The Interpretation Of Murder (44 page)
Read The Interpretation Of Murder Online
Authors: Jed Rubenfeld
Two miles away, in his apartment on
the second floor of the small house on Warren Street, Coroner Charles Hugel had
packed his bags. He stood in the middle of his living room, biting his
knuckles. He had delivered his letter of resignation to the mayor. He had
notified his landlord. He had gone to the bank and closed his account. All the
money he possessed lay before him, stacked in neat piles on the floor. He had
to decide how to carry it. He bent down and started counting the bills - for
the third time - wondering whether it would be enough to establish him in
another, smaller town. His hands jerked open and fifty- dollar bills flew into
the air when he heard the pounding on his door.
If the patrolman in front of the
Actons' house had only looked up, he might have noticed a deeper darkening at
the window of Nora's bedroom. He might possibly have realized that a man had
passed behind its curtains. But he didn't look up.
The intruder loosed the white silk
tie that was around his neck. Silently, he drew the tie from his collar and
wrapped its ends around his hands. He closed on Nora's bed. Despite the
darkness, he could make out the girl's sleeping form on the bed. He could see
the line where the pretty chin gave way to her soft, unprotected throat.
Slipping the tie between headboard and pillow, he worked it downward, slowly
downward, beneath the pillow, closer and closer to the girl's neck, infinitely
slowly, until its two ends should emerge out from under the pillow. He listened
all the while to her breathing, which went on softly, undisturbed.
It is a fine question whether the
kitchen knife, had Mrs Mildred Acton not removed it from beneath the girl's
pillow, could have done any good. Could Nora Acton, jolted awake by a man in
the night, have reached the knife? If she had reached it, could she have used
it? Nora always slept on her stomach. Even if she had got her hands on the
weapon, could she - with her breath choked off - have saved her life with it?
All fine questions, but all quite
academic, since not only was the kitchen knife not there, neither was Nora.
'Put 'em up, Mr Banwell,' said a
voice from behind the intruder at Nora's bed. An electric lantern, held by a
uniformed officer standing in the doorway, suddenly lit up the room. George
Banwell threw his hands before his face.
'Step away from the bed, Mr Banwell,'
said Detective Littlemore, jutting the muzzle of his gun into Banwell's back.
'Okay, Betty, you can get up now.'
Betty Longobardi rose from the bed,
fearful but defiant. As Littlemore patted down Banwell's pockets, he glanced at
Nora's hearth. There, as he expected, a wall panel had swiveled open, revealing
a secret passageway behind it. 'Okay. Put your hands down now. Behind your
back. Nice and slow.'
Banwell didn't move. 'What's your
price?' he asked.
'More than you can pay,' answered
Littlemore.
'Twenty thousand,' said Banwell, his
hands still over his head. 'I'll give each of you twenty thousand dollars.'
'Hands behind your back,' repeated
Littlemore.
'Fifty thousand,' said Banwell.
Squinting into the beam of light, he could see there were two men in the doorway,
one holding the lantern and another behind him, in addition to whoever had the
gun sticking in his back. At the words 'fifty thousand,' the two men in the
doorway shifted uneasily. Banwell addressed them. 'Think of it, boys. You’re
smart; I can tell by the look of you. Where do you think Chief Byrnes got his?
You know what Byrnes has in the bank? Three hundred fifty thousand. That's
right. I made him rich, and I'll make you rich.'
'The mayor won't like your trying to
bribe us,' said Littlemore, lowering one of Banwell's arms and placing a cuff
around his wrist.
'Are you going to listen to this fool
behind me?' Banwell shot out, still addressing the two men in the doorway, his
voice strong and confident notwithstanding his predicament. 'I'll break him
during the trial. I'll break him, do you hear me? Be smart. You want to be poor
your whole lives? Think of your wives, your children. You want them to be poor
their whole lives? Don't worry about the mayor. I own the mayor.'
'Do you, George?' said the man behind
the officer holding the lantern. He stepped into the light. It was Mayor
McClellan. 'Do you really?'
Littlemore snapped the handcuffs over
Banwell's other wrist, the lock catching with a satisfying click. With a
quickness surprising for a man of his size, Banwell wrenched himself out of the
detective's grip and, arms locked behind his back, made for the passageway But
he had to stop and duck to get in, which was his undoing. Littlemore had his
gun in his hand. He had a clear shot but didn't fire. Instead he took one large
step forward and brought the butt end of his gun down on Banwell's head.
Banwell let out a cry and collapsed to the floor.
A few minutes later, Detective
Littlemore sat the almost unconscious George Banwell at the foot of the Actons'
stairs and secured him to the banister with a second pair of handcuffs,
borrowed from one of the uniformed men. Blood was dripping down Banwell's face.
