I interrupted. 'I'm sorry. Did you just say Jung was at the Balmoral on Sunday night?'
'That's right,' Brill answered. 'Jelliffe's building. You were there last night.'
'Oh,' I said. 'I didn't realize.'
'Realize what?' asked Brill.
'Nothing,' I said. 'Just an odd coincidence.'
'What coincidence?'
'The other girl - the girl who was murdered - was killed at the Balmoral.' I shifted in my chair uncomfortably. 'On Sunday night. Between midnight and two.'
Brill and Ferenczi looked at each other.
'Gentlemen,' said Freud, 'don't be ridiculous.'
'And Nora was attacked on Monday evening,' Brill pointed out. 'Where?'
'Abraham,' said Freud.
'No one is accusing anyone,' Brill replied innocently, but with an overexcited expression. 'I'm just asking Younger where Nora's house is.'
'On Gramercy Park,' I answered.
'Gentlemen, I will hear no more of this,' Freud declared.
Another knock on the door; Jung himself entered. We exchanged greetings with him - stiffly, as might be expected. Jung, who did not seem to notice our discomfort, spooned sugar into his coffee and inquired whether we had enjoyed our dinner at Jelliffe's.
'Oh, Jung,' Brill broke in, 'you were spotted on Monday.'
'I beg your pardon?' Jung replied.
'You told us,' chided Brill, 'you spent Monday afternoon sleeping in your room. But it turns out you were spotted up and about the town.'
Freud, shaking his head, went to the window. He pushed it farther open.
'I never said I was in my room all Monday afternoon,' Jung answered evenly.
'Strange,' said Brill. 'I would have sworn you did. That reminds me, Jung, we are thinking of visiting Gramercy Park today. I don't suppose you'll join us?'
'I see,' said Jung.
'See what?' asked Brill.
'Why don't you just say it?' Jung retorted.
'I can't imagine what you're talking about,' was Brill's reply. He was deliberately making himself sound like a bad actor unsuccessfully feigning ignorance.
'So: I was observed at Gramercy Park,' replied Jung coldly. 'What are you going to do, report me to the police?' He turned to Freud. 'Well, as it seems your purpose in bringing me here was to interrogate me, you will forgive me if I don't breakfast with you.' He opened the door to let himself out and stared at Brill. 'I am ashamed of nothing.'
Due to the late General Sigel's prominence, the police had no difficulty locating his granddaughter Elsie's address. She lived with her parents on Wadsworth Avenue near 180th
Street. An officer from the Washington Heights station, dispatched to the house, escorted Mr and Mrs Sigel, together with their niece Mabel, to the Van den Heuvel building. There, in a waiting room outside the morgue, they met Detective Littlemore.
He learned from them that the nineteen-year-old Elsie had indeed gone missing almost a month ago, never returning from a trip to visit Grandmother Ellie in Brooklyn. In the first days after her disappearance, the Sigels had received a telegram from Elsie in Washington, D.C, indicating that she was there with a young man, evidently married to him. She begged her parents not to worry about her, assured them she was fine, and promised to be home by autumn. The parents had kept this wire, which they showed to the detective. The telegram had indeed been sent from a hotel in the capital, and Elsie's name was at the bottom, but there was of course no way to verify that she was the sender. Mr Sigel had not yet contacted the police, hoping to hear again from his daughter and anxious to avoid a scandal.
Littlemore showed the Sigels the letters from William Leon's trunk. They recognized the handwriting. The detective next showed them the silver pendant found on the dead girl and the hat with the bird on it. Neither Mr nor Mrs Sigel had ever seen these objects before - and indeed positively stated they did not belong to Elsie - but Mabel contradicted them. The pendant was hers; she had given it to Elsie in June.
Littlemore, drawing Mr Sigel aside, told the father he had better have a look at the body found in Leon's apartment. Downstairs in the morgue, Mr Sigel could not at first identify the corpse; it was too decayed. Somberly, he told the detective he would know the truth if he looked at the teeth; his daughter's left eye tooth pointed the wrong way. And so did that of the small decomposing body lying on the marble slab. 'It's her,' said Mr Sigel quietly.
