The Interpretation Of Murder

by Jed Rubenfeld

  'Exactly what we have been wondering,' said Ferenczi.

  'I never trusted Sidis,' added Brill, referring to a doctor on the editorial board of Prince's journal. 'But we must remember it's Boston. They'll arrest a chicken breast sandwich there if it's not properly dressed. They arrested that Australian girl - Kellerman, the swimmer - because her bathing costume didn't cover her knees.'

  'I'm afraid my news is even worse, gentlemen,' I said, 'and it concerns Dr Freud directly. The lectures next week are in doubt. Dr Freud has been personally attacked - I mean, his name has been attacked - in Worcester. I cannot tell you how sorry I am to be the messenger.'

  I proceeded to summarize as much as I could of President Hall's letter without entering into the sordid accusations against Freud. An agent representing an exceedingly wealthy New York family met with Hall yesterday, offering a donation to Clark University that Hall described as 'most handsome.' The family was prepared to fund a fifty-bed hospital for mental and nervous disorders, paying for a new building as well as all the most modern equipment, nurses, staff, and salaries sufficient to attract the best neurologists from New York and Boston.

  'That would cost half a million dollars,' said Brill.

  'Considerably more,' I replied. 'It would make us in one blow the leading psychiatric institute in the nation. We would surpass McLean.'

  'Who is the family?'

  'Hall doesn't say,' I replied to Brill.

  'But is this permitted?' asked Ferenczi. 'A private family paying a public university?'

  'It is called philanthropy,' answered Brill. 'It is why American universities are so rich. And why they will soon overtake the greatest European universities.'

  'Bosh,' ejaculated Jones. 'Never.'

  'Go on, Younger,' said Freud. 'There is nothing amiss in what you have told us so far.'

  'The family has stipulated two conditions,' I continued. 'A member of the family is apparently a well-known physician with views about psychology. The first condition is that psychoanalysis cannot be practiced at the new hospital or taught anywhere in Clark's curriculum. The second is that Dr Freud's lectures next week must be canceled. Otherwise the gift will go to another hospital - in New York.'

  Various exclamations of dismay and denunciation followed. Only Freud remained stoic. 'What does Hall say he will do?' he asked.

  'I'm afraid that is not all,' I said. 'Nor is it the worst. President Hall was given a dossier on Dr Freud.'

  'Go on, for God's sake,' Brill scolded me. 'Don't play hide-and-seek.'

  I explained that this dossier purported to document instances of licentious - indeed, criminal - behavior by Freud. President Hall was told that Freud's gross misconduct would soon be reported by the New York press. The family was certain that Hall, after reading the contents, would agree that Freud's appearance at Clark must be canceled for the good of the university. 'President Hall did not send the file itself,' I said, 'but his letter summarizes the charges. May I give you the letter, Dr Freud? President Hall asked me specifically to say he felt you had a right to be informed of everything said against you.'

  'Sporting of him,' remarked Brill.

  I don't know why - perhaps because I was the letter's bearer - but I felt responsible for the unfolding disaster. It was as if I had personally invited Freud to Clark, only to destroy him. I was not anxious solely for Freud's sake. I had selfish reasons for not wanting to see this man brought down, on whose authority I had staked so many of my own beliefs - indeed, so much of my own life. None of us is saintly, but somehow I had formed the belief years ago that Freud was different from the rest of us. I imagined that he (unlike myself) had through psychological insight acceded to a plane above the baser temptations. I hoped to heaven the accusations in Hall's letter were false, but they had that degree of detail that imparts the ring of truth.

  'There is no need for me to read the letter privately,' said Freud. 'Tell us what has been said against me. I have no secrets from anyone here.'

  I started with the least of the charges: 'You are said not to be married to the woman you live with, although you hold her out to the world as your wife.'

  'But that's not Freud,' cried Brill. 'It's Jones.'

  'I beg your pardon,' Jones replied indignantly.

  'Oh, come, Jones,' Brill said. 'Everyone knows you're not married to Loe.'

  'Freud not married,' said Jones, looking behind his left shoulder. 'How absurd.'

  'What else?' asked Freud.

