The Interpretation Of Murder

by Jed Rubenfeld

  Away from the others, she said, 'I've run away. I couldn't think of anyone else to go to. I'm sorry. I know I repulse you.'

  Her last words were a knife in my heart. 'How could you possibly have that effect on anyone, Miss Acton?'

  'I saw the look on your face. I hate your Dr Freud. How could he know?'

  'Why have you run away?'

  The girl's eyes welled up. 'They are planning to lock me up. They call it a sanatorium; they call it a rest treatment. My mother has been on the telephone with them since dawn. She told them I had a fantasy of being attacked in the night - and she raised her voice so that I would be sure to hear her, and Mr and Mrs Biggs too. Why can't I remember it more - more normally?'

  'Because he gave you chloroform.'

  'Chloroform?'

  'A surgical anaesthetic,' I went on. 'It produces the very effects you experienced.'

  'Then he was there. I knew it. Why would he do that?'

  'So he could make it seem as if you had done it to yourself. Then no one would believe you about either attack,' I said.

  She looked at me and turned away.

  'I've told Detective Littlemore,' I said.

  'Will Mr Banwell come for me again?'

  'I don't know.' 'At least my parents can't send me away now.'

  'They can,' I said. 'You are their child.'

  'What?'

  'The decision is theirs so long as you are a minor,' I explained. 'Your parents may not accept my word. We can't prove it. Chloroform leaves no trace.'

  'How old must one be before one is no longer a child?' she asked with a sudden urgency.

  'Eighteen.'

  'I shall be eighteen this Sunday.'

  'Will you really?' I was going to say that she therefore had no need to fear an involuntary confinement, but a foreboding overtook me.

  'What's wrong?' she asked.

  'We must fend them off until Sunday. If they succeed in hospitalizing you today or tomorrow, you could not be released until your parents said so.'

  'Even after I turned eighteen?'

  'Even after.'

  'I will run away,' she said. 'I know - our summer cottage. Now they have come back, it's empty. It's the last place he'll look for me. It's the last place any of them will look. Can you see me there? It's only an hour away by ferry. The Day Line stops right in Tarry Town if you ask them. Please, Doctor. I have no one else.'

  I considered. Getting Nora out of town was very sensible. George Banwell had somehow gotten into her bedroom wholly unobserved; he might get to her again. And Nora could hardly take the ferry herself: it wasn't safe for a young woman, particularly of Miss Acton's allure, to travel upriver alone. Everything else could wait until this evening. Freud was stuck in bed. If Brill's efforts to contact his friend at the New York Times proved fruitless, the next step would be for me to go to Worcester personally to speak with Hall, but I could do that tomorrow.

  'I'll take you,' I said.

  'Are you going to wear that suit?' she asked.

  A half hour after the delivery of the morning post, the Banwells' maid informed Clara that a visitor - 'a policeman, ma'am' - was waiting in the foyer. Clara followed her maid to the marble entry hall, where her butler was holding the hat of a small, pale man in a brown suit, with beady, almost desperate eyes, a bushy mustache, and equally bushy eyebrows.

  Clara started when she saw him. 'And you are -?' she asked stiffly.

  'Coroner Charles Hugel,' he replied, no less stiffly. 'I am chief investigator of the murder of Elizabeth Riverford. I would like a word with you.'

  'I see,' replied Clara. She turned to her butler. 'Surely this is Mr Banwell's business, Parker, not mine.'

  'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' answered Parker. 'The gentleman asked for you.'

  Clara turned back to the coroner. 'Did you ask for me, Mr - Mr -?'

  'Hugel,' said Hugel. 'I - no, I merely thought, with your husband out, Mrs Banwell, that you -'

  'My husband is not out,' said Clara. 'Parker, inform Mr Banwell that we have a caller. Mr Hugel, I am sure you will excuse me.' A few minutes later, from her dressing room, Clara heard a cascade of oaths sworn in George Banwell's deep voice, followed by a slamming of the front door. Then Clara heard her husband's heavy footsteps approaching. For a moment Clara's hands - applying powder to her lovely face - began to tremble, until she willed them still.

