The Interpretation of Murder

Chapter Twenty-six

The moment I woke up, late Saturday morning, a nurse ushered in two visitors: Abraham Brill and Sandor Ferenczi.

Brill and Ferenczi sported wan smiles. They tried to brave it out, loudly asking how 'our hero' was doing, keeping at me until I had reprised the whole story, but in the end they couldn't hide their gloom. I asked what the matter was.

'It's all over,' said Brill. 'Another letter from Hall.'

'For you, in fact,' Ferenczi added.

'Which Brill read, naturally,' I concluded.

'For God's sake, Younger,' Brill exclaimed, 'for all we knew, you might be dead.'

'Making it open season on my correspondence.'

Hall's letter, it turned out, contained both good news and bad news. He had rejected the donation to Clark. He could not accept any funds, he explained, conditional on the university's relinquishing its academic freedom. But he had now made up his mind about Freud's lectures. Unless he heard positively from us by four o'clock today that the

Times would not be publishing the article he had seen, the lectures would be canceled. He was most apologetic. Freud would of course receive the full fee promised him. Hall would issue a statement that Freud's health precluded him from speaking. Moreover, as a replacement, Hall would select the one person he was certain Freud would want to deliver the keynote lectures in his place: Carl Jung.

It was the last sentence, I think, that galled Brill most. 'If we only knew who was behind it all,' he said. I could practically hear his teeth gnashing.

There was a knock at the door. Littlemore poked his head in. After making introductions, I urged Brill to describe our situation to the detective. He did, in complete detail. The worst of it, Brill concluded, was not knowing whom we were up against. Who would be so determined to suppress Freud's book and block his lectures in Worcester?

'If you want my advice,' said Littlemore, 'we ought to go have a little chat with your friend Dr Smith Jelliffe.'

'Jelliffe?' said Brill. 'That's ridiculous. He's my publisher. He can only gain from Freud's lectures going well. He's been pushing me to hurry the translation for months.'

'Wrong way to think about it,' answered Littlemore. 'Don't try to figure it out all at once. This Jelliffe guy gets your book manuscript, and when he gives it back to you it's full of weird stuff. And he says it was put there by some pastor who borrowed his printing press? Fishiest story I ever heard. He's the guy to talk to first.'

They tried to stop me, but I dressed to go with them. If I weren't such a fool, I would have asked for help tying my shoes; I nearly tore my stitches out doing it. Before Jelliffe's, we made a stop at Brill's apartment. There was one item of evidence Littlemore wanted us to take uptown.

Littlemore waved to an officer in the lobby of the Balmoral. The police had been combing the Banwells' now-empty apartment all morning. Already a favorite among the uniformed men, Littlemore had suddenly become a figure of stature. News of his taking both Banwell and Hugel had spread all over the force.

Smith Ely Jelliffe opened his door clad in pajamas, a wet towel over his head. The sight of Drs. Younger, Brill, and Ferenczi startled him, but his surprise grew to alarm when he saw his nemesis, the detective from last night, jauntily following behind them.

'I didn't know,' Jelliffe blurted out to Littlemore. 'I didn't know anything about it until after you left. He was in town for only a few hours. There was no incident of any kind, I swear it. He's back at the hospital already. You can call. It won't happen again.'

'You two know each other?' Brill asked.

Littlemore questioned Jelliffe about Harry Thaw for several minutes, to the general astonishment of the others. When the detective was satisfied, he asked Jelliffe why he had sent Brill anonymous threats, burned his manuscript, dumped ash in his apartment, and slandered Dr Freud in the newspaper.

Jelliffe swore his innocence. He professed ignorance of any book-burning or threat-sending.

'Oh, yeah?' said Littlemore. 'Then who put those pages into the manuscript, the ones with the Bible stuff on them?'

'I don't know,' said Jelliffe. 'It must have been those church people.'

'Sure it was,' said Littlemore. He showed Jelliffe the article of evidence we had stopped for on our way — the single sheet of paper from Brill's manuscript that bore not only a verse from Jeremiah but a small stamped image of a turbaned, bearded, scowling man — and went on. 'Then how did this get there? Doesn't look very churchy to me.'

Jelliffe's mouth fell open.

