The Interpretation Of Murder

by Jed Rubenfeld

  'That's Thaw's wife, the showgirl,' said Betty. Evelyn Nesbit had been described by more than one infatuated author of the time as the most beautiful girl that ever lived. She married Harry Thaw in 1905, a year before Thaw killed Stanford White.

  'Before she was his wife,' said Littlemore. They kept reading:

  I reside at the Savoy Hotel, Fifth Avenue and Fifty- ninth Street, in the City of New York. I am 18 years of age, having been born on Christmas Day, in the year 1884.

  For several months prior to June 1903,1 had been at Dr Bell's Hospital at West Thirty-third Street, where

  I had an operation performed on me for appendicitis, and during the month of June went to Europe at the request of Henry Kendall Thaw. Mr Thaw and I traveled throughout Holland, stopping at various places to catch connecting trains, and then we went to Munich, Germany. We then traveled through the Bavarian Highlands, finally going to the Austrian Tyrol. During all this time the said Thaw and myself were known as husband and wife, and were represented by the said Thaw, and known, under the name of Mr and Mrs Dellis.

  'The snake,' said Betty.

  'Well, at least he married her later,' said Littlemore.

  After traveling together about five or six weeks, the said Thaw rented a castle in the Austrian Tyrol, situated about halfway up a very isolated mountain. This castle must have been built centuries ago, as the rooms and windows are all old-fashioned. I was assigned a bedroom for my personal use.

  The first night I was very tired, and went to bed right after dinner. In the morning I had breakfast with the said Thaw. After breakfast Mr Thaw said he wished to tell me something, and asked me to step into my bedroom. I entered the room, when the said Thaw, without any provocation, grasped me by the throat and tore the bathrobe from my body. The said Thaw was in a terrific excited condition. His eyes were glaring, and he had in his right hand a cowhide whip. He seized hold of me and threw me on the bed. I was powerless and attempted to scream, but the said Thaw placed his fingers in my mouth and tried to choke me.

  He then, without any provocation, and without the slightest reason, began to inflict on me several severe and violent blows with the cowhide whip. So brutally did he assault me that my skin was cut and bruised. I besought him to desist, but he refused. He stopped every minute or so to rest, and then renewed his attack on me.

  I was absolutely in fear of my life; the servants could not hear my outcries, for the reason that my voice did not penetrate through the large castle, and so could not come to my succor. The said Thaw threatened to kill me, and by reason of his brutal attack, as I have described, I was unable to move.

  The following morning Thaw again came into my bedroom and administered a castigation similar to the day before. He took a cowhide whip and belabored me with it on my bare skin, cutting the skin and leaving me in a fainting condition. I swooned and did not know how long after I returned to consciousness.

  'How horrible,' said Betty. 'But she married him - why?' 'For his dough, I guess,' said Littlemore. He leafed through the affidavit again. 'You think this is it? What Susie meant us to find?'

  'It must be, Jimmy. It's the same thing that was done to poor Miss Riverford.'

  'I know,' said Littlemore. 'But this is an affidavit. Does Susie seem like somebody who knows about affidavits?'

  'What do you mean? It can't be a coincidence.'

  'Why would she remember the day, the exact day, this affidavit got read in at the trial? It doesn't add up. I think there's something else.' Littlemore sat down on the floor, reading the transcript. Betty sighed impatiently. Suddenly the detective called out, 'Wait a minute. Here we go. Look at the Q here, Betty. That's the prosecutor, Mr Jerome, asking questions. Now look who the witness is, giving the answers.'

  At the spot indicated by the detective, the transcript read as follows:

  Q. What is your name?

  A. Susan Merrill.

  Q. State your business, please.

  A. I keep a rooming house for gentlemen in Forty-third Street.

  Q. Do you know Harry K. Thaw?

  A. I do.

  Q. When did you first meet him?

  A. In 1903. He called on me to engage rooms. Which he did.

  Q. For what purpose did he say?

  A. He said he was engaging young ladies for work on the stage.

  Q. Did he bring visitors to his rooms?

  A. Mostly young women of fifteen years and on. They said they wanted to get on the stage.

  Q. Did anything unusual happen at any time when any of these girls called?

  A. Yes. One young girl had gone into his room. A little later, I heard screams and I ran into the room. She was tied to the bedpost. He had a whip in his right hand, and he was about to strike her. There were welts all over her.

