The Interpretation Of Murder

by Jed Rubenfeld

  None of this bothered the detective in the least. He did not resent the young gentleman, and he liked Betty, the maid, better than he liked the angelic young lady. But he decided he was going to learn to move the way the gentleman did. That was something he could figure out and copy. He pictured himself hoisting Betty into a cab just like that - if he ever got to take a cab, much less take one with Betty.

  A minute later, after a quick exchange with the reception clerk, Littlemore hustled back outside toward the same young man, who had not moved an inch. Hands clasped behind his back, he was staring at the receding carriage with such ferocious concentration that Littlemore thought there might be something wrong with him.

  'You're Dr Younger, aren't you?' asked the detective. There was no reply. 'You okay, pal?'

  'Excuse me?' replied the young gentleman.

  'You're Younger, right?'

  'Unfortunately.'

  'I'm Detective Littlemore. The mayor sent me. Was that Miss Acton in the cab?' The detective could see that his interlocutor was not listening.

  'I beg your pardon,' replied Younger. 'Who did you say you were?'

  Littlemore identified himself again. He explained that Miss Acton's assailant had murdered a girl last Sunday night, but that the police still had no witnesses. 'Has the Miss remembered anything, Doc?'

  Younger shook his head. 'Miss Acton has her voice back, but still no memory of the incident.'

  'The whole thing seems pretty weird to me,' said the detective. 'Do people lose their memory a lot?'

  'No,' Younger answered, 'but it does happen, especially after episodes like the one Miss Acton went through.'

  'Hey, they're coming back.'

  It was so: Miss Acton's carriage had turned around at the end of the block and was drawing near the hotel once again. As it pulled up, Miss Acton explained to Younger that Mrs Biggs had forgotten to return their room key to the clerk.

  'Give it to me,' said Younger, extending his hand. 'I'll take it in for you.'

  'Thank you, but I am quite able,' replied Miss Acton, hopping out of the cab unaided and sweeping past Younger without a glance in his direction. Younger showed nothing, but Littlemore knew a feminine rebuff when he saw one, and he sympathized with the doctor. Then a different thought occurred to him.

  'Say, Doc,' he said, 'do you let Miss Acton go around the hotel like that - by herself, I mean?'

  'I have little say in the matter, Detective. None, actually. But no, I think she's been with her servant or the police at almost every moment until now. Why? Is there any danger?'

  'Shouldn't be,' said Littlemore. Mr Hugel had told him that the murderer did not know Miss Acton's location. Still, the detective was uncomfortable. The whole case was out of whack: a dead girl nobody knew anything about, people losing their memory, Chinamen running away, bodies disappearing from the morgue. 'Can't hurt to have a look around, though.'

  The detective reentered the hotel, Younger beside him. Littlemore lit a cigarette as they watched the diminutive Miss Acton cross the colonnaded, circular lobby. A man returning his room key would simply have dropped it on the desk and left, but Miss Acton stood patiently at the counter, waiting to be helped. The place was crowded with travelers, families, and businessmen. Half the men there, the detective noticed, could conceivably have met the coroner's description.

  One man, however, drew Littlemore's attention. He was waiting for an elevator: tall, black-haired, wearing glasses, a newspaper in his hands. Littlemore didn't have a good angle on his face, but there was something vaguely foreign in the cut of his suit. It was the newspaper that attracted the detective's attention. The man held it slightly higher than was normal. Was he trying to cover his face? Miss Acton had returned her key; she was now walking back. The man threw a quick glance in her direction - or was it toward the detective himself? - and then buried his head in the paper again. An elevator opened; the man went in, by himself.

  Miss Acton did not acknowledge the presence of the doctor or the detective as she passed them on her way out. Nevertheless, Younger followed her outside, seeing her back to her carriage.

  Littlemore stayed behind. It was nothing, he told himself. Nearly every man in the lobby had looked up at Miss Acton as she walked unaccompanied across the marble floor. All the same, Littlemore kept his eye on the arrow above the elevator into which the man had stepped. The arrow moved slowly, jerking up toward the higher numbers. Littlemore did not, however, see the arrow's final resting place. It was still moving when he heard a piercing cry outside.