'What is it?' asked Brill. 'You recognize it?'

'The Charaka,' said Jelliffe.

'What?' asked Littlemore.

'Charaka is ancient Hindoo physician,' replied Ferenczi. 'I said Hindoo. You remember I said Hindoo?'

Younger spoke: 'The Triumvirate.'

'No,' said Brill.

'Yes,' Jelliffe acknowledged.

'What?' asked Ferenczi.

Younger addressed Brill: 'We should have seen it all along. Who in New York is not only on the board of Morton Prince's journal, privy to everything Prince is going to publish, but also able to have a man arrested in Boston at the drop of a hat?'

'Dana,' said Brill.

'And the family offering Clark the donation? Hall told us one of them was a doctor knowledgeable about psychoanalysis. There's only one family in the country rich enough to fund an entire hospital that can also boast a world- famous neurologist among its members.'

'Bernard Sachs!' exclaimed Brill. 'And the anonymous doctor in the Times is Starr. I should have recognized the pompous blowhard the minute I read it. Starr is always boasting of having studied in Charcot's laboratory decades ago. He might actually have met Freud there.'

'Who?' asked Ferenczi. 'What is Triumvirate?'

Taking turns, Younger and Brill explained. The men they had just named — Charles Loomis Dana, Bernard Sachs, and M. Allen Starr — were the three most powerful neurologists in the country. Collectively, they were known as the New York Triumvirate. They owed their extraordinary prestige and power to an impressive combination of accomplishment, pedigree, and money. Dana was the author of the nation's leading text on adult nervous diseases. Sachs had a worldwide reputation — particularly because of his work on a disease first described by the Englishman Warren Tay — and wrote the first textbook on children's nervous conditions. Naturally, the Sachses were not the social equals of the very best Danas; they could not participate in society at all, being of the wrong religion. But they were richer. Bernard Sachs's brother had married a Goldman; the private bank founded as a result of this alliance was on its way to becoming a Wall Street bastion. Starr, a professor at Columbia, was the least accomplished of the three.

'He's a windbag,' said Brill, referring to Starr, 'a puppet of Dana's.'

'But why would they seek ruin of Freud?' asked Ferenczi.

'Because they are neurologists,' answered Brill. 'Freud terrifies them.'

'I am not following.'

'They belong to the somatic school,' said Younger. 'They believe that all nervous diseases result from neurological malfunction, not psychological causes. They don't believe in childhood trauma; they don't believe sexual repression causes mental illness. Psychoanalysis is anathema for them. They call it a cult.'

'Over scientific disagreement,' asked Ferenczi, 'they would do these things — burn manuscripts, make threats, spread false accusations?'

'Science has nothing to do with it,' Brill replied. 'The neurologists control everything. They are the "nerve specialists," which makes them the experts in "nervous conditions." All the women go to them for their hysterics, their palpitations, their anxieties, their frustrations. The practice is worth millions to them. They're right to see us as the devil. We're going to put them out of business. No one's going to consult a nerve specialist once they realize that psychological illnesses are caused by psychology, not neurology.'

'Dana was at your party, Jelliffe, 'Younger pursued. 'He was as hostile to Freud as anyone I've ever heard. Did he know of Brill's book?'

'Yes,' answered Jelliffe, 'but he wouldn't have burned it. He approved it. He encouraged me to publish it. He even found me an editor to help prepare the copy.'

'An editor?' asked Younger. 'Did this editor ever take the manuscript out of your offices?'

'Certainly,' Jelliffe replied. 'He often took it home to work on.'

'Well, now we know,' said Brill. 'The bastard.'

'What's this Charaka business?' Littlemore asked.

'It's their club,' Jelliffe replied. 'One of the most exclusive in the city. Hardly anyone is let in. The members wear a signet ring with a face on it. That's the face there — the one on the page.'

'It's a cabal,' said Brill. 'A secret society.'

'But these are scientists,' Ferenczi protested. 'They would burn manuscript and dump ash in Brill's flat?'

'They probably burn incense and sacrifice virgins too,' answered Brill.

'The question is whether they are responsible for the story on Jung in the Times,' said Younger. 'That's what we need to know.'

'Are they?' Littlemore asked Jelliffe.

