Dana displayed none of Jelliffe's cringing. He acknowledged that Thaw had retained his services in connection with the trial but noted that his role, unlike Jelliffe s, had been merely advisory. He had rendered no opinion about Thaw's mental state at any time, past or present.
'Did you render an opinion about Thaw's coming into New York last weekend?' asked Littlemore.
'Was Mr Thaw in New York last weekend?' replied Dana.
'Jelliffe says it was your decision.'
'I am not Mr Thaw's physician, Detective. Jelliffe is. I severed my professional relationship with Mr Thaw last year, as public records will demonstrate. Dr Jelliffe has occasionally sought my counsel, and I have given him what advice I could. I know nothing of Jelliffe's ultimate treatment decisions, and I certainly could not be said to have made them.'
'Fair enough,' said Littlemore. 'I guess I could arrest you for conspiring in the escape of a state prisoner, but it sounds like I couldn't convict you.'
'I doubt it very much,' said Dana. 'But I could probably have you fired if you tried.'
'And I guess,' said Littlemore, 'you also couldn't have made any decisions about stealing a manuscript, burning it, and putting the ashes in the home of Dr Abraham Brill?'
For the first time, Dana appeared disconcerted.
'Nice ring you got there, Dr Dana,' Littlemore went on.
I hadn't noticed; on Dana's right hand there was a signet ring. No one spoke. Dana clasped his long fingers together - not, however, hiding the ring - and reclined in his chair. 'What do you want, Mr Littlemore?' he asked. He turned to me. 'Or perhaps I should ask you that question, Dr Younger.'
I cleared my throat. 'It's a tissue of lies,' I said. 'The accusations you have made against Dr Freud. Every single one of them is false.'
'Assume I know what you are talking about,' answered Dana. 'I ask you again: what do you want?'
'It's three-thirty,' I replied. 'In half an hour, I am going to wire G. Stanley Hall in Worcester. I am going to say that a certain story is not going to be published in the New York Times tomorrow. I want my telegram to be true.'
Dana sat in silence, holding my stare. 'Let me tell you something,' he said at last. 'The problem is this: our knowledge of the human brain is incomplete. We don't have medicines to change the way people think. To cure their delusions. To relieve their sexual desires while keeping them from overpopulating the world. To make them happy. It is all neurology, you know. It has to be. Psychoanalysis is going to set us back a hundred years. Its licentiousness will appeal to the masses. Its prurience will appeal to young scientific minds and even to some old ones. It will turn the masses into exhibitionists and physicians into mystics. But someday people will wake up to the fact that it is all the emperor's new clothes. We will discover drugs to change the way people think, sooner or later. To control the way they feel. The question is only whether, by then, we will still have enough of a sense of shame to be embarrassed by the fact that everyone is running around naked. Send your telegram, Dr Younger. It will be true - for now.'
After leaving Dana's house, Littlemore drove me across town. 'So, Doc,' he said, 'I know how you feel about Nora and all, but aren't you - I mean, why'd she do it?'
'For Clara,' I answered.
'But why?'
I didn't answer.
Littlemore shook his head. 'Everybody did everything for Clara.'
'She procured girls for Banwell,' I said.
'I know,' replied Littlemore.
'You know?'
'Last night,' he said, 'Nora was telling Betty and me about the work she and Clara did with the immigrant families downtown, and it didn't sound kosher to me, if you see what I mean, not after everything else I'd heard. So I got some names and addresses from Nora and ran them down this morning. I found a few of the families Clara had "helped." Most of them wouldn't talk, but I finally got the story. I'm telling you, it's ugly. Clara would find girls with no fathers, sometimes no parents at all. Real young girls - thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. She'd pay off whoever was taking care of them and take them to Banwell.'
Littlemore drove on without speaking.
'Did you find out,' I asked, 'how the passage into Nora's bedroom got there?'
'Yup. Banwell gave us his story today too,' said the detective. 'He blames the whole thing on Clara. He never suspected she was against him - not until yesterday. Three or four years ago, the Actons hired him to rebuild their house at Gramercy Park. That's when they met.'
'And Banwell became obsessed with Nora,' I said.