  The cry was not human. It was the shrill neighing of a horse in pain. The horse in question belonged to a carriage that had just emerged from a construction site on Forty- second Street, where the steel skeleton of a new nine-story commercial building was being raised. The man driving this carriage was superbly attired, with a top hat and a fine cane across his knees. It was Mr George Banwell.

  In 1909, the horse was still doing battle with the automobile on every major avenue of New York City. In fact, the battle was already lost. The jerking, honking motorcars were faster and more nimble than a buggy; more than this, the automobile put an end to pollution - a term referring at that time to horse manure, which by midday fouled the air and made the busier thoroughfares almost impassable. Although George Banwell liked his motorcars as much as the next gentleman, he was at heart a horseman. He had grown up with the horse and was not ready to give it up. In fact he insisted on driving his own carriage, making his coachman sit awkwardly beside him.

  Banwell had spent most of the morning at his Canal Street site, where he was supervising a vastly larger project. At eleven-thirty, he had driven uptown to Forty-second Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues, less than half a block, from the Hotel Manhattan. Having completed a quick inspection of his men's work there, Banwell was now making for the hotel to meet the mayor. But a moment after taking the reins, he had given them a fierce and abrupt yank, driving the bit into the unfortunate horse's mouth, causing her to halt and cry out. This cry had no effect on Banwell. He seemed not even to hear it. Staring transfixed at a point less than a block ahead of him, he kept the bit digging ever deeper into his horse's jaw, to the appalled dismay of his coachman.

  The horse threw her head from side to side, trying in vain to loosen the cutting bit. Finally the creature reared up on her hind legs and let out the extraordinary, anguished cry heard by Littlemore and everyone else up and down the street. She returned to earth but immediately reared again, this time even more wildly, and the entire carriage began to topple. Banwell and his coachman spilled out like sailors from a capsized boat. The carriage tumbled to the ground with an enormous clatter, dragging the horse down with it.

  The coachman was first to his feet. He tried to help his master, but Banwell pushed him away violently, brushing the dirt from his knees and elbows. A crowd had gathered about them. Impatient motorists were already blowing their horns. The spell on Banwell was apparently broken. He was not the kind of man who tolerated being thrown by a horse; to be thrown from a carriage was unthinkable. His eyes were furious - at the motorists, at the gawking crowd, and above all at the confused, prostrate horse, which was struggling unsuccessfully to right herself. 'My gun,' he said to his coachman coldly. 'Get me my gun.'

  'You can't destroy her, sir,' objected the coachman, who was crouching by the side of the horse, extricating her hoofs from a brace of twisted ropes. 'Nothing's broken. She's just tangled up. There she is. There you are' - this he said to the horse, as he helped her upright - 'it wasn't your fault.'

  Doubtless the coachman meant well, but he could not have chosen more ill-favored words. 'Not her fault, eh?' said Banwell. 'She rears like an unbroken jade, and it's not her fault?' He seized the bit and roughly twisted the horse's neck, looking her in the eye. 'I can see,' he said to the coachman, his voice still cold, 'you never taught her to keep her head down. Well, I will.'

  Yanking the carriage rods out of her bridle, Banwell seized the reins and mounted the horse ba
reback. He drove her back into the construction site and there wheeled about until he came to the great dangling hook of the crane that loomed sky-high in the middle of the plot of ground. Taking that hook in both hands, Banwell fixed it under the horse's halter, which was in turn secured firmly around her underbelly. He leaped off the horse and shouted to the crane man, 'You there, take her up. You in the crane: take her up, I say. Can't you hear me? Take her up!'

  The astonished crane man was slow to respond. At last he engaged the gears of the hulking machine. Its long cable went taut; its hook clenched at the saddle. The horse stirred and pawed at the uncomfortable sensation. For a moment nothing more happened.

  'Lift, you bugger,' Banwell cried to his crane operator, 'lift or go home to your wife tonight without a job!'