'Well, I–I may have heard them talking about it once,' said Jelliffe. 'And they did make the arrangements for Jung to speak at Fordham.'

'Of course,' said Brill. 'They are launching Jung to bring Freud down. And Hall is falling for it. What are we going to do? We can't fight Charles Dana.'

'I don't know about that,' Littlemore replied. He addressed Jelliffe again. 'You mentioned a Dana last night, didn't you? Same man?'

Jelliffe nodded.

The servant at the door of the small but elegant house on

Fifty-third Street at Fifth Avenue informed us that Dr Dana was not at home. 'Tell him a detective wants to ask him a few questions about Harry Thaw,' Littlemore replied. 'And mention that I just came from Dr Smith Jelliffe. Maybe he'll be at home after he hears that.'

On the detective's advice, Littlemore and I alone had made the trip to Charles Dana's house; Brill and Ferenczi returned to the hotel. A minute later, the two of us were invited in.

Dana's house had none of the gaudiness of Jelliffe's apartment or of the other houses recently erected on Fifth Avenue — including those of certain relations of mine. Dana's was a red-brick affair. The furniture was handsome without being heavy. As Littlemore and I entered the foyer, we saw Dana emerge from a dark, well-stocked library. He closed the doors behind him and greeted us. He was surprised at my presence, I believe, but reacted with perfect aplomb. He asked after my Aunt Mamie, I after some of his cousins. He made no inquiry into my reason for accompanying Littlemore. One had to be impressed by the man's grace. He looked his age — sixty, I should have thought — but age suited him well. He showed us to another room where, I imagine, he did business and saw patients.

Our conversation with Dana was brief. Littlemore's tone changed. With Jelliffe, he had been hectoring. He made accusations and dared Jelliffe to deny them. With Dana, he was far more careful — still conveying, however, that we knew something Dana would not want us to know.

Dana displayed none of Jelliffe's cringing. He acknowledged that Thaw had retained his services in connection with the trial but noted that his role, unlike Jelliffe s, had been merely advisory. He had rendered no opinion about Thaw's mental state at any time, past or present.

'Did you render an opinion about Thaw's coming into New York last weekend?' asked Littlemore.

'Was Mr Thaw in New York last weekend?' replied Dana.

'Jelliffe says it was your decision.'

'I am not Mr Thaw's physician, Detective. Jelliffe is. I severed my professional relationship with Mr Thaw last year, as public records will demonstrate. Dr Jelliffe has occasionally sought my counsel, and I have given him what advice I could. I know nothing of Jelliffe's ultimate treatment decisions, and I certainly could not be said to have made them.'

'Fair enough,' said Littlemore. 'I guess I could arrest you for conspiring in the escape of a state prisoner, but it sounds like I couldn't convict you.'

'I doubt it very much,' said Dana. 'But I could probably have you fired if you tried.'

'And I guess,' said Littlemore, 'you also couldn't have made any decisions about stealing a manuscript, burning it, and putting the ashes in the home of Dr Abraham Brill?'

For the first time, Dana appeared disconcerted.

'Nice ring you got there, Dr Dana,' Littlemore went on.

I hadn't noticed; on Dana's right hand there was a signet ring. No one spoke. Dana clasped his long fingers together — not, however, hiding the ring — and reclined in his chair. 'What do you want, Mr Littlemore?' he asked. He turned to me. 'Or perhaps I should ask you that question, Dr Younger.'

I cleared my throat. 'It's a tissue of lies,' I said. 'The accusations you have made against Dr Freud. Every single one of them is false.'

'Assume I know what you are talking about,' answered Dana. 'I ask you again: what do you want?'

'It's three-thirty,' I replied. 'In half an hour, I am going to wire G. Stanley Hall in Worcester. I am going to say that a certain story is not going to be published in the New York Times tomorrow. I want my telegram to be true.'

