The Interpretation Of Murder (30 page)

    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 black- haired 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.