  The crane man manipulated the levers again. With a lurch, the horse lifted up off the ground. The moment her feet left the earth, uncomprehending panic fell upon the animal. She screamed and thrashed about, succeeding only in making herself twist wildly in the air, suspended by the crane's thick hook.

  'Let her go!' a girl's voice, angry and stricken, cried out. It was Miss Acton. Watching the spectacle unfold, she had hurried across Forty-second Street and was now at the front of the crowd. Younger was right next to her, and Littlemore several rows behind. She called out again, 'Let her down. Someone, make him stop!'

  'Up,' Banwell ordered. He heard the girl's voice. For a moment, he looked right at her. Then he returned his attention to the horse. 'Higher.'

  The crane man did as he was bid, hoisting the creature higher and higher: twenty, thirty, forty feet above the ground. Philosophers say it cannot be known whether animals feel emotions comparable to a human's, but anyone who has seen sheer terror in a horse's eyes can never doubt it again.

  Because all human eyes were on the helpless, dangling, thrashing animal, no one in the crowd noticed the stirring of the steel girder three stories up the scaffolding. This girder was secured to a rope, which was in turn connected to the crane hook. Until now that rope had been slack, the steel beam lying harmlessly in place on the scaffold. But as the hook rose, this rope too eventually pulled taut, and now, without warning, the steel girder rolled off the wooden planks. From there it swung freely. Being attached to the crane's hook, it naturally swung in the direction of the hook - which is to say, in the direction of George Banwell.

  Banwell never saw the deadly girder hurtling at him, gathering speed as it swung. The beam turned inexorably in the air, so that it came at him dead on, like a gigantic spear aimed at his stomach. Had it struck, it would certainly have killed him. As it happened, it missed him by a foot. This was a stroke of excellent and not atypical good fortune for Banwell, but its consequence was that the beam flew on, now heading for the crowd, several members of whom screamed in fright, a good dozen men diving to the dirt to protect themselves.

  There was only one among them, however, who should have dived away. That was Miss Nora Acton, since the twelve- foot steel girder was swinging straight toward her. Miss Acton, however, neither screamed nor moved. Whether it was because the onrushing beam held her somehow in thrall or because it was difficult to know which way to go, Miss Acton stood rooted to her spot, aghast and about to die.

  Younger seized the girl by her long blond braid, pulling her hard - and not very chivalrously - into his arms. The hurtling girder whistled by them, so close the two could feel its wind, and flew high into the air behind them.

  'Ow!' said Miss Acton.

  'Sorry,' said Younger. Then he drew her by the hair a second time, pulling her now in the other direction.

  'Ow!' said Miss Acton again, more emphatically, as the steel beam, making its return trip, flew past them once more, this time just missing the back of her head.

  Banwell eyed the sailing girder dispassionately as it shot by. With disgust, he watched it soar up and slam into the scaffold from which its journey had begun, destroying that structure as if it had been made of toothpicks, sending men, tools, and wooden planks flying in all directions. When the dust cleared, only the horse was still making noise, neighing and spinning helplessly above their heads. Banwell signaled the crane man to bring her down and, with a cold rage, issued orders to his men to clear the debris.

  'Take me back to my room, please,' Miss Acton said to Younger.

  The crowd milled about for a long while, admiring the damage and replaying the events. The horse was returned to the coachman, whom Detective Littlemore now approached. The detective had recognized George Banwell. 'Say, how's she doing, the poor thing?' Littlemore asked the coachman. 'What is she, a Perch?'

  'Half Perch,' replied the driver, trying as best he could to calm the still trembling animal. 'They call her a Cream.' 'She's a beauty, that's for sure.'

  'That she is,' said the coachman, stroking the horse's nose. 'Gee, I wonder what made her rear up like that. Something she saw, probably.' 'Something he saw, more like.' 'How's that?'

  'It wasn't her at all,' grumbled the coachman. 'It was him. He was trying to back her up. You can't back up a carriage horse.' He spoke to the mare. 'Tried to make you back up, that's what he did. Because he was scared.' 'Scared? Of what?'

  'Ask him, why don't you? He don't scare easy, not him. Scared like he saw the devil himself.'

  'How do you like that?' said Littlemore, before heading back to the hotel.