  'That you were discharged from employment at a respected hospital,' I continued, awkwardly, 'because you would not stop discussing sexual fantasies with twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls, who were in the hospital for the treatment of purely physical, not nervous, conditions.'

  'But it's Jones they're talking about!' exclaimed Brill.

  Jones had taken a sudden and minute interest in the architecture of Brill's apartment building.

  'That you have been sued by the husband of one of your female patients and shot at by another,' I said.

  'Jones again!' Brill called out.

  'That you are currently having a sexual affair,' I went on, 'with your teenage housekeeper.'

  Brill looked from Freud to me to Ferenczi to Jones, who was now gazing skyward, apparently studying the migratory patterns of Manhattan's avian species. 'Ernest?' said Brill. 'Surely you're not. Tell us you're not.'

  A series of musical throat-clearing noises came from Jones, but no verbal response.

  'You're disgusting,' Brill said to Jones. 'Really disgusting.'

  'Is that the end of them, Younger?' asked Freud.

  'No, sir,' I answered. The final allegation was the worst of all. 'There is one more: that you are currently engaged in another sexual liaison, this one with a patient of yours, a nineteen-year-old Russian girl, a medical student. Your affair is said to be so notorious that the girl's mother wrote you, begging you not to ruin her daughter. The dossier claims to reproduce the letter you wrote the mother in reply. In your letter, or what they say is your letter, you demand money from the mother in exchange for - for refraining from further sexual relations with the patient.'

  After I had finished, no one spoke for a considerable time. At last Ferenczi burst out, 'But that one's Jung, for heaven's sake!'

  'Sandor!' Freud rejoined sharply.

  'Jung wrote that?' asked Brill. 'To a patient's mother?'

  Ferenczi threw his hand over his mouth. 'Oop,' he said. 'But, Freud, you can't let them think it's you. They are going to tell newspapers. I am imagining headlines already.'

  I was too: FREUD CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES.

  'So,' Brill mused darkly, 'we are under attack in Boston, in Worcester, and New York at the same time. It cannot be a coincidence.'

  'What is attack in New York?' asked Ferenczi.

  'The Jeremiah and Sodom and Gomorrah business,' Brill answered, irritably. 'Those two messages weren't the only ones I've received. There have been many.'

  We were all surprised and asked Brill to explain.

  'It began right after I started translating Freud's hysteria book,' he said. 'How they knew I was doing it is a mystery. But the very week I started, I received the first one, and it's been getting worse ever since. They turn up when I least expect them. I am being threatened, I feel sure of it. Every time it's some murderous biblical passage - always about Jews and lust and fire. It makes me think of a pogrom.'

  No one sought to obstruct Littlemore this time as he climbed the stairs at 782 Eighth Avenue. It was four o'clock - dinner preparation hour at the restaurant, from which came shrieks of Cantonese, punctuated by the sizzling hiss of chicken parts plunged into burning oil. Littlemore, who hadn't eaten since morning, wouldn't have minded some pork chop suey himself. He felt eyes upon him at every landing but saw no one. He heard someone running in a hallway above and a whispering of voices. At Apartment 4C, his knock yielded the same result it had before: nothing but the sound of hurried footfalls retreating down the back stairs.

  Littlemore l
ooked at his watch. He lit a cigarette to combat the odors wafting through the corridor, hoping he would get to Betty's in time to ask her to dinner. A few minutes later, Officer John Reardon came trooping up the stairs with a submissive, frightened Chinese man in tow. 'Just like you said, Detective,' said Officer Reardon. 'Barreled out the back door like his pants were on fire.'

  Littlemore surveyed the miserable Chong Sing. 'Don't want to talk to me, Mr Chong, do you?' he asked. 'Suppose we have a look around your place. Open up.'

  Chong Sing was much shorter than Littlemore or Reardon. He was of stocky build, with a flat, broad nose and rutted skin. He gestured helplessly, trying to indicate that he spoke no English.

  'Open it,' Littlemore commanded, banging on the locked door.

  The Chinaman produced a key and opened the door. His one-room apartment was a model of order and cleanliness. There was not a mote of dust or a teacup out of place. Two low cots, with seedy coverings, apparently did triple duty as beds, sofas, and tables. The walls were bare. Several sets of incense sticks burned in one corner, giving an acrid tang to the hot, motionless air.