  Q. What was she wearing?

  A. Very little.

  Q. What happened next?

  A. He was wild and hurried away. She told me he had been trying to murder her.

  Q. Can you describe the whip?

  A. It was a dog whip. On that occasion.

  Q. Were there other occasions?

  A. Another time there were two girls. One of them was undressed, the other was partly dressed. He was whipping them with a lady's riding whip.

  Q. Did you ever speak with him about it?

  A. Yes, I did. I told him these were all young girls and he had no right to whip them.

  Q. What explanation did he make for doing it?

  A. He made no explanation at all. He said they needed it.

  Q. Did you ever inform the police?

  A. No.

  Q. Why not?

  A. He said if I did he'd kill me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  'Come,' said Freud, changing the subject, as we walked through the park on our way from Brill's to the hotel. 'Let us hear how you are getting along with Miss Nora.'

  I hesitated, but Freud assured me that I could speak as freely to Ferenczi as to himself, so I recounted the whole story at length: the illicit congress between Mr Acton and Mrs Banwell, glimpsed by the fourteen-year-old Nora, which Freud had somehow foreseen; the girl's tantrum in the hotel room, directed against me; the apparent recovery of her memory, identifying George Banwell as her assailant; and the sudden arrival of Banwell himself, together with the girl's parents and the mayor, who provided Banwell's alibi.

  Ferenczi, after declaring his revulsion at the nature of the sexual act Mrs Banwell performed on Harcourt Acton - a reaction I found hard to understand, coming from a psychoanalyst - asked why Banwell couldn't have attacked Nora Acton even if he had not murdered the other girl. I explained that I had quizzed the detective on the very same point and that there was apparently physical evidence proving the two attacks were carried out by the same man.

  'Let us leave the forensics to the police, shall we?' said Freud. 'If the analysis should help the police, well and good. If not, we shall at least help the patient. I have two questions for you, Younger. First, do you not find something strange in Nora's assertion that, when she saw Mrs Banwell with her father, she didn't understand at the time exactly what she was witnessing?'

  'Most American girls of fourteen would be ill-informed on that point, Dr Freud.'

  'I appreciate that,' Freud replied. 'But that is not what I meant. She implied that she now understood what she had witnessed, did she not?'

  'Yes.'

  'Would you expect a girl of seventeen to be better informed than one of fourteen?'

  I began to take his point.

  'How,' asked Freud, 'does she know now what she didn't know then?'

  'She suggested to me yesterday,' I answered, 'that she reads books explicit in content.'

  'Ah, yes, that's right, very good. Well, we must think more about this. But for now, my second question: tell me, Younger, why did she turn on you?'

  'You mean, why did she throw her cup and saucer at me?'

  'Yes,' said Freud.

  'And hit you with boiling teapot,' added Ferenczi.

&
nbsp; I had no answer.

  'Ferenczi, can you enlighten our friend?'

  'I am also in the dark,' Ferenczi replied. 'She is in love with him. That much is obvious.'

  Freud addressed me. 'Think again. What did you say to her just before she became violent with you?'

  'I had just finished the touching of her forehead,' I said, 'which failed. I sat down. I asked her to complete an analogy she had begun earlier. She was comparing the whiteness of Mrs Banwell's back to something else, but she broke off. I asked her to complete the thought.'

  'Why?' asked Freud.

  'Because, Dr Freud, you have written that whenever a patient begins a sentence, but interrupts himself and doesn't finish, a repression is at work.'

  'Good boy,' said Freud. 'And how did Nora respond?'

  'She told me to get out. Without warning. And then she began throwing things at me.'

  'Just like that?' asked Freud.

  'Yes.'

  'So?'

  Again I had no reply.

  'Did it not occur to you that Nora would be jealous of any interest you showed in Clara Banwell? Particularly in her naked back?'

  'Interest in Mrs Banwell?' I repeated. 'I've never met Mrs Banwell.'