'Looks like it. She's - what, fourteen at the time, but he's got to have her. So get this: his boys are working on the house, and they find this old passage running from one of the second-floor rooms to the garden shed out back. Apparently the Actons didn't know it was there. But they're out of town, and Banwell never lets on. He has the passage fixed up so he can enter it from the back alley without ever going onto the Actons' property. And he designs the house so the room on the second floor becomes Nora's new bedroom. I asked him if his plan was just to go to Nora's bedroom one night and rape her. You know what? He laughed in my face. According to him, he never raped anybody. They all wanted it. With Nora, he figures he's going to seduce her, and he needs a way in and out of her room without her parents knowing about it. But I guess Nora didn't go for the seduction.'
'She rejected him,' I said.
'That's what he told us. He swears he never touched her. Never used the secret passage until this week. You know, I think it really upset him. Maybe no girl ever turned him down before.'
'Could be,' I said. 'Maybe he was in love with her.'
'You think so?'
'I think so. And Clara decided to get Nora for him.'
'How would she do that?' asked Littlemore.
'I think she tried to make Nora fall in love with her.'
'What?' he said.
I didn't respond.
'I don't know about that,' Littlemore went on, 'but I'll give you this much: Banwell says getting Nora to play Elizabeth Riverford was Clara's idea. When he builds the Balmoral, he lays down another passage, only this time connected to his own study. The apartment it goes to is going to be his bird's nest. He sets it up just the way he wants it: big brass bed, silk sheets, the works. Fills the closet with lingerie and furs. Puts a couple of his own suits there, too, in a different closet he keeps locked. A little while ago, if you can believe Banwell, Clara tells him Nora has finally said yes. The idea is that Nora's going to rent the apartment under a false name, and she's going to come up to see him whenever she can. I don't know what the truth is there. I didn't want to ask Nora about it.'
I knew. Nora had told me the whole story last night, while we waited for the police.
One day in July, Clara tearfully told Nora that she could no longer bear her marriage. George flogged and raped her almost every night. She feared for her life but couldn't leave him, because he would kill her if she did.
Nora was horrified, but Clara said there was nothing anyone could do. Only one thing could save her, but it was impossible. Clara knew a man highly placed in the police force: Hugel, obviously; Clara had met him when she and Nora were 'helping' an immigrant family whose daughter had died. According to Clara, she revealed her plight to him. Hugel took pity on her but said the law was powerless, because a husband had a legal right to rape his wife. When, however, Clara added that George raped other girls too - whose families he paid off in exchange for their silence, and at least one of whom had been killed - the coroner had allegedly grown outraged. He supposedly decided there was only one thing to be done: they must stage a murder.
A girl must be found seemingly dead in the apartment that George kept for his mistresses. It must look like she died by his hand. It could be done, because he himself (the coroner) would administer the catalepsy-inducing drug and he himself would be the medical examiner. A piece of evidence left at the scene would identify Banwell as the perpetrator. Clara made Nora believe the entire scheme originated wit
h the coroner.
Nora remembered being shocked by the audacity of the plan. She asked if Clara really thought it possible.
No, Clara said. She could never ask anyone to play the part of Banwell's mistress and victim. She (Clara) must simply endure her fate.
It was then that Nora said she would do it.
Clara reacted with apparent shock. Absolutely not, she replied. The girl who played the part of the victim would have to allow herself to be hurt. Nora asked Clara if, by hurt, she meant raped. Of course not, Clara said, but the victim would have to let herself be bound, with a cord or rope around her neck, and Clara might even have to leave a mark or two. Nora insisted that she would do it. At last Clara gave in, and they went forward with the plot. Nora was unsure exactly what happened at the Balmoral on Sunday night, undoubtedly because of the coroner's catalepsy-inducing drug. Nora did remember Clara telling her not to scream, and she remembered she kept forgetting her false name. The rest, however, was indistinct. I explained all this to Littlemore.