  An hour and a quarter later, Nora Acton and I were steaming north up the Hudson River past the spectacular burnt-orange cliffs of New Jersey. We had left the Hotel Manhattan through a basement door, just in case - after I had changed clothes. On the New York side of the river, an armada of three-masted wooden ships was anchored under Grant's Tomb, their white sails flapping lazily in the bright sunshine, part of the elaborate preparations for the Hudson-Fulton celebrations this fall. A few puffs of cloud floated in an otherwise unblemished sky. Miss Acton sat on a bench near the prow, her hair flowing and tousled by the breeze.

  'It's lovely, isn't it?' she said.

  'If you like boats,' I answered.

  'Don't you?'

  'I'm against boats,' I said. 'There is first of all the wind. If people enjoy a wind in their face, they should stand in front of an electric fan. Then there are the exhaust fumes. And the infernal horn - the visibility is perfect, there's no one around for miles, and they blow that blasted horn so loud it kills entire schools of fish.'

  'My father withdrew me from Barnard this morning. He called the registrar. Mother made him.'

  'That is reversible,' I said, embarrassed to have been chattering so ridiculously.

  'Did your father teach you to shoot, Dr Younger?' she asked.

  The question took me by surprise. I couldn't tell what she meant by it - or if she even knew what she might have meant by it.

  'What makes you think I can shoot?' I said.

  'Can't all men of our social class shoot?' She uttered social class almost contemptuously.

  'No,' I answered, 'unless you include shooting one's mouth off:

  'Well, you can,' she said. 'I saw you.'

  'Where?'

  'I told you: at the horse show last year. You were amusing yourself at the shooting gallery.'

  'Was I?'

  'Yes,' she said. 'You seemed to be enjoying yourself a good deal.'

  I looked at her for a long time, trying to see how much she knew. My father's suicide had involved a gun. Not to put too fine a point on it, he had blown his brains out. 'My uncle taught me,' I said. 'Not my father.'

  'Your Uncle Schermerhorn or your Uncle Fish?'

  'You know more about me than I realized, Miss Acton.'

  'A man who lists himself in the Social Register can hardly complain if his relations are common knowledge.'

  'I did not list myself. I was listed, just as you were.'

  'Did you grieve when he died?'

  'Who?'

  'Your father.'

  'What is it you want to know, Miss Acton?'

  'Did you?'

  'No one mourns a suicide,' I said.

  'Really? Yes, I suppose the death of fathers is common. Your father lost a father, after all, and that father lost his too.'

  'I thought you hated Shakespeare.'

  'What is it like, Doctor, to be raised by someone you despise?'

  'Wouldn't you know better than I, Miss Acton?'

  'Me?' she said. 'I was raised by someone I love.'

  'You do not usually display that emotion when speaking of your parents.'

  'I am not speaking of my parents,' Nora replied. 'I am speaking of Mrs Biggs.'

  'I didn't hate my father,' I said.

  'I hate mine. At least I am not afraid to say so.'

  The wind grew stronger. Perhaps the weather was turning. Nora gazed steadfastly at the shore. What exactly she meant to make me feel, I didn't know.

  'We have this much in common, Miss Acton,' I said: 'We both grew up wishing not to be like our parents. Either of them. But defiance, Dr Freud says, shows just as much attac
hment as obedience.'

  'I see: you have achieved detachment.'

  Some minutes later, she asked me to tell her more about Freud's theories. I did, avoiding any mention of Oedipus and his cognates. Breaching the usual professional etiquette, I described to her some of my previous analysands - anonymously, of course - hoping to illustrate the workings of the transference and its extreme effects on analytic patients. To this end I told her about Rachel, the girl who had tried to disrobe for me in virtually every session.

  'Was she good-looking?' asked Nora.

  'No,' I lied.

  'You're lying,' she said. 'Men always like that kind of girl. I suppose you had sex with her.'

  'I certainly did not,' I answered, surprised by her explicitness.

  'I am not in love with you, Doctor,' she said, as if it were a perfectly logical reply to make. 'I know that's what you think. I mistakenly supposed I had some feelings for you yesterday, but that was the product of very trying circumstances and your own declaration of affection for me.'

