The Interpretation Of Murder (43 page)

    For a second consecutive night, Carl
Jung walked beneath Calvary Church across from Gramercy Park. This time, he
carried his revolver in a pocket. Perhaps it gave him courage. Without
wavering, he strode purposefully along the wrought- iron fence to Gramercy Park
South, crossed the street, and walked straight toward the officer in front of
the Actons' house. The policeman asked his business. Jung replied that he was
looking for the theatrical club: could the officer direct him?

    'The Players, that's what you want,'
said the policeman. 'Number sixteen, four doors down.'

    Jung knocked at the door of number
sixteen and, when he mentioned Smith Jelliffe's name, was allowed in. The air
was filled with music and feminine laughter. Now he was inside, Jung could not
believe what a fool he had been, to come almost to the door of the place twice
before and then turn tail. Imagine: a man of his stature frightened of entering
a house where women could be had for money.

    The club's hat-check girl, greeting
Jung in the foyer, was momentarily disconcerted when he drew his revolver. But
he handed it to her with European politeness, explaining that, having seen a
policeman a few doors down, he was concerned that there might be some murderer
abroad. 'It's okay,' said the girl, smiling prettily at him. 'For a second
there, I thought
you
were the murderer.'

    As the two of them laughed and the
front door was shut, a different man stepped out of a carriage in the shadows
of Calvary Church. The cab drove away, leaving this man by himself in almost
the very spot that Jung had occupied the night before. He was dressed in white
tie. Despite the summer evening heat, he wore yet another layer of clothing, an
overcoat, as well as white deerskin gloves. His hat was pulled low to cover as
much of his face as possible. The man did not move. He watched from the
darkness, where the policemen at the Actons' house could not see him.

    As soon as he heard the door shut,
Smith Jelliffe went to his telephone. He asked an operator to connect him to
the Matteawan State Hospital. It took fifteen minutes, but Jelliffe at last got
through to a hospital guard with whom he was on excellent terms. Jelliffe began
issuing frantic commands, but he was quickly interrupted.

    'You're too late,' said the guard.
'He's gone.'

    'Gone?'

    'He left three hours ago.'

    Jelliffe put down the receiver. With
nervous fingers, he dialed the number of Charles Dana's Fifth Avenue home.
There was no answer. It was nearing midnight. After six rings, Jelliffe hung
up.

    'Dear God,' he said.

    Across the street from the Balmoral,
Littlemore said goodbye to Greta under a streetlamp. The night was as hot and
muggy as they came. 'I can say he came in Sunday night,' Greta volunteered, 'if
you want me to.'

    Littlemore had to laugh. He shook his
head, hailing a passing cab.

    'You aren't going to look for my
Fannie now, are you?' she asked forlornly.

    'No, I'm not going to look for her,'
Littlemore said. 'I'm going to find her.'

    He told the driver Fortieth Street
and gave the man a dollar to cover the fare. Greta stared at him. 'You're a
pistol, you know that?' she said. 'You wouldn't want to marry me, by any
chance? We're both redheads.'

    Littlemore laughed again. 'Sorry,
sugar, I'm spoken for.'

    Greta kissed him on the cheek. As the
cab drove off, Littlemore turned around to find Betty Longobardi standing right
behind him. On his way uptown, the detective had made a stop at the
Longobardis', leaving word for Betty to meet him at the Balmoral as soon as she
got home.

    'Start explaining,' said Betty, 'and
make it good.'

    Littlemore did not explain. Instead,
he said she'd just have to trust him, then led her to his parked car. From the
trunk, the detective drew out a lumpy sack. 'I need to show you some things
that might have belonged to Miss Riverford. You're the only one who can
identify them.'

    Littlemore emptied the sack into the
trunk of his car. The clothing was too soaked to be recognizable. The jewelry
and shoes, Betty thought, looked familiar, but she couldn't be sure. Then she
saw a sequined sleeve hanging from a dense tangle of fabric. She extricated the
dress to which it belonged and held it out under the lamplight. 'This was hers!
I saw her in it.'

    'Wait a second,' said Littlemore.
'Wait a second.' He rummaged through the clothing. 'Is there anything here a
woman could wear in the daytime?'

    'Not these,' said Betty, raising her
eyebrows as she pieced through the lingerie. 'Not these either. Not really,
Jimmy. It's all evening wear.'

    'Evening wear,' the detective
repeated slowly.

    'What is it?' asked Betty.

    Littlemore said nothing, lost in
thought.

    'What, Jimmy?'

    'But then Mr Hugel…' Hurriedly, the
detective began patting his pockets and fishing through them until at last he
found an envelope containing several photographs. One of these he showed Betty.
'Recognize this face?' he asked.

    'Of course,' she said, 'but why -?'

    'We're going back upstairs,'
Littlemore interrupted. He grabbed from his trunk a cumbersome brass object
that looked like a motorcar's headlamp stuck to a candlestick. It was an
electric lantern. Then he led Betty back into the Balmoral. They rode the
Alabaster Wing elevator to the top floor.

    'How tall was Miss Riverford?'
Littlemore asked on their way up.

    'A little taller than me.' Betty was
five-foot-two. 'At least she looked taller.'

    'What do you mean?'

    'She was always in heels,' Betty
explained. 'Real tall heels. Wasn't used to them, though.'

    'How much did she weigh?'

    'I don't know, Jimmy. Why?'

    The hallway of the eighteenth floor
was empty. Over Betty's objections, Littlemore picked the lock of Elizabeth
Riverford's apartment and opened the front door. Inside, all was dark and
silent. There were no overhead lights. The lamps had been taken away.