'I know what happened next,' he said. 'When Nora wakes up Monday morning, she's with Hugel in the morgue. He tells her the bad news: the tie he was supposed to find at the murder scene, the silk tie with Banwell's monogram, which was going to prove Banwell did it, wasn't there. That's because Banwell went in through the passage as soon as he found out about the "murder." He had to get his own clothes out of there, so we didn't connect him to Miss Riverford.'
'But Banwell was out of town Sunday night, with the mayor,' I said. 'Hugel didn't know?'
'None of them knew. Banwell was supposed to be having dinner in the city. Banwell's thing with the mayor in Saranac came up at the last minute. All very hush-hush. There was no way for Clara to find out about it either, because there's no phone at the Banwells' country place. So Clara sneaks in from Tarry Town that night, does her business to Nora around nine or so, and drives back. She told Hugel to put the time of death between midnight and two, because Banwell was supposed to have been home by then.'
'But Banwell saw his tie there the next morning and took it away before Hugel arrived.'
'Right. Without the tie, Hugel's in trouble. He can't reach Clara. So he decides he's got to stage another fake attack, this one at Nora's house, where they'll leave another piece of evidence. He needs to convict Banwell, see? That's his deal with Clara. She had given him ten thousand dollars up front, and he was going to get another thirty thousand if Banwell was convicted. But something went wrong the second time too, I don't know what. Hugel clammed up.'
Again, I could fill in the blanks. Nora had gone along with the second attack both because she still thought she was rescuing Clara and because she didn't know how else she would explain all the wounds she had woken up with. In the second 'attack,' the coroner would merely tie her up and leave her. She was not to be hurt again at all. And she wasn't. (That was why she hadn't been able to answer my questions yesterday. I asked her whether any man had whipped her. She was afraid to tell me the truth, because Clara had sworn that Banwell would kill her - Clara - if he ever found out.) But when the coroner tied Nora up, he had grown unstable. He kept staring at her. He was sweating and seemed to be having trouble swallowing, Nora said. He never threatened her; nor did he molest her. But he kept adjusting the rope around her wrists. He wouldn't leave. Then he brushed up against her.
'Apparently your coroner lost control of himself,' I said, without further detail. 'Nora screamed.'
'And Hugel panicked, right?' said Littlemore. 'He runs out the back way. He's got Banwell's tiepin; he meant to leave it in the bedroom. But he's so panicked he forgot. So he throws it into the garden, figuring we'll find it when we search the grounds.'
After the coroner ran away, Nora didn't know what to do. The coroner was supposed to have rendered her unconscious, but he had run out without giving her the narcotic. At a loss, Nora pretended she couldn't speak or remember anything about what had happened. Her real voice loss from three years earlier, and her real - although quite limited - amnesia from the night before gave her the idea.
'Why did Banwell put the trunk in the river?' I asked.
'The guy was in a tight spot,' said Littlemore. 'Think about it. If he let us go through all the stuff in the apartment, he knew we'd trace it and bag him for the murder. But he couldn't just tell us that Elizabeth was Nora. Even if we believed him, he'd have a huge scandal on his hands, and he'd probably go to jail for corrupting a minor. So he told the mayor he was sending Miss Riverford's things back to Chicago. He loaded them into a trunk and took it down to the caisson. Figured it's the perfect place - until he ran into Malley.'
'He almost fooled us,' I said.
'With Malley?'
'No. When he - when he burned Nora.' The thought of it made me feel I had killed the wrong Banwell.
'Yup,' said Littlemore. 'He wanted us to think Nora was crazy and did everything to herself. He figures if he can pull that off, he can beat the whole rap. Doesn't matter what Nora says; no one will believe her.'
'What made him go back to kill her last night?' I asked.
'Nora sent Clara a letter,' he answered. 'It said she was going to tell the police about everything Banwell did to Clara and to the other girls, the immigrant girls. Apparently Banwell saw it.'
'I wonder if Clara let him see it,' I said.
'Could be. But then Hugel pays a visit. Banwell's in the apartment when Hugel gets there, and he starts to put two and two together. That night, he ties Clara up to keep her out of the way and heads downtown to the Actons'. That's when I stumble onto the secret passage at the Balmoral. Boy, Clara was good. She tells me her husband's gone to kill Nora, but she made it seem like I was dragging it out of her. I don't think she realized then that Nora wasn't in her house at all. How did Clara find out Nora was at the hotel?'