  'Miss Acton -'

  'Don't be alarmed. I don't hold you to it. I understand that what you said yesterday no longer reflects your true sentiments, just as what I said yesterday no longer reflects mine. I have no feelings for you. This, this transference of yours, which you say makes patients either love or hate their doctors, has no application to me. I am your patient, as you said. That is all.'

  I let her words pass without response as the ferry churned upriver.

  A little after noon on Friday, Detective Littlemore stood outside a small, filthy cell in the massive gray detention castle known as the Tombs. There was no daylight, no window anywhere in sight. Next to Littlemore was a prison guard. The two of them were staring through a grill of iron bars at the sprawled-out body of Chong Sing, who lay unconscious on a lousy cot. His white undershirt was badly stained. His feet were bare and dirty.

  'He's asleep?' asked Littlemore.

  Chuckling, the guard explained that Sergeant Becker had kept Chong up all last night. Littlemore was at first surprised to hear Becker's name. Then he realized: Miss Sigel was found in the Tenderloin, so the interrogation would naturally have been given to Becker. Still, the detective was puzzled. Chong had already talked yesterday; he had admitted seeing his cousin Leon kill the girl. The mayor had said so. What did Becker want with him last night?

  The prison guard was able to answer that question. It was Becker who had made Chong talk in the first place. But Chong wouldn't admit to having assisted in the killing itself. He insisted he had gone into Leon's room only after the girl was already dead.

  'And Becker didn't buy it?' asked Littlemore.

  The guard hummed a little tune and shook his head. 'Kept at him real good. All night, like I said. Shoulda seen him.'

  The sleeping Chong Sing turned over on the cot, revealing his right eye, purpled and swollen to the size of a plum. Dried blood was visible under Sing's nose and below his ear. The nose may have been broken, but Littlemore could not be sure.

  'Oh, boy,' said the detective. 'Did Chong break?'

  'Huh-uh.'

  Littlemore had the guard open the cell. He woke the sleeping prisoner. The detective pulled up a chair, lit himself a cigarette, and offered one to the Chinese. Chong eyed his new interrogator unhappily. He took the cigarette.

  'I know you understand English, Mr Chong,' said Littlemore. 'I may be able to help you. Just answer a couple of questions. When did you start working at the Balmoral, end of July?'

  Chong Sing nodded.

  'What about down at the bridge?' asked the detective.

  'Maybe same time,' he said hoarsely. 'Maybe few days later.'

  'If you weren't there, Chong, how'd you see it?' asked Littlemore.

  'Hah?'

  'If you went into Leon's room after he killed the girl, how do you know he killed her?'

  'I told already,' Chong replied. 'I hear fighting. I look through keyhole.'

  Littlemore glanced at the guard, who confirmed that Chong had told the same story the day before. The detective turned back to Chong Sing. 'Is that right?'

  'That right.'

  'No, it's not. I was there, Mr Chong, remember? I went to Leon's room. I picked the lock. I looked through that keyhole. You can't see anything through it.'

  Chong was silent.

  'How'd you get those jobs, Chong? How'd you get two jobs working for Mr Banwell?'

  The Chinese shrugged.

  'I'm trying to help you,' said Littlemore.

  'Leon,' said Chong quietly. 'He got me jobs.'

  'How did Leon know Banwell?'

  'I don't know.'

  'You don't know?'

  'I don't know,' Chong Sing insisted. 'I not murder anyone.'

  Littlemore rose and signaled the guard to open the cell again. 'I know you didn't,' he said.

  The Actons' summer cottage was a cottage in the Newport sense of the word, meaning an estate aspiring to - indeed, exceeding - the standards of lower European royalty. I had intended to return to the city after seeing Nora to the door, but I found I couldn't. I didn't want to leave her alone, even here.

  The servants greeted Nora warmly, throwing open doors and windows in a flurry of activity. They appeared to know nothing of her travails. Although barely speaking, Nora evidently wanted me to see everything. She led me through the first floor of the main house. A double-winged marble staircase ascended from the gallery of its two-story entry hall. To the right was a stained-glass cupola; to the left an octagonal, wood-beamed library. Marble columns and gilded plaster abounded.

  In back was a tile-ceilinged veranda. A rolling sward of green grass and tall oaks descended clear down to the river far below. The girl set out into the greenery. I followed, and we arrived shortly at the stables, where the air smelled wholesomely of horse and fresh hay. It turned out the cook had already taken the liberty of sending a picnic basket down to the stable in case Miss Nora wanted to go for a ride.