  'All cleaned up for us,' said Littlemore, taking it in. 'Thoughtful. Missed a spot, though.' With an uptick of his chin, Littlemore signaled overhead. Both Chong Sing and Officer Reardon looked up. On the low ceiling was a thick blackish smudge, almost three feet in length, over each of the two cots.

  'What's that?' asked the policeman.

  'Smoke stain,' answered Littlemore. 'Opium. Jack, you notice anything funny about that window?'

  Reardon glanced at the room's one small casement window, which was closed. 'No. What about it?' he asked.

  'It's closed,' answered Littlemore. 'A hundred degrees, and the window's closed. See what's outside.'

  Reardon opened the window and leaned out into a narrow airshaft. He returned with an armful of items he found on a ledge underneath: a glass-covered oil lamp, half a dozen long pipes, bowls, and a needle. Chong Sing appeared to be in complete confusion, shaking his head,

  looking from the detective to the police officer and back to the detective.

  'You run an opium joint here, don't you, Mr Chong?' said the detective. 'You ever go up to. Miss Riverford's apartment at the Balmoral?'

  'Hah?' said Chong Sing, shrugging helplessly.

  'How'd you get red clay on your shoes?' the detective persevered.

  'Hah?'

  'Jack,' said Littlemore, 'take Mr Chong to the lock-up at Forty-seventh. Tell Captain Post he's an opium dealer.'

  When Officer Reardon seized him by the arm, Chong spoke at last. 'Wait. I tell you. I only live in apartment in daytime. I don't know opium. I never see opium before.'

  'Sure,' said Littlemore. 'Get him out of here, Jack.'

  'Hokay, hokay,' said Chong. 'I tell you who sells opium. Hokay?'

  'Get him out of here,' said the detective.

  At the sight of Reardon's handcuffs, Chong cried out, 'Wait! I tell you something else. I show you something. You follow me hallway. I show you what you looking for.'

  Chong's voice had changed. He sounded genuinely afraid now. Littlemore signaled Reardon to let Chong precede them into the dark, narrow corridor. From two flights below, the clattering of the restaurant could still be heard, and as they followed the Chinaman down the hall, past the stairwell, Littlemore began to hear the twanging, dissonant chords of Chinese string music. The smell of meat grew stronger. Every door was slivered open to allow the residents within to observe the goings-on - every door but one. The lone closed door belonged to the room at the farthest end of the corridor. Here Chong stopped. 'Inside,' he said. 'Inside.'

  'Who lives here?' asked the detective.

  'My cousin,' said Chong. 'Leon. He live here before. Now no one.'

  The door was locked. There was no response to Littlemore s knock, but the moment the detective got close enough to rap his knuckles, he knew the overpowering meat odor was not coming from the restaurant after all. He drew from his pocket two thin metal picks. Littlemore was adept with locked doors. He had this one open in short order.

  The room, though identical in size, contrasted in every other way with Chong Sing's. Gaudy red ornaments adorned every surface. A dozen vases, large and small, were scattered about, most of them carved in the form of dragons and demons. On the windowsill was a lacquered rouge box, with a round face mirror perched behind it; on a dresser, a painted statuette of the Virgin and Child. Nearly every square inch of wall was covered with framed photographs, all depicting a Chinese man who himself offered a stark contrast to Chong Sing. The man in the photographs was tall and arrestingly handsome, with an aquiline nose and a smooth, unblemished complexion. He wore an American jacket, shirt, and tie. Nearly all the pictures showed this man with young women - different young women.

  What most commanded attention, however, was a single massive object planted squarely in the center of the room: a large closed trunk. It was the kind of trunk that well- to-do travelers use, with leather sides and brass hinges. Its dimensions were these: two feet in height, two in depth, three in length. Coils of stiff awning rope bound it shut.

  The air was fetid. Littlemore could hardly breathe. The Chinese music was coming from the room directly above them; the detective found it difficult to think. The trunk seemed, impossibly, to be rippling in the thick atmosphere. Littlemore opened his pocket knife. Officer Reardon had one too. Together, wordlessly, they approached the chest and began to saw at the heavy ropes. A crowd of Chinese, many with handkerchiefs pressed against their mouths, gathered at the doorway to watch.