Dana sat in silence, holding my stare. 'Let me tell you something,' he said at last. 'The problem is this: our knowledge of the human brain is incomplete. We don't have medicines to change the way people think. To cure their delusions. To relieve their sexual desires while keeping them from overpopulating the world. To make them happy. It is all neurology, you know. It has to be. Psychoanalysis is going to set us back a hundred years. Its licentiousness will appeal to the masses. Its prurience will appeal to young scientific minds and even to some old ones. It will turn the masses into exhibitionists and physicians into mystics. But someday people will wake up to the fact that it is all the emperor's new clothes. We will discover drugs to change the way people think, sooner or later. To control the way they feel. The question is only whether, by then, we will still have enough of a sense of shame to be embarrassed by the fact that everyone is running around naked. Send your telegram, Dr Younger. It will be true — for now.'

After leaving Dana's house, Littlemore drove me across town. 'So, Doc,' he said, 'I know how you feel about Nora and all, but aren't you — I mean, why'd she do it?'

'For Clara,' I answered.

'But why?'

I didn't answer.

Littlemore shook his head. 'Everybody did everything for Clara.'

'She procured girls for Banwell,' I said.

'I know,' replied Littlemore.

'You know?'

'Last night,' he said, 'Nora was telling Betty and me about the work she and Clara did with the immigrant families downtown, and it didn't sound kosher to me, if you see what I mean, not after everything else I'd heard. So I got some names and addresses from Nora and ran them down this morning. I found a few of the families Clara had "helped." Most of them wouldn't talk, but I finally got the story. I'm telling you, it's ugly. Clara would find girls with no fathers, sometimes no parents at all. Real young girls — thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. She'd pay off whoever was taking care of them and take them to Banwell.'

Littlemore drove on without speaking.

'Did you find out,' I asked, 'how the passage into Nora's bedroom got there?'

'Yup. Banwell gave us his story today too,' said the detective. 'He blames the whole thing on Clara. He never suspected she was against him — not until yesterday. Three or four years ago, the Actons hired him to rebuild their house at Gramercy Park. That's when they met.'

'And Banwell became obsessed with Nora,' I said.

'Looks like it. She's — what, fourteen at the time, but he's got to have her. So get this: his boys are working on the house, and they find this old passage running from one of the second-floor rooms to the garden shed out back. Apparently the Actons didn't know it was there. But they're out of town, and Banwell never lets on. He has the passage fixed up so he can enter it from the back alley without ever going onto the Actons' property. And he designs the house so the room on the second floor becomes Nora's new bedroom. I asked him if his plan was just to go to Nora's bedroom one night and rape her. You know what? He laughed in my face. According to him, he never raped anybody. They all wanted it. With Nora, he figures he's going to seduce her, and he needs a way in and out of her room without her parents knowing about it. But I guess Nora didn't go for the seduction.'

'She rejected him,' I said.

'That's what he told us. He swears he never touched her. Never used the secret passage until this week. You know, I think it really upset him. Maybe no girl ever turned him down before.'

'Could be,' I said. 'Maybe he was in love with her.'

'You think so?'

'I think so. And Clara decided to get Nora for him.'

'How would she do that?' asked Littlemore.

'I think she tried to make Nora fall in love with her.'

'What?' he said.

I didn't respond.

'I don't know about that,' Littlemore went on, 'but I'll give you this much: Banwell says getting Nora to play Elizabeth Riverford was Clara's idea. When he builds the Balmoral, he lays down another passage, only this time connected to his own study. The apartment it goes to is going to be his bird's nest. He sets it up just the way he wants it: big brass bed, silk sheets, the works. Fills the closet with lingerie and furs. Puts a couple of his own suits there, too, in a different closet he keeps locked. A little while ago, if you can believe Banwell, Clara tells him Nora has finally said yes. The idea is that Nora's going to rent the apartment under a false name, and she's going to come up to see him whenever she can. I don't know what the truth is there. I didn't want to ask Nora about it.'

I knew. Nora had told me the whole story last night, while we waited for the police.

One day in July, Clara tearfully told Nora that she could no longer bear her marriage. George flogged and raped her almost every night. She feared for her life but couldn't leave him, because he would kill her if she did.

Nora was horrified, but Clara said there was nothing anyone could do. Only one thing could save her, but it was impossible. Clara knew a man highly placed in the police force: Hugel, obviously; Clara had met him when she and Nora were 'helping' an immigrant family whose daughter had died. According to Clara, she revealed her plight to him. Hugel took pity on her but said the law was powerless, because a husband had a legal right to rape his wife. When, however, Clara added that George raped other girls too — whose families he paid off in exchange for their silence, and at least one of whom had been killed — the coroner had allegedly grown outraged. He supposedly decided there was only one thing to be done: they must stage a murder.