  At the same moment, on the top floor of the Hotel Manhattan, Carl Jung stood on his balcony, surveying the scene below. He had seen the extraordinary events in the construction site. Those events had not only frightened him; they filled him with a profound, swelling elation - of a kind he had felt only once or twice in his entire life. He withdrew into his room, where he sat numbly on the floor, his back against the bed, seeing faces no one else could see, hearing voices no one else could hear.

  Chapter Nine

  When we got back to Miss Acton's rooms, Mrs Biggs was frantic. She ordered Miss Acton first to lie down, then to sit up, then to move about in order to 'get her color back.' Miss Acton paid no mind to any of these commands. She headed straight to the little kitchen with which her suite was equipped and began preparing a pot of tea. Mrs Biggs threw up her arms in protest, declaring that she should be fixing tea. The old woman would not be quiet until Miss Acton sat her down and kissed her hands.

  The girl had an uncanny capacity either to regain her composure after the most overwhelming events or to affect a composure she did not feel. She finished the tea and handed a steaming cup to Mrs Biggs.

  'You would have been killed, Miss Nora,' said the old woman. 'You would have been killed if not for the young doctor.'

  Miss Acton placed her hand on top of the woman's, urging her to take her tea. When Mrs Biggs had done so, the girl told her she would have to leave us because she needed to speak privately with me. After a good deal more importuning, Mrs Biggs was persuaded to go.

  When we were alone, Miss Acton thanked me.

  'Why have you made your servant leave?' I asked.

  'I did not "make" her leave,' replied the girl. 'You wanted to know the circumstances in which I lost my voice three years ago. I wish to tell you.'

  The teapot now began to shake in her hands. Attempting to pour, she missed the cup altogether. She put the pot down and clasped her fingers together. 'That poor horse. How could he do such a thing?'

  'You are not to blame, Miss Acton.'

  'What is the matter with you?' She looked at me furiously. 'Why would I be to blame?'

  'There is no reason. But you sound as if you are blaming yourself.'

  Miss Acton went to the window. She parted the curtain, revealing a balcony behind a pair of French doors and opening up a panoramic view of the city below. 'Do you know who that was?'

  'No.'

  'That was George Banwell, Clara's husband. My father's friend.' The girl's breathing became unsteady. 'It was by the lake at his summerhouse. He proposed to me.'

  'Please lie down, Miss Acton.'

  'Why?'
<
br />   'It is part of the treatment.'

  'Oh, very well.'

  When she was on the couch again, I resumed. 'Mr Banwell asked you to marry him - when you were fourteen?'

  'I was sixteen, Doctor, and he did not propose marriage.'

  'What did he propose?'

  'To have - to have - ' She stopped.

  'To have intercourse with you?' It is always delicate to refer to sexual activity with young female patients, because one cannot be sure how much they know of biology. But it is worse to let an excess of delicacy reinforce the pernicious sense of shame that a girl may attach to such an experience.

  'Yes,' she answered. 'We were staying at his country house, my whole family He and I were walking along the path around their pond. He said he had purchased another cottage nearby, where we could go, with a lovely large bed, where the two of us could be alone and no one would know.'

  'What did you do?'

  'I slapped him in the face and ran,' said Miss Acton. 'I told my father - who did not take my side.'

  'He didn't believe you?' I asked.

  'He acted as if I were the wrongdoer. I insisted he confront Mr Banwell. A week later, he told me he had. Mr Banwell denied the charge, according to my father, with great indignation. I am sure he wore very much the same look you saw just now. He only conceded mentioning his new cottage to me. He maintained that I had drawn the wicked inference myself, because of - because of the kind of books I read. My father chose to believe Mr Banwell. I hate him.'

  'Mr Banwell?'

  'My father.'

  'Miss Acton, you lost your voice three years ago. But you are describing an event that occurred last year.'

  'Three years ago, he kissed me.'

  'Your father?'

  'No, how disgusting,' said Miss Acton. 'Mr Banwell.'

  'You were fourteen?' I asked.

  'Were mathematics difficult for you at school, Dr Younger?'