of the way, clearing a large empty space on the floor. In this space, he had built a village of stones, with dozens of tiny houses surrounding a castle. Each house had its own little plot of tufted grass behind it: perhaps a vegetable garden or backyard. In the center of the castle, Jung was trying to implant a forked twig with long blades of grass tied to it, but he could not make this standard stay upright. That was why, Ferenczi guessed, Jung needed another ten minutes before he could come. Assuming, Ferenczi added to himself, that the delay had nothing to do with the service revolver lying on Jung's bedside table.

It is surely impossible for a house to wear an expression, but I would have sworn otherwise as I neared the Actons' limestone townhouse on Gramercy Park late Thursday morning. Before anyone answered the door, I knew something was amiss within.

Mrs Biggs let me in. The woman was literally wringing her hands. In an anguished whisper, she told me it was all her fault. She was just tidying up, she said. She would never have shown it to anyone if she had known.

Gradually Mrs Biggs calmed down, and I learned from her all the dreadful events of the previous night, including the discovery of the telltale cigarette. At least, Mrs Biggs added with relief, Mrs Banwell was now upstairs. It was plain that the old servant regarded Clara Banwell as capable of taking matters in hand more competently than the girl's own mother or father. Mrs Biggs left me in the sitting room. Fifteen minutes later, Clara Banwell entered.

Mrs Banwell was dressed to leave. She wore a simple hat with a diaphanous veil and carried a closed parasol that must have been quite expensive, judging by its iridescent handle. 'Forgive me, Dr Younger,' she said. 'I don't want to delay your seeing Nora. But could I have a word with you before I go?'

As she removed her hat and veil, I could not help noticing the length and thickness of her eyelashes, behind which sparkled her knowing eyes. She was not one of Mrs Wharton's dryads 'subdued to the conventions of the drawing-room.' Rather, the conventions lit her up. It was as if all our fashions had been chosen to show off her body, her ivory skin, her green eyes. I could make nothing of her expression; she managed to look both proud and vulnerable.

'Certainly, Mrs Banwell.'

'I know now what Nora has told you,' she said. 'About me. I didn't know last night.'

'I'm sorry,' I replied. 'It is the unenviable hazard of being a doctor.'

'Do you assume your patients tell the truth?'

I said nothing.

'Well, in this case it is true,' she said. 'Nora saw me with her father, just as she described it to you. But since you know that much, I want you to know the rest. I did not act without my husband's knowledge.'

'I assure you, Mrs Banwell — '

'Please don't. You think I am trying to justify myself.' She picked up a photograph from the mantel: it was of Nora at thirteen or fourteen. 'I am far past self-justification, Doctor. What I wish to tell you is for Nora's sake, not my own. I remember when they moved back into this house. George rebuilt it for them. She was shockingly attractive, even then. And only fourteen. One felt the goddesses had for once put aside their differences and made her together as a present for Zeus. I am childless, Doctor.'

'I see.'

'Do you? I am childless because my husband will not allow me to bear. He says it would spoil my figure. We have never had — ordinary — sexual congress, my husband and I. Not once. He will not allow it.'

'Perhaps he is impotent.'

'George?' She looked amused at the thought.

'It is hard to believe a man would voluntarily restrain himself under the circumstances.'

'I believe you are complimenting me, Doctor. Well, George does not restrain himself. He causes me to gratify him in — a different fashion. For ordinary congress, he has recourse to other women. My husband wants many of the young women he meets, and he gets. them. He wanted Nora. As it happened, Nora's father wanted me. George saw a way, therefore, to obtain what he wanted. He obliged me to seduce Harcourt Acton. Of course I was not permitted to do with Harcourt what was forbidden with my own husband. Hence what Nora saw.'

'Your husband believed he could make Acton prostitute his own daughter?'

'Harcourt was not required actually to hand Nora over, Doctor. All my husband needed was for Harcourt to feel that his own happiness was so dependent on me that he would be averse, deeply averse, to any rift coming between his family and ours. That way, when the time came, he would turn a blind eye and a deaf ear.'

I understood. After Mrs Banwell entered into relations with Mr Acton, George Banwell made his first advance on Nora. His strategy evidently worked. When Nora protested to her father and begged him to send Banwell away, Mr Acton chose to disbelieve and scold her — just as if, Nora had told me, she had done something wrong. And she had: she had threatened his precious arrangement with Mrs Banwell.

'You must think what it is like,' Mrs Banwell added, 'for a man such as Harcourt Acton to be offered what he has only dreamed of — indeed, what he never had the courage even to dream of. I truly believe the man would have done anything I asked.'

I felt a peculiar pressure just below my sternum. 'Did your husband get what he wanted?'

'Are you asking for professional reasons, Doctor?'

'Of course.'

'Of course. The answer, I believe, is no. Not yet, at any rate.' She returned the photograph of Nora to its place on the mantel, beside a picture of the girl's parents. 'In any event, Doctor, Nora is aware that I am — unhappy — in my marriage. I believe she is now trying to rescue me.'

'How?'

'Nora has a very fertile imagination. You must remember: even though to your man's eyes, Nora looks like a woman, a prize ready to be possessed, she is still just a child. A child whose parents have never had the slightest understanding of her. An only child. Nora has lived almost all her life in a world of her own.'

'You said she was trying to rescue you. How?'

'She may believe she can bring George down by telling the police he attacked her. She may even believe he did. Possibly we have overwhelmed the poor thing, and she is suffering from a delusion.'

'Or possibly your husband did attack her.'

'I don't say he is incapable of it. Far from it. My husband is capable of nearly anything. But in this case, it happens he didn't. George came home last night just after I returned from the party. It was eleven-thirty. Nora says she did not go to her room until quarter to twelve.'