A girl must be found seemingly dead in the apartment that George kept for his mistresses. It must look like she died by his hand. It could be done, because he himself (the coroner) would administer the catalepsy-inducing drug and he himself would be the medical examiner. A piece of evidence left at the scene would identify Banwell as the perpetrator. Clara made Nora believe the entire scheme originated with the coroner.

Nora remembered being shocked by the audacity of the plan. She asked if Clara really thought it possible.

No, Clara said. She could never ask anyone to play the part of Banwell's mistress and victim. She (Clara) must simply endure her fate.

It was then that Nora said she would do it.

Clara reacted with apparent shock. Absolutely not, she replied. The girl who played the part of the victim would have to allow herself to be hurt. Nora asked Clara if, by hurt, she meant raped. Of course not, Clara said, but the victim would have to let herself be bound, with a cord or rope around her neck, and Clara might even have to leave a mark or two. Nora insisted that she would do it. At last Clara gave in, and they went forward with the plot. Nora was unsure exactly what happened at the Balmoral on Sunday night, undoubtedly because of the coroner's catalepsy-inducing drug. Nora did remember Clara telling her not to scream, and she remembered she kept forgetting her false name. The rest, however, was indistinct. I explained all this to Littlemore.

'I know what happened next,' he said. 'When Nora wakes up Monday morning, she's with Hugel in the morgue. He tells her the bad news: the tie he was supposed to find at the murder scene, the silk tie with Banwell's monogram, which was going to prove Banwell did it, wasn't there. That's because Banwell went in through the passage as soon as he found out about the "murder." He had to get his own clothes out of there, so we didn't connect him to Miss Riverford.'

'But Banwell was out of town Sunday night, with the mayor,' I said. 'Hugel didn't know?'

'None of them knew. Banwell was supposed to be having dinner in the city. Banwell's thing with the mayor in Saranac came up at the last minute. All very hush-hush. There was no way for Clara to find out about it either, because there's no phone at the Banwells' country place. So Clara sneaks in from Tarry Town that night, does her business to Nora around nine or so, and drives back. She told Hugel to put the time of death between midnight and two, because Banwell was supposed to have been home by then.'

'But Banwell saw his tie there the next morning and took it away before Hugel arrived.'

'Right. Without the tie, Hugel's in trouble. He can't reach Clara. So he decides he's got to stage another fake attack, this one at Nora's house, where they'll leave another piece of evidence. He needs to convict Banwell, see? That's his deal with Clara. She had given him ten thousand dollars up front, and he was going to get another thirty thousand if Banwell was convicted. But something went wrong the second time too, I don't know what. Hugel clammed up.'

Again, I could fill in the blanks. Nora had gone along with the second attack both because she still thought she was rescuing Clara and because she didn't know how else she would explain all the wounds she had woken up with. In the second 'attack,' the coroner would merely tie her up and leave her. She was not to be hurt again at all. And she wasn't. (That was why she hadn't been able to answer my questions yesterday. I asked her whether any man had whipped her. She was afraid to tell me the truth, because Clara had sworn that Banwell would kill her — Clara — if he ever found out.) But when the coroner tied Nora up, he had grown unstable. He kept staring at her. He was sweating and seemed to be having trouble swallowing, Nora said. He never threatened her; nor did he molest her. But he kept adjusting the rope around her wrists. He wouldn't leave. Then he brushed up against her.

'Apparently your coroner lost control of himself,' I said, without further detail. 'Nora screamed.'

'And Hugel panicked, right?' said Littlemore. 'He runs out the back way. He's got Banwell's tiepin; he meant to leave it in the bedroom. But he's so panicked he forgot. So he throws it into the garden, figuring we'll find it when we search the grounds.'

After the coroner ran away, Nora didn't know what to do. The coroner was supposed to have rendered her unconscious, but he had run out without giving her the narcotic. At a loss, Nora pretended she couldn't speak or remember anything about what had happened. Her real voice loss from three years earlier, and her real — although quite limited — amnesia from the night before gave her the idea.