  'The unconscious does not take such niceties into account,' said Freud. 'Consider the facts. Nora had just described Clara Banwell performing fellatio on her father, which she witnessed at the age of fourteen. That act is of course repugnant to any decent person; it fills us with the utmost disgust. But Nora does not display to you any such disgust, despite implying that she fully understands the nature of the act. She even says she found Mrs Banwell's movements appealing. Now, it is quite impossible that Nora should have witnessed that scene without deep jealousy. A girl has a hard enough time bearing her own mother: she will never allow another woman to arouse her father's passion without bitterly resenting the intruder. Nora, therefore, envied Clara. She wanted to be the one performing fellatio on her father. The wish was repressed; she has nurtured it ever since.'

  A moment ago, I had inwardly chastised Ferenczi for expressing revulsion at a 'deviant' sexual act - a revulsion I, for some reason, did not exactly share, despite Freud's remark about what all decent people feel. I had just been telling myself that every lesson taught by psychoanalysis undercut society's disapproval of so-called sexual deviance. Now, however, I found myself awash in a similar feeling. The wish Freud imputed to Miss Acton revolted me. Disgust is so reassuring; it feels like a moral proof. It is hard to let go of any moral sentiment anchored by disgust. We can't do it without setting our entire sense of right and wrong a-tremble, as if we were losing a plank that supported the whole fabric.

  'At the same time,' Freud continued, 'Nora formed a plan to seduce Mr Banwell, in order to avenge herself on her father. That is why, only a few weeks later, Nora agreed to join Banwell alone on a rooftop to watch the fireworks. That is why she also walked with him alone by the shore of a romantic lake two years later. Probably she encouraged him with hints of interest all along, as any pretty young girl can easily do. How surprised he must have been when she rejected him - not once, but twice.'

  'Which she did because true object of desire was her father,' Ferenczi put in. 'But still, why does she attack Younger?'

  'Yes, why, Younger?' asked Freud.

  'Because I stand in for her father?'

  'Precisely. When you analyze her, you take his place. It is the predictable transferential reaction. As a result, Nora's unconscious desire is now to gratify Younger with her mouth and throat. This fantasy was preoccupying her when Younger approached her to touch her forehead. He told us, you will remember, that at that moment she began to undo her scarf. This gesture represented her invitation to Younger to take advantage of her. Here, I may add, is also the explanation of why the touching of her throat succeeded, whereas the touching of her forehead did not. But Younger rejected this invitation, telling her to retie her scarf. She felt rebuffed.'

  'She did look offended,' I put in. 'I didn't know why.'

  'Don't forget,' Freud continued, 'she is naturally vain about the injuries she has received. Otherwise she would not wear the scarf at all. So she was already sensitive about how you would react if you saw her neck or back. When you told her to keep her scarf on, you injured her. And when, shortly afterward, you brought up the subject of Clara Banwell's back, it was as if you had said to her, "It is Clara in whom I am interested, not you. It is Clara's back I want to see, not yours." Thus you unwittingly recapitulated her father's act of betrayal, provoking in the girl her sudden, otherwise inexplicable fury. Hence her violent attack - followed by a desire to give you her throat and mouth.'

  'Irrefutable,' said Ferenczi, shaking his head in admiration.

  Entering the drawing room of their house on Gramercy Park, Nora Acton informed her mother she would not sleep in her bedroom that night. Instead she would stay in the small first-floor parlor. From there, she could see the patrolman stationed outside. Otherwise, she said, she would not feel safe.

  These were the first words Nora had addressed to either of her parents since leaving the hotel. When they arrived home, she had gone straight to her room. Dr Higginson had been called in, but Nora refused to see him. She also refused to come to dinner, declaring that she was not hungry. This was false; in fact she had not eaten since morning, when Mrs Biggs had prepared breakfast for her.

  Mildred Acton, reclining on the drawing-room sofa and pronouncing herself exhausted, told her daughter she was being most unreasonable. With one police officer manning the front door and another the rear, how could there be any danger? In any event, Nora's spending the night in the parlor was out of the question. The neighbors would see her. What would they think? The family must do its best now to act as if there had been no disgrace.