'Your husband might have left home in the night, Mrs Banwell.'

'Yes, I know, he might well have on another night, but last night he didn't. He was too busy, you see, having his way with me. All night long.' She smiled, a very small, ironic, perfect smile, and rubbed one of her wrists unconsciously. Her long sleeves concealed her wrists, but she saw me looking. She took a deep breath. 'You might as well see.'

She came very near me, so near I became aware of the diamonds glinting in her earlobes and the fragrant smell of her hair. She pushed up her sleeves a little and revealed a painful rawness, of fresh origin, on both wrists. I have heard there are men who bind women for pleasure. I cannot be sure this was the meaning of the bruised skin Mrs Banwell showed me, but certainly it was the picture that came to mind.

She laughed lightly. The sound was wry, not bitter. 'I am a fallen woman, Doctor, and at the same time a virgin. Have you ever heard of such a thing?'

'Mrs Banwell, I am not a lawyer, but I believe you have more than ample grounds for divorce. Indeed, you may not be legally married at all, since there was never consummation.'

'Divorce? You don't know George. He would sooner kill me than let me go.' She smiled again. I could not help imagining what it would feel like to kiss her. 'And who would have me, Doctor, even if I could get away? What man would touch me, knowing what I have done?'

'Any man,' I said.

'You are kind, but you are lying.' She looked up at me. 'You are lying cruelly. You could be touching me right now. But you never would.'

I gazed down at her flawless, irredeemably charming features. 'No, Mrs Banwell, I never would. But not for the reasons you say.'

At that moment, Nora Acton appeared at the door.

Detective Littlemore's stride, after his interview with the coroner, lacked its customary snappiness. The news that Harry Thaw was still locked up in an asylum had come as a blow to him. Ever since he read the Thaw transcript, Littlemore had imagined that this case might be bigger than anybody realized and he might be on the verge of breaking it open. Now he didn't know if there was a case at all.

The detective had formed a high opinion of Mr Hugel, despite all his outbursts and idiosyncracies. Littlemore felt sure Hugel could solve the case. The police weren't supposed to just give up. The coroner in particular wasn't supposed to. He was too smart.

Littlemore believed in the police force. He had been on it for eight years, ever since he lied about his age in order to become a junior beat patrolman. It was the first real job he ever had, and he stuck to it. He loved living in the police barracks when he first joined up. He loved eating with the other cops, listening to their stories. He knew there were some rotten apples, but he thought they were the exceptions. If you told him, for example, that his hero Sergeant Becker shook down every brothel and casino in the Tenderloin for protection money, Littlemore would have thought you were pulling his leg. If you told him the new police commissioner wanted in on the game, he would have said you were crazy. In short, the detective looked up to his superiors on the force, and Hugel had let him down.

But Littlemore never turned against someone who disappointed him. His reaction was the opposite. He wanted to bring the coroner back on board. He needed to find something that would convince the coroner the case was still alive. Hugel had been certain that Banwell was the perpetrator from the start; maybe he was right all along.

To be sure, Littlemore believed in Mayor McClellan even more than he believed in Coroner Hugel, and the mayor had provided Banwell with a firm alibi on the night Miss Riverford was killed. But maybe Banwell had an accomplice — maybe a Chinese accomplice. Hadn't Banwell himself hired Chong Sing to work in the laundry of the Balmoral? And now it turned out that Miss Riverford's murderer might not have been Miss Acton's assailant: that's what Mr Hugel had just told him. So maybe Banwell's accomplice killed Miss Riverford, and Banwell attacked Miss Acton. It occurred to Littlemore that, based on this theory, Hugel would still have made a mistake. But the detective, while holding an elevated view of the coroner's powers, didn't regard him as infallible. And Hugel, Littlemore figured, wouldn't mind being wrong on a detail if he was right on the whole shebang.

So the detective, regaining the spring in his step, knew he had work to do. First, he went up the street to headquarters and found Louis Riviere in his basement darkroom. Littlemore asked Riviere if he could make a reverse image of the photograph that showed the mark on Elizabeth Riverford's neck. The Frenchman told him to come back at the end of the day to pick it up. 'And can you enlarge it for me too, Louie?' Littlemore asked.

'Why not?' replied Riviere. 'The sun is good.'

Next the detective headed uptown. He rode the train to Forty-second Street and from there strolled over to Susie Merrill's house. No one answered, so he took up a position down the block and across the street. An hour later, the hefty Susie let herself out, wearing another of her enormous hats, this one boasting a fruit medley. Littlemore followed her to a Child's Lunch Room on Broadway. She sat down at a booth alone. Littlemore waited until she was served to see if anyone else was going to show up. As Mrs Merrill was attacking her plate of corned beef hash, Littlemore slipped into the seat across from her.

'Hello, Susie,' he said. 'I found it — what you wanted me to find.'

'What are you doing here? Get out. I told you to keep me out of it.'

'No, you didn't.'

'Well, I'm telling you now,' said Susie. 'You want to get us both killed?'

'By who, Susie? Thaw's in a loony bin upstate.'

'Oh, yeah?'

'Yeah.'

'I guess he can't be your murderer then,' she observed.

'I guess not.'

'So there's nothing to talk about, is there?'

'Don't hold out on me, Susie.'

'You want to get yourself killed, that's fine with me, but leave me out of it.' Mrs Merrill rose, putting thirty cents on the table: a nickel for her coffee, twenty cents for her hash and poached egg, another nickel for the waitress. 'I've got a baby in the house,' she said.

Littlemore grabbed her arm. 'Think it over, Susie, I want answers, and I'll be coming back for them.'