'Why did Banwell put the trunk in the river?' I asked.

'The guy was in a tight spot,' said Littlemore. 'Think about it. If he let us go through all the stuff in the apartment, he knew we'd trace it and bag him for the murder. But he couldn't just tell us that Elizabeth was Nora. Even if we believed him, he'd have a huge scandal on his hands, and he'd probably go to jail for corrupting a minor. So he told the mayor he was sending Miss Riverford's things back to Chicago. He loaded them into a trunk and took it down to the caisson. Figured it's the perfect place — until he ran into Malley.'

'He almost fooled us,' I said.

'With Malley?'

'No. When he — when he burned Nora.' The thought of it made me feel I had killed the wrong Banwell.

'Yup,' said Littlemore. 'He wanted us to think Nora was crazy and did everything to herself. He figures if he can pull that off, he can beat the whole rap. Doesn't matter what Nora says; no one will believe her.'

'What made him go back to kill her last night?' I asked.

'Nora sent Clara a letter,' he answered. 'It said she was going to tell the police about everything Banwell did to Clara and to the other girls, the immigrant girls. Apparently Banwell saw it.'

'I wonder if Clara let him see it,' I said.

'Could be. But then Hugel pays a visit. Banwell's in the apartment when Hugel gets there, and he starts to put two and two together. That night, he ties Clara up to keep her out of the way and heads downtown to the Actons'. That's when I stumble onto the secret passage at the Balmoral. Boy, Clara was good. She tells me her husband's gone to kill Nora, but she made it seem like I was dragging it out of her. I don't think she realized then that Nora wasn't in her house at all. How did Clara find out Nora was at the hotel?'

'Nora called her,' I said. 'What about the Chinaman?'

'Leon? They'll never find him,' Littlemore answered. 'I had a long talk today with Mr Chong. Seems that Cousin Leon comes to him a month ago, says there's a rich guy who will pay them to take a trunk off his hands. That night, the two of them go to the Balmoral and bring the trunk back to Leon's room by cab. Next day, Leon's packing up. Where you going? Chong asks him. Washington, says Leon, then back to China. Chong's getting nervous. What's in the trunk? he asks. Look for yourself, says Leon. So Chong opens it, and he sees one of Leon's girlfriends dead inside. Chong gets upset; he says the police are going to think Leon killed her. Leon laughs and says that's exactly what the police are supposed to think. Leon also tells Chong to show up at the Balmoral the next day, and they'll give him a real good job. Chong's mad about that. He figures Leon got paid off big; otherwise he couldn't be going back to China. So, being a Chinaman, Chong asks for two jobs as his reward, not one, and Leon fixes it up for him.'

We pulled up at the hotel, each in our own thoughts.

Littlemore said, 'There's just one thing. Why does Clara work so hard to get Nora for Banwell if Clara is so jealous of her? That doesn't make sense.'

'Oh, I don't know,' I replied, getting out of the car. 'Some people feel a need to bring about the very thing that will most torment them.'

'They do?'

'Yes.'

'Why?' asked Littlemore.

'I have no idea, Detective. It's an unsolved mystery.'

'That reminds me: I'm not a detective anymore,' he said. 'The mayor's making me a lieutenant.'

A torrential rain poured down on our entire party — Freud, a visibly uncomfortable Jung, Brill, Ferenczi, Jones, and myself — at the South Street harbor Saturday evening. As their luggage was loaded onto the overnight boat from New York to Fall River, Freud pulled me to one side.

'You are not coming with us?' he said to me, from the cocoon of his umbrella to the cocoon of mine.

'No, sir. The surgeon said I shouldn't travel for a day or two.'

'I see,' he replied skeptically. 'And Nora remains here in New York, of course.'

'Yes,' I said.

'But there is still something more, isn't there?' Freud stroked his beard.

I preferred to change the subject. 'How are things with Dr Jung, sir, if I may ask?' I knew — and Freud knew I knew — of the extraordinary scene between Jung and Freud that had taken place the other night.

'Better,' Freud replied. 'Do you know, I believe he was jealous of you.'

'Of me?'