    'What are we doing here?' asked
Betty.

    'Figuring something out.' Littlemore
headed down the corridor toward Miss Riverford's bedroom, shining his
flickering light into the blackness.

    'I don't want to go in there,' said
Betty, following reluctantly.

    They came to the door. As Littlemore
reached for the knob, his hand froze in midair. A high-pitched note suddenly
pierced the air. It was coming from within the bedroom. The note grew louder,
becoming a far-off wail.

    Betty seized Littlemore's arm.
'That's the sound I told you about, Jimmy, the sound we heard the morning Miss
Elizabeth died.'

    The detective opened the door. The
wail grew louder still.

    'Don't go in,' whispered Betty.

    Abruptly the noise stopped. All was
silent. Littlemore entered the room. Too afraid to stay where she was, Betty
went in as well, clinging to his sleeve. The furniture was still in place: bed,
mirror, end tables, chests of drawers. These created eerie shadows in the beam
of the detective's lantern. Littlemore put his ear to a wall, rapping it with
his knuckles, listening intently. He moved a few feet down and did the same
thing.

    'What are you doing?' whispered
Betty.

    Littlemore snapped his fingers. 'The
fireplace,' he said. 'I saw the clay near the fireplace.'

    He went to the fireplace and drew
aside its iron-mesh curtain, stretching himself out on the floor. With his
lantern, he lit up the chimney. At the far back wall of the hearth, Littlemore
saw bricks, mortar - and three apertures arranged in a triangle, the topmost
being circular in shape.

    'That's it,' said the detective.
'That's got to be it. Now how would he -?'

    Littlemore lit up the andirons
hanging next to the fireplace. One instrument was a trident poker. Two of its
three tines were sharply pointed; the other was circular. The three ends, together,
made a triangle. Littlemore jumped up, took hold of this poker, and prodded the
back of the chimney with it. When he found the apertures, the poker's three
ends fit into them as if they had been specially designed to do so - as of
course they had. A moment later, the entire hearth swung away on interior
hinges, and a strong breeze blew into Littlemore's face.

    'Will you look at that,' said
Littlemore. Inside, small jets of blue flame dotted the walls. 'Where have I
seen those before? Come on, Betty.'

    They stepped into the passage, Betty
holding Littlemore s hand. When they passed a large, square iron grate on one
of the walls, the detective put his ear to it and told Betty to do likewise.
They could hear, far away, the same wailing noise that had given Betty such a
fright.

    'Air shaft,' said Littlemore. 'Some
kind of forced-air system. There must be a pump. When the pump comes on, you
get that sound. When the pump stops, the noise stops.' They followed the
passage several hundred feet, passing half a dozen similar grates and turning
three or four sharp corners. Betty's fingernails were digging into Littlemore's
arm. At last they came to the end. A wall barred their way, but on that wall, a
small metal plate glinted below a final blue gas jet. Littlemore pushed on the
plate, and the wall swung out.

    In the light of the electric lantern,
they could see an expensively furnished man's study. Bookshelves lined the
walls, although, instead of books, the shelves were filled with a collection of
scale models of bridges and buildings. In the middle of the study stood a
massive desk with brass lamps on it. Littlemore switched on a lamp. Quietly,
Littlemore and Betty left the study and walked down a hallway. They crossed a
white marble entry foyer. Then they heard a muffled noise. Farther down the
hall, past the most spacious living room either Littlemore or Betty had ever
seen, a door was rattling, its knob turning back and forth. Someone was
evidently behind the door and trying in vain to open it. Littlemore called out,
identifying himself as a police detective.

    A female voice answered. 'Open the
door. Let me out.'

    It did not take Littlemore long to do
so. When the door opened, a linen closet was revealed, as was the back of a
woman, pressed into a space not intended for a person, her hands tied behind
her. Mrs Clara Banwell turned around, thanked the detective, and begged him to
untie her.

    Sweat glistened on Henry Kendall
Thaw's forehead as he eyed the policeman on the other side of Gramercy Park,
patrolling back and forth under the gas streedamp in front of the Actons'
house. It dampened the back of his shirt below his dinner jacket. It trickled
down his sleeves and trousers.

    From his vantage point on East
Twenty-first Street between Fourth and Lexington avenues, Thaw could see the
entire row of imposing houses that lined Gramercy Park South. He could see the
Players Club, lit up gaily on a Friday night. Indeed, he could see behind the
translucent curtains of the club's first-floor windows, where well-heeled older
men and bare-shouldered young women passed to and fro, drinking Duplexes and
Bronx Cocktails.

    Thaw's eyes were better than Jung's.
He detected, three stories above the patrolman, a movement on the Actons' roof.
There, against the night sky, he discerned the silhouette of another policeman
and the outline of the rifle he was carrying. Thaw was a wiry man, thin almost
to the point of appearing frail, with arms slightly longer than they should
have been. His face was surprisingly boyish for a man in his late thirties. He
might almost have been handsome, except that his small eyes were a little too
deep-set and his lips a little too thick. Whether in motion or stationary, he
seemed unable to catch his breath.

    Thaw was now in motion. He walked
east, keeping to the shadows. He pulled the brim of his hat even farther down
as he crossed Lexington Avenue: he knew the house on this corner very well. He
had watched it for hours at a time in the old days, waiting to see if a certain
girl would come out of it, a pretty girl he wanted to hurt so much it made his
skin tingle. He skirted the iron fence of the park until he came to its
southeastern corner, with Irving Place separating him from the watchful
policemen. The officers never saw him enter the back alley behind the houses of
Gramercy Park South.