When the two men returned to the waiting room, Mr Sigel cast a stony and accusing eye on his wife. The woman must have understood; she fell into convulsions. It took a long time to quiet her. Then her husband told the story.
Mrs Sigel did the Lord's work in Chinatown. For years she had toiled to convert the heathen Chinamen to Christianity. Last December, she had begun bringing Elsie with her to the mission house. Elsie had taken to the work with a passion that delighted her mother but disturbed her father. Despite Mr Sigel's strong disapproval, the girl was soon eagerly traveling on her own to Chinatown several times a week and teaching her own Sunday Bible classes. One of her most avid pupils, Mr Sigel recalled bitterly, had dared to call at their house a few months ago. Mr Sigel did not know his name. Littlemore showed him a photograph of William Leon; the father shut his eyes and nodded.
After the Sigels left the morgue, to endure as they might both their misery and their notoriety - newspapermen were already waiting outside - Detective Littlemore wondered where Mr Hugel was. Littlemore had assumed the coroner would have wanted to conduct the autopsy himself and to hear the Sigels' evidence. But the coroner was absent. Instead, one of his assistant physicians, Dr O'Hanlon, had examined the body. He informed Littlemore that Miss Sigel had been strangled to death, that she had been dead three to four weeks - and that Coroner Hugel was upstairs in his office, professing a complete lack of interest in the case.
Chapter Seventeen
The exquisite Clara Banwell, clad in a green dress matching her eyes, was undressing the equally exquisite, near desperate Nora Acton - quieting her, comforting her, reassuring her. Arriving at the house shortly after Littlemore's departure, Clara had gracefully ushered everyone out of Nora's bedroom, police and family alike. When Nora was naked, Clara drew her a cool bath and helped her step in. Nora, sobbing, begged Clara to let her speak: so many horrible things had happened.
Clara put two fingers to Nora's lips. 'Hush,' she said. 'Don't speak, darling. Close your eyes.'
Nora obeyed. Gently Clara bathed the girl, washed her hair, and dabbed her healing wounds with a smooth wet cloth.
'They don't believe me,' said Nora, holding back tears.
'I know. It's all right.' Clara tried to soothe the distraught girl. She asked Mrs Biggs, who was hovering anxiously in the hallway, to bring the ointment Dr Higginson left.
'Clara?'
'Yes.'
'Why didn't you come earlier?'
'Shh,' answered Clara, cooling Nora's brow. 'I'm here now.'
Later, after the bathwater drained away, Nora lay in the tub, her torso now draped with a white towel, her eyes closed. 'What are you doing to me, Clara?' she asked.
'Shaving you. We need to, to clean this awful burn. Besides, it will be prettier like this.' Clara placed Nora's hand protectively over the girl's most delicate spot. 'There,' she said. 'Press down, darling.' Clara placed her own strong hand atop Nora's, keeping a firm pressure and shifting position every now and then, so that she could do her work. 'Nora, George was with me all last night. The police asked me, and I had to tell them. You must tell them now. Otherwise they are going to take you away. They are already making arrangements with a sanatorium.'
'I shouldn't mind a sanatorium,' said Nora.
'Don't be silly. Wouldn't you rather come with me to the country? That is what we will do, darling. You and I, all by ourselves, just as we like. We can talk it all out there.' Clara finished her razor strokes. She applied to Nora's burn the soothing balm left by the doctor. 'But you must tell them.'
'What must I say?'
'Why, that you di
d all this to yourself. You were so angry at all of us: George, your mother and father, even me. You were trying to get back at us.'
'No, I could never be angry at you.'
'Oh, darling, nor I at you.' Clara turned her attention to the two lacerations on Nora's thighs. To these too she applied the doctor's ointment, moving her fingers in gentle circles. 'But you must tell them now. Tell them how sorry you are for everything. You will feel so much easier. And then you can come away with me for as long as you want.'
Even the coroner, a man of mercurial temperament, rarely passed from fury to exultation to despondency as quickly as he did when listening to Detective Littlemore's report of the events at the Acton house earlier that morning.