'Yes,' said Freud. 'It finally came to me that he took my appointing you to analyze Nora as a betrayal. When I explained to him that I named you only because you live here, it improved things between us immediately.' He looked out into the rain. 'It won't last, however. Not very long.'

'I don't understand Mrs Banwell, Dr Freud,' I said. 'I don't understand her feelings for Miss Acton.'

Freud reflected. 'Well, Younger, you solved the mystery. Remarkable.'

'You solved it, sir. You warned me last night that they were all in Mrs Banwell's orbit and that Clara's friendship with Miss Acton was not entirely innocent. I don't really understand Mrs Banwell, Dr Freud. I don't understand what moved her!

'If I had to guess,' said Freud, 'I would say that Nora was for Mrs Banwell a mirror in which she saw herself as she was ten years ago — and in which she saw, therefore, by contrast, what she had become. Certainly this would account for her desire to corrupt Nora and to hurt her. You must bear in mind the years of punishment she endured as the willing object of a sadist.'

'Yet she stayed with him.' It couldn't have been only the money that kept her with Banwell. 'She was a masochist?'

'There is no such thing, Younger, not in pure form. Every masochist is also a sadist. In men, at any rate, masochism is never primary — it is sadism turned on the self — and Mrs Banwell unquestionably had a strong masculine side. She may have been plotting the destruction of her husband for some time.'

I had one other question. I was unsure whether to voice it; it seemed so basic and ignorant. But I decided to go ahead. 'Is homosexuality a pathology, Dr Freud?'

'You are wondering if Nora is a homosexual,' he said.

'I am so transparent?'

'No man can keep a secret,' Freud answered. 'If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips.'

I resisted the urge to glance at my fingertips.

'No need to look at your fingertips,' he went on. 'You are not transparent. With you, my boy, I merely ask myself how I would have felt in your place. But I will answer your question. Homosexuality is certainly no advantage, but it cannot be classified as an illness. It is no shame, no vice, no degradation at all. In women in particular, there may be a primary narcissism, a self-love, that directs their desire toward others of their sex. I would not call Nora a homosexual, though. I would say, rather, she was seduced.

But I should have seen her love for Mrs Banwell at once. It was plainly the strongest unconscious current in her mental life. You told me the first day how fondly she spoke of Mrs Banwell, when of course she ought to have felt the fiercest jealousy toward a woman engaged in a sexual act with her father — an act she wished to be performing on him herself. Only the most powerful desire for Mrs Banwell could have allowed her to repress that jealousy.'

Naturally I could not wholly join in this observation. I only nodded in reply.

'You don't agree?' he asked.

'I don't believe Nora was jealous of Clara,' I said, 'in that way.'

Freud raised his eyebrows. 'You can't disbelieve that unless you reject Oedipus.'

Again I said nothing.

'Ah,' said Freud. And he repeated it: 'Ah.' He took a deep breath, sighed, and observed me closely. 'That is why you are not coming to Clark with us.'

I considered broaching with Freud my reinterpretation of the Oedipus complex. I would have liked to; I would have liked even more to discuss Hamlet with him. But I found I couldn't. I knew how much he had suffered from Jung's seeming defection. There would be other occasions. I would be in Worcester by Tuesday morning, in time for his first lecture.

'In that case,' Freud resumed, 'let me raise one possibility with you before I go. You are not the first to reject the

Oedipus complex. You will not be the last. But you may have a special reason for doing so, associated with my person. You have admired me from afar, my boy. There is always a kind of father love in such relationships. Now, having met me in the flesh, and having the opportunity to complete this cathexis, you fear doing so. You fear I will take myself away from you, as your real father did. Thus you forestall my anticipated withdrawal by denying the Oedipus complex.'

The rain beat down. Freud looked at me with kindly eyes. 'Someone has told you,' I said, 'that my father committed suicide.'

'Yes.'

'But he didn't.'

'Oh?' asked Freud.

' 'I killed him.'

'What?'

'It was the only way,' I said, 'to overcome my Oedipus complex.'