  'Put your knife away, Jack,' said Littlemore to Officer Reardon. 'Just keep your eye on Chong.'

  The detective worked at the ropes. When he severed the last coil, the lid of the trunk burst open. Reardon staggered back, either from surprise or from the explosion of rank gas that escaped from the trunk's interior. Littlemore covered his mouth with his sleeve but remained where he was. Inside the chest were three things: a ladies' hat crowned with a stuffed bird; a thick stack of letters and envelopes tied together with string; and the crumpled body of a young woman, viciously decomposed, clad only in under- things, a silver pendant on her chest and a white silk tie tightly wound around her neck.

  Officer Reardon was no longer keeping an eye on Chong Sing. Instead he was close to passing out. Seeing this, Chong slipped back into the crowd of murmuring Chinese and out the open door.

  We trudged silently up the four flights of stairs to Brill's apartment, each of us wondering, I assume, how to respond to the difficulties in Worcester. We had several hours to spend before a dinner party to which Smith Jelliffe, Brill's publisher, had invited us. At the fifth-floor landing, Ferenczi commented on a peculiar smell of burning leaves or paper. 'Someone is maybe cremating a dead person in their kitchen?' he suggested helpfully.

  Brill opened his door. What we saw inside was unexpected.

  It was snowing inside Brill's apartment - or seemed to be. A fine white dust drifted about the room, swirling in the air currents created by our opening the door; the floor was covered with the stuff. All of Brill's books, together with the tables, windowsills, and chairs, were coated. The smell of fire was everywhere. Rose Brill stood in the middle of the room with broom and dustpan, covered head to foot in a white rime, sweeping up as much as she could.

  'I just got here,' she cried. 'Shut the door, for heaven's sake. What is it?'

  I gathered some in my hands. 'It's ash,' I said.

  'You left something cooking?' Ferenczi asked her.

  'Nothing,' she answered, brushing the white grains from her eyes.

  'Someone put it here,' said Brill. He wandered about the room in a trance, his hands outstretched before him, alternately grabbing at the ash and waving it away. Suddenly he turned to Rose. 'Look at her. Look at her.'

  'What is it?' asked Freud.

  'She's a pillar of salt.'

  When Captain Post arrived with reinforcements from the West Forty-seventh Street station, he ordered - over
Detective Littlemore's objections - the arrest of a half dozen Chinese men at 782 Eighth Avenue, including the manager of the restaurant and two patrons who had the misfortune to come upstairs to see what the commotion was. The body was carted off to the morgue and a double manhunt begun.

  Littlemore's first thought was that he had found Elizabeth Riverford's missing corpse, but there was too much decomposition. He was no pathologist, but he doubted Miss Riverford, murdered on Sunday night, could have putrefied so thoroughly by Wednesday. Mr Hugel, thought Littlemore, would know for sure.

  Meanwhile, the detective went through the letters he had found inside the trunk. They were love letters, more than thirty of them. All began Dearest Leon; all were signed Elsie. Neighbors differed on the name of the room's inhabitant. Some called him Leon Ling; others said he went by William Leon. He managed a Chinatown restaurant, but no one had seen him for a month. He spoke excellent English and wore only American suits.

  Littlemore examined the photographs hanging on the walls. The building's occupants confirmed that the man in the pictures was Leon, but they did not know or would not say who the women were. Littlemore noticed that every single woman was white. Then he noticed something else.

  The detective took down one of the photographs. It showed Leon standing, smiling, between two very attractive young women. At first the detective thought he must be mistaken. When he was convinced he was not, he put the picture into his vest pocket, made an arrangement to meet Captain Post the next day, and left the building.

  The late afternoon air was still uncomfortably hot and muggy, but it was like a heavenly garden compared to the chamber from which Littlemore emerged. It was just past five when he got to Betty's apartment. She wasn't home. Her mother tried frantically to make the detective understand where 'Benedetta' was, but as the woman was speaking Italian, and rapidly at that, he could make neither heads nor tails of it. At last, one of Betty's little brothers came to the door and translated: Betty was in jail.