  She proved every bit as good a rider as I. After a quick canter, we spread a blanket in a shady spot with a magnificent view of the Hudson. Inside the picnic basket, we found a dozen clams packed on ice, cold chicken, potato croquettes, a tin full of tiny soda biscuits, and a cherry and watermelon salad. Along with a canteen of iced tea, the cook had included a half bottle of claret, evidently for 'the gentleman.' I had not eaten a thing since the previous evening.

  When we were done, Nora asked me, 'Are you honest?'

  'To a fault,' I said, 'but only because I am such a bad actor. Will the servants call your parents to tell them you're here?'

  'There's no telephone.' She removed her panama hat, allowing the sun to tangle up its rays in her hair. 'I am sorry for my behavior on the ferry, Doctor. I don't know why I brought up your father. Please forgive me. I feel I am in a house that's burning down and there's no way out. Clara is the only person I have been able to turn to, and now even she can't help me.'

  'There is a way out,' I said. 'You will stay here till Sunday. You will then be eighteen and out of your parents' control. At the same time, with any luck, Detective Littlemore will have traced the evidence we found to Banwell and arrest him.'

  'What evidence?'

  I told her of our trip to the caisson. Even now, I explained, Detective Littlemore might have confirmed that the contents of the trunk belonged to Miss Riverford, which would be all he needed to put Mr Banwell under arrest. Perhaps Banwell was under arrest already.

  'I doubt it very much,' said Nora, shutting her eyes. 'Tell me something else.'

  'What?'

  'Tell me anything so long as it does not concern George Banwell.'

  In the Acton residence on Gramercy Park, Nora's mother was ransacking her daughter's bedroom. Nora had disappeared. Mildred Acton sent Mrs Biggs to see if Nora was in the park, but the girl was not there. The thought of being deceived by her daughter filled Mrs Acton with indignation. Apparently her daughter was deranged, wicked and deranged. Nothing she said could be trusted. Mrs Acton had
seen the discovery of cigarettes and cosmetics in her daughter's bedroom; what else might she be concealing there?

  Mrs Acton found nothing worth confiscating until she poked a hand beneath her daughter's pillow. She was astonished to discover a kitchen knife.

  The discovery had an odd effect on Mildred Acton. For a split second, a series of bloody images flashed through her mind. Among these were memories of the birth of her only child, which in turn reminded Mrs Acton, as it always did, that she and her husband had slept in different beds since that day. A moment later, these sanguinary images and associations were gone. Mrs Acton had quite forgotten them, but they left her in a state. Feeling a great sense of her own propriety in protecting her daughter from herself, she returned the knife to its place in the kitchen.

  Mrs Acton wished her husband would do something. She wished he were not so hopeless, always holed up in his study in town or playing polo in the country. Harcourt spoiled Nora dreadfully. But then Harcourt was a failure at everything. If he had not inherited a small fortune from his father, the man would have ended in the poorhouse. Mildred had told him so many times.

  Mrs Acton decided she must call at once on Dr Sachs for another electromassage treatment. True, she had just had one yesterday and the cost was outrageous, but she felt she couldn't live without another. Dr Sachs was so good at it. It would have been nicer, she reflected, if she had found, a Christian physician who was equally expert. But didn't everyone say the best doctors were Jewish?

  Naturally my mind went blank the moment Nora asked me to say something to distract her. Then it came to me. 'Last night,' I said, 'I solved "To be, or not to be.'"

  'I didn't know a solution was required,' she answered.

  'Oh, people have been trying to solve it for centuries. But no one has, because everyone has always thought that not to be means to die.'

  'Doesn't it?'

  'Well, there's a problem if you read it that way. The whole speech equates "not to be" with action: taking up arms, taking vengeance, and so on. So if not to be meant to die, then death would have the name of action on its side, when surely that title belongs to life. How did acting get on the side of not being? If we could answer that question, we would know why, for Hamlet, "to be" means not to act, and then we would have solved the real riddle: why he doesn't act, why he is paralyzed for so very long. I'm boring you, I'm sorry.'