'Nora called her,' I said. 'What about the Chinaman?'
'Leon? They'll never find him,' Littlemore answered. 'I had a long talk today with Mr Chong. Seems that Cousin Leon comes to him a month ago, says there's a rich guy who will pay them to take a trunk off his hands. That night, the two of them go to the Balmoral and bring the trunk back to Leon's room by cab. Next day, Leon's packing up. Where you going? Chong asks him. Washington, says Leon, then back to China. Chong's getting nervous. What's in the trunk? he asks. Look for yourself, says Leon. So Chong opens it, and he sees one of Leon's girlfriends dead inside. Chong gets upset; he says the police are going to think Leon killed her. Leon laughs and says that's exactly what the police are supposed to think. Leon also tells Chong to show up at the Balmoral the next day, and they'll give him a real good job. Chong's mad about that. He figures Leon got paid off big; otherwise he couldn't be going back to China. So, being a Chinaman, Chong asks for two jobs as his reward, not one, and Leon fixes it up for him.'
We pulled up at the hotel, each in our own thoughts.
Littlemore said, 'There's just one thing. Why does Clara work so hard to get Nora for Banwell if Clara is so jealous of her? That doesn't make sense.'
'Oh, I don't know,' I replied, getting out of the car. 'Some people feel a need to bring about the very thing that will most torment them.'
'They do?'
'Yes.'
'Why?' asked Littlemore.
'I have no idea, Detective. It's an unsolved mystery.'
'That reminds me: I'm not a detective anymore,' he said. 'The mayor's making me a lieutenant.'
A torrential rain poured down on our entire party - Freud, a visibly uncomfortable Jung, Brill, Ferenczi, Jones, and myself - at the South Street harbor Saturday evening. As their luggage was loaded onto the overnight boat from New York to Fall River, Freud pulled me to one side.
'You are not coming with us?' he said to me, from the cocoon of his umbrella to the cocoon of mine.
'No, sir. The surgeon said I shouldn't travel for a day or two.'
'I see,' he replied skeptically. 'And Nora remains here in New York, of course.'
'Yes,' I said.
'But there
is still something more, isn't there?' Freud stroked his beard.
I preferred to change the subject. 'How are things with Dr Jung, sir, if I may ask?' I knew - and Freud knew I knew - of the extraordinary scene between Jung and Freud that had taken place the other night.
'Better,' Freud replied. 'Do you know, I believe he was jealous of you.'
'Of me?'
'Yes,' said Freud. 'It finally came to me that he took my appointing you to analyze Nora as a betrayal. When I explained to him that I named you only because you live here, it improved things between us immediately.' He looked out into the rain. 'It won't last, however. Not very long.'
'I don't understand Mrs Banwell, Dr Freud,' I said. 'I don't understand her feelings for Miss Acton.'
Freud reflected. 'Well, Younger, you solved the mystery. Remarkable.'
'You solved it, sir. You warned me last night that they were all in Mrs Banwell's orbit and that Clara's friendship with Miss Acton was not entirely innocent. I don't really understand Mrs Banwell, Dr Freud. I don't understand what moved her!
'If I had to guess,' said Freud, 'I would say that Nora was for Mrs Banwell a mirror in which she saw herself as she was ten years ago - and in which she saw, therefore, by contrast, what she had become. Certainly this would account for her desire to corrupt Nora and to hurt her. You must bear in mind the years of punishment she endured as the willing object of a sadist.'
'Yet she stayed with him.' It couldn't have been only the money that kept her with Banwell. 'She was a masochist?'
'There is no such thing, Younger, not in pure form. Every masochist is also a sadist. In men, at any rate, masochism is never primary - it is sadism turned on the self - and Mrs Banwell unquestionably had a strong masculine side. She may have been plotting the destruction of her husband for some time.'
I had one other question. I was unsure whether to voice it; it seemed so basic and ignorant. But I decided to go ahead. 'Is homosexuality a pathology, Dr Freud?'
The Interpretation Of Murder Page 37