Littlemore had tried to interest the coroner in Elsie Sigel, but Hugel brushed the subject aside. The coroner had only heard about the hue and cry at the Actons' by accident, from one of the messenger boys. Hence his anger: why had they informed Littlemore but not himself? Then, hearing Nora's story, Hugel let out whoops of 'Ha!' and 'Now we have him!' and 'I told you, didn't I?' Finally, learning of the discovery of the lipstick, cigarettes, and whip secreted in the girl's bedroom, he slumped back into his chair.
'It's over,' said Hugel quietly. His face began to darken. 'The girl must be put away.'
'No, wait, Mr Hugel. Listen to this.' Littlemore told the coroner about the discovery of the tiepin.
Hugel barely registered the news. 'Too little, too late,' he said bitterly. He grunted in disgust. 'I believed everything she said. The girl must be put away, do you hear me?'
'You think she's crazy.'
The coroner took a deep breath. 'I congratulate you, Detective, on your razor-sharp logic. The Riverford-Acton case is now closed. Inform the mayor. I am not speaking to him.'
The detective blinked uncomprehendingly. 'You can't close the case, Mr Hugel.'
'There is no case,' said the coroner. 'I cannot prosecute a murder without a corpus delicti. Do you understand? No murder without a body. And I cannot prosecute an assault without an assault. Shall we indict Miss Acton for criminal assault on her own person?'
'Wait, Mr Hugel, I didn't even tell you. Remember the black-haired man? I found out where he went. First he goes to the Hotel Manhattan - how about that? - and then he goes to a cathouse on Fortieth Street. So I go to this cathouse myself, and the lady inside tips me off to Harry Thaw, who -'
'What are you talking about, Littlemore?'
'Harry Thaw, the guy who murdered Stanford White.'
'I know who Harry Thaw is,' said the coroner, with considerable self-restraint.
'You're not going to believe this, Mr Hugel, but if the Chinaman's not the killer, I think Harry Thaw might be our guy.'
'Harry Thaw.'
'He got off, remember? Beat the rap,' said Littlemore. 'Well, at his trial, there was this affidavit from his wife, and -'
'Are you going to bring Harry Houdini into it as well?'
'Houdini? Houdini s the escape artist, Mr Hugel.'
'I know who Houdini is,' said the coroner, very quietly.
'Why would I bring him into it?' asked Littlemore.
'Because Harry Thaw is in a locked cell, Detective. He did not beat the rap. He is incarcerated at the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.'
'He is? I thought he got out. But then - then he can't be the guy.'
'No.'
'I don't get it. This lady at the house where the black- haired man went -'
'Forget the black-haired man!' the coroner exploded. 'No one listens to me in any event. I write a report; no one reads it. I decide on an arrest; my decision is ignored. I am closing the case.'
'But the threads,' Littlemore answered. 'The hairs. The injuries. You said so, Mr Hugel, you said so yourself.'
'What did I say?'
'You said the same guy who killed Miss Riverford attacked Nora Acton. You said there was proof. That means Miss Acton didn't cook it all up. There was an assault, Mr Hugel. There is a case. Somebody attacked Miss Acton on Monday.'
'What I said, Detective, was that the physical evidence was consistent with the assailant being the same person in both cases, not that it was proof. Read my report.'
'You don't think Miss Acton - you don't think she whipped herself, do you?'
The coroner stared straight ahead with his morose, sleepless eyes. 'Disgusting,' he said.
'But how about the tiepin? You said there was a tiepin with Banwell's initials on it. It's exactly what you were looking for, Mr Hugel.'
'Littlemore, don't you have ears? You heard Riviere. The impression on Elizabeth Riverford's neck was not GB. I made a mistake,' Hugel muttered angrily. 'I made one mistake after another.'
'So what's it doing there - the pin, in the tree?'
'How should I know?' yelled Hugel. 'Why don't you ask her? We have nothing. Nothing. Only that infernal girl. No jury in the country would believe her now. She probably put the pin in the tree herself. She is - she is psychopathic. They must put her away.'
Sandor Ferenczi, smiling and nodding encouragingly, backed himself toward the door of Jung's hotel room like a courtier withdrawing from the royal presence. He had, with some trepidation, conveyed Freud's request to see Jung alone.
'Say that I will call on him in ten minutes,' Jung had answered. 'With pleasure.'
Ferenczi had expected an implacable Swiss in high umbrage, not the serene Jung who had greeted him. Ferenczi would have to inform Freud that Jung's change of temperament struck him as peculiar. More than that, he would have to tell Freud what Jung was doing.