  'Mother,' said Nora, 'how can you say I've been disgraced?'

  'Why, I said no such thing. Harcourt, did I say any such thing?'

  'No, dear,' said Harcourt Acton, standing over a coffee table. He had been perusing five weeks of accumulated mail. 'Of course not.'

  'I specifically said we must act as if you hadn't been disgraced,' her mother clarified.

  'But I haven't,' said the girl.

  'Don't be obtuse, Nora,' counseled her mother.

  Nora sighed. 'What is that on your eye, Father?'

  'Oh - polo accident,' explained Acton. 'Poked myself with my own stick. Stupid of me. You remember my old detached retina? Same eye. Can't see a deuced thing out of it now. How's that for bad luck?'

  No one answered this question.

  'Well,' said Acton, 'not compared with yours, Nora, of course, I didn't mean -'

  'Don't sit there!' Mrs Acton called out to her husband, who was about to lower himself into an armchair. 'No, not there either. I had the chairs done just before we left.'

  'But where am I to sit, dear?' asked Acton.

  Nora closed her eyes. She turned to leave.

  'Nora,' said her mother. 'What was the name of that college of yours?'

  The girl stopped, her every muscle tense. 'Barnard,' she answered.

  'Harcourt, we must contact them first thing tomorrow morning.'

  'Why must you contact them?' asked Nora.

  'To tell them you aren't coming, of course. It's quite impossible now. Dr Higginson says you must rest. I never approved in the first place. A college for young ladies! We never heard of such a thing in my time.'

  Nora flushed. 'You can't.'

  'I beg your pardon,' said Mrs Acton.

  'I am going to be educated.'

  'Did you hear that? She calls me uneducated,' Mrs Acton said to her husband. 'Not those glasses, Harcourt, use the ones on top.'

  'Father?' asked Nora.

  'Well, Nora,' said Acton, 'we must consider what is best for you.'

  Nora looked at her parents with undisguised fury. She ran from the room and up the stairs, not stopping on the second floor, where her own bedroom was, or the third, but continuing all the way to the four
th, with its low ceilings and small quarters. There she ran straight into Mrs Biggs's bedroom and threw herself on the old woman's bed, burying her head in the rough pillowcase. If her father did

  not let her go to Barnard, she told Mrs Biggs, she would run away.

  Mrs Biggs did her best to comfort the girl. A good night's sleep, she said, would do a power. It was almost midnight when, at last, Nora consented to go to bed. To be sure she felt safe, Mrs Biggs saw to it that Mr Biggs was positioned on a chair outside Nora's bedroom door, with instructions to remain there the whole night through.

  The old servant never once deserted his post that night, although he nodded off before too long. The police officers likewise remained on duty. Which made it quite surprising when, in the black of night, the girl suddenly felt a man's handkerchief pressing hard against her mouth and the cold, sharp edge of a blade on her neck.

  Never having been to Jelliffe's home, I was unprepared for its extravagance. The word apartment was inapposite, unless one had in mind the phrase royal apartments, as for example at Versailles, which was evidently the dwelling Jelliffe intended to bring to mind. Blue Chinese porcelain, white marble statues, and exquisitely turned legs - highboy legs, davenport legs, credenza legs - were everywhere on display. If Jelliffe meant to convey to his guests an impression of personal wealth, he succeeded.

  I knew Freud well enough by now to see he was repelled; the Bostonian in me had the same reaction. Ferenczi, by contrast, was unaffectedly overwhelmed by the splendor. I overheard him exchanging pleasantries with two elderly female guests in Jelliffe's living room before dinner, where servants offered us hors d'oeuvres from gold, not silver, trays. In his white suit, Ferenczi was the only man present not wearing black. It did not seem to discomfit him in the least.

  'So much gold,' he said admiringly to the ladies: in the high ceding above us, heavenly plaster scenes were lined with gold leaf. 'It reminds me of our Operahaz, by Ybl, in Budapest. Have you been?'

  Neither of the two ladies had. Indeed, they professed confusion. Hadn't Ferenczi just told them he came from Hungary?