Freud looked at me. For a moment I was afraid he might actually take me seriously. Then he laughed aloud and shook my hand. He thanked me for helping him through his week in New York, and especially for rescuing his lectures at Clark. I accompanied him onto the boat. His face seemed much more deeply furrowed than it had been a week ago, his back slightly bent, his eyes a decade older. As I began to disembark, he called out my name. He was at the railing; I had taken a step or two down the gangway. 'Let me be honest with you, my boy,' he said, from under his umbrella, as the rain poured down. 'This country of yours: I am suspicious of it. Be careful. It brings out the worst in people — crudeness, ambition, savagery. There is too much money. I see the prudery for which your country is famous, but it is brittle. It will shatter in the whirlwind of gratification being called forth. America, I fear, is a mistake. A gigantic mistake, to be sure, but still a mistake.'

That was the last time I saw Freud in America. The same night, I took Nora to the top of the Gillender Building at the corner of Nassau and Wall, a place where vast fortunes were made and lost every day. On a Saturday night, Wall Street was deserted.

I had gone to the Actons' directly after seeing Freud off. Mrs Biggs greeted me like an old friend. Harcourt and Mildred Acton were nowhere to be seen; they were evidently not receiving. I asked after Nora's condition. Mrs Biggs noisily withdrew, and Nora came down presently.

Neither of us could find a word to say. Finally, I asked if she would care for a walk; I opined that it would be medically advisable. Suddenly I was sure she would decline and I would never see her again.

'All right,' she said.

The rain had stopped. The smell of wet pavement, which in the city passes for freshness, rose pleasantly in the air. Downtown, the pavement turned to cobblestone, and the clip-clop of distant horses, with no motorcar or omnibus in sight, reminded me of the New York I knew as a boy. We spoke little.

The doorman at the Gillender heard we wished to see the famous view and let us in. In the dome room, nineteen stories up, four great pointed windows overlooked the city, one facing each direction of the compass. Uptown, we could see mile after mile of the ever-expanding northward march of electric Manhattan; to the south was the tip of the island, the water, and the burning torch of the Statue of Liberty.

'They are going to demolish the building any day now,' I said. The Gillender, when erected in 1897, was one of the tallest skyscrapers in Manhattan. With its slender silhouette and classical proportions, it was also one of the most widely admired. 'It will be the tallest building in the history of the world to be torn down.'

'Have you ever been happy?' Nora asked abruptly.

I considered. 'Dr Freud says that unhappiness is caused when we cannot let go of our memories.'

'Does he say how one is supposed to let go of one's memories?'

'By remembering them.'

Neither of us spoke.

'That does not sound quite logical, Doctor,' said Nora.

'No.'

Nora pointed to a rooftop about a block to the north. 'Look. That's the Hanover Building, where Mr Banwell forced himself on me three years ago.'

I said nothing.

'You knew?' she asked. 'You knew I would see it from here?'

Again I made no answer.

'You are still treating me,' said Nora.

'I never treated you.'

She gazed out. 'I was so very stupid.'

'Not nearly so stupid as I.'

'What will you do now?' Nora asked.

'Return to Worcester,' I said. 'Practice medicine. The students will be coming back in a few weeks.'

'My classes start the twenty-fourth,' Nora replied.

'Then you are going to Barnard after all?'

'Yes. I have bought my books already. I'm leaving my parents' house. I'll be living uptown, in a dormitory called Brooks Hall.'

'And what will you be studying at Barnard, Miss Acton?' I asked. 'Shakespeare's women?'

'As a matter of fact,' she replied airily, 'I am thinking of a concentration in Elizabethan drama and psychology. Oh — and also detection.'

'An absurd combination of interests. No one will take it seriously.'

There was another pause.

'I guess,' I said, 'we ought to say good-bye then.'

'I've been happy once,' she answered.

'Once?'

'Last night,' she said. 'Good-bye, Doctor. Thank you.'

I didn't answer. It was a good thing. Had I not given her the extra instant, she might not have said the words I longed to hear:

'Are you going to kiss me good-bye at least?' she asked.

'Kiss you?' I replied. 'You are underage, Miss Acton. I wouldn't dream of it.'

'I'm like Cinderella,' she said, 'only in reverse. At midnight I turn eighteen.'

Midnight came. And so it fell out that I could not bring myself to leave New York City even once all the rest of that young month.