Hundreds of pebbles and small stones, together with an armful of broken twigs and torn-up grass, were strewn about the floor of Jung's room. Ferenczi could not imagine where it had all come from: possibly from empty lots undergoing construction, which seemed ubiquitous in New York. Jung himself was sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing with these materials. He had pushed all the hotel furniture - armchairs, lamps, coffee table - out of the way, clearing a large empty space on the floor. In this space, he had built a village of stones, with dozens of tiny houses surrounding a castle. Each house had its own little plot of tufted grass behind it: perhaps a vegetable garden or backyard. In the center of the castle, Jung was trying to implant a forked twig with long blades of grass tied to it, but he could not make this standard stay upright. That was why, Ferenczi guessed, Jung needed another ten minutes before he could come. Assuming, Ferenczi added to himself, that the delay had nothing to do with the service revolver lying on Jung's bedside table.
It is surely impossible for a house to wear an expression, but I would have sworn otherwise as I neared the Actons' limestone townhouse on Gramercy Park late Thursday morning. Before anyone answered the door, I knew something was amiss within.
Mrs Biggs let me in. The woman was literally wringing her hands. In an anguished whisper, she told me it was all her fault. She was just tidying up, she said. She would never have shown it to anyone if she had known.
Gradually Mrs Biggs calmed down, and I learned from her all the dreadful events of the previous night, including the discovery of the telltale cigarette. At least, Mrs Biggs added with relief, Mrs Banwell was now upstairs. It was plain that the old servant regarded Clara Banwell as capable of taking matters in hand more competently than the girl's own mother or father. Mrs Biggs left me in the sitting room. Fifteen minutes later, Clara Banwell entered.
Mrs Banwell was dressed to leave. She wore a simple hat with a diaphanous veil and carried a closed parasol that must have been quite expensive, judging by its iridescent handle. 'Forgive me, Dr Younger,' she said. 'I don't want to delay your seeing Nora. But could I have a word with you before I go?'
As she removed her hat and veil, I could not help noticing the length and thickness of her eyelashes, behind which sparkled her knowing eyes. She was not one of Mrs Wharton's dryads 'subdued to the conventions of the drawing-room.' Rather, the conventions lit her up. It was as if all our fashions had been chosen to show off h
er body, her ivory skin, her green eyes. I could make nothing of her expression; she managed to look both proud and vulnerable.
'Certainly, Mrs Banwell.'
'I know now what Nora has told you,' she said. 'About me. I didn't know last night.'
'I'm sorry,' I replied. 'It is the unenviable hazard of being a doctor.'
'Do you assume your patients tell the truth?'
I said nothing.
'Well, in this case it is true,' she said. 'Nora saw me with her father, just as she described it to you. But since you know that much, I want you to know the rest. I did not act without my husband's knowledge.'
'I assure you, Mrs Banwell -'
'Please don't. You think I am trying to justify myself.' She picked up a photograph from the mantel: it was of Nora at thirteen or fourteen. 'I am far past self-justification, Doctor. What I wish to tell you is for Nora's sake, not my own. I remember when they moved back into this house. George rebuilt it for them. She was shockingly attractive, even then. And only fourteen. One felt the goddesses had for once put aside their differences and made her together as a present for Zeus. I am childless, Doctor.'
'I see.'
'Do you? I am childless because my husband will not allow me to bear. He says it would spoil my figure. We have never had - ordinary - sexual congress, my husband and I. Not once. He will not allow it.'
'Perhaps he is impotent.'
'George?' She looked amused at the thought.
'It is hard to believe a man would voluntarily restrain himself under the circumstances.'
'I believe you are complimenting me, Doctor. Well, George does not restrain himself. He causes me to gratify him in - a different fashion. For ordinary congress, he has recourse to other women. My husband wants many of the young women he meets, and he gets. them. He wanted Nora. As it happened, Nora's father wanted me. George saw a way, therefore, to obtain what he wanted. He obliged me to seduce Harcourt Acton. Of course I was not permitted to do with Harcourt what was forbidden with my own husband. Hence what Nora saw.'
The Interpretation Of Murder Page 23