Another policeman let a flustered Harcourt and Mildred Acton out of their bedroom.
Inside the Players Club, the
hat-check girl welcomed a new guest, who also surprised her - not only because
he had entered through the rear door, but also because the man was wearing an
overcoat in the middle of summer. It gave Harry Thaw special pleasure to be
enjoying his liberty in rooms designed by the very man he had murdered three
years ago, Mr Stanford White. He gave his name as Monroe Reid from
Philadelphia. It was under that appellation that he introduced himself to
another out-of-towner, a foreign gentleman he met in the small ballroom, where
dancers were performing a show number on a raised stage. Harry Thaw and Carl
Jung got on quite well that evening. When Jung mentioned that the club member
he knew was Smith Jelliffe, Thaw exclaimed that he knew the man well, although
he did not give an entirely truthful account of their acquaintance.
'Well done, Detective,' said Mayor
McClellan to Littlemore in the Actons' living room. 'I would never have
believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.'
Mrs Biggs was dressing the gash in
Banwell's skull. Mr Acton had poured himself a large drink. 'Do you think you
might tell us what's happening, McClellan?' he asked.
'I'm afraid I don't entirely know
myself,' answered the mayor. 'I still cannot fathom how George could have
killed Miss Riverford.'
The doorbell rang. Mrs Biggs looked
to her employers, who in turn looked to the mayor. Littlemore said he would
answer it. A moment later, everyone in the room saw Coroner Charles Hugel enter
the room, firmly in the grasp of Officer John Reardon.
'Got him, Detective,' said Reardon.
'He was all packed just like you said he would be.'
Twenty-fiv
e
The telephone rang in my hotel room,
waking me. I didn't remember falling asleep; I hardly remembered returning to
my room. It was the front desk on the line.
'What time is it?' I asked.
'Just before midnight, sir.'
'What day?' The fog in my brain
wouldn't clear.
'Still Friday, sir. Excuse me, Dr
Younger, but you asked to be informed if Miss Acton had any visitors.'
'Yes?'
'A Mrs Banwell is on her way to Miss
Acton's room now.'
'Mrs Banwell?' I said. 'All right.
Don't let anyone else up, without calling me first.'
Nora and I had taken the train back
from Tarry Town. We barely spoke. When we arrived at the Grand Central, Nora
begged me to take her back to the Hotel Manhattan - to see whether her room
there was still booked in her name. If so, she asked, couldn't she stay there
until Sunday, when she need no longer fear that her parents might have her
hospitalized against her will?
Contrary to my better judgment, I
agreed to take her to the hotel. I warned her, though, that tomorrow morning, no
matter what, I would notify her father of her whereabouts. I felt sure - and
told her as much - that she would be able to come up with some fictitious story
to keep her parents at bay for a mere twenty-four hours. As it happened, she
was right about her room: it had never been released. The clerk handed her the
keys, and she disappeared into an elevator.
I did not consider Mrs Banwell's
midnight visit wise: her husband could have followed her. Nora must have
telephoned her. But if Nora could deceive me as thoroughly as she had, Clara
could probably deceive her husband about an evening's errand.
Freud's remarks about Nora's feelings
for Clara came back to me. He still believed, of course, that Nora harbored
incestuous wishes. I no longer did. In fact, given my interpretation of 'To be,
or not to be,' I dared to think I finally had upended the whole Oedipus
complex. Freud was right all along: yes, he had held the mirror up to nature,
but he had seen in it a mirror image of reality.
It's the father, not the son. Yes,
when a little boy enters the scene with his mother and father, one party in
this trio tends to suffer a profound jealousy - the father. He may naturally
feel the boy intrudes on his special, exclusive relationship with his wife. He
may well half want to be rid of the suckling, puling intruder, whom the mother
proclaims to be so perfect. He might even wish him dead.
The Oedipus complex is real, but the
subject of all its predicates is the parent, not the child. And it only worsens
as the child grows. A girl soon confronts her mother with a figure whose youth
and beauty the mother cannot help resenting. A boy must eventually overtake his
father, who as the son grows cannot but feel the churning of generations coming
to plow him under.
But what parent will acknowledge a
wish to kill his own issue? What father will admit to being jealous of his own
boy? So the Oedipal complex must be
projected onto children.
A voice
must whisper in the ear of Oedipus s father that it is not he - the father -
who entertains a secret death wish against the son but rather Oedipus who
covets the mother and compasses the father's death. The more intense these
jealousies attack the parents, the more destructively they will behave against
their own children, and if this occurs they may turn their own children against
them - bringing about the very situation they feared. So teaches
Oedipus
itself. Freud had misinterpreted
Oedipus:
the secret of the Oedipal
wishes lies in the parent's heart, not the child's.
The pity of it was that this
discovery, if such it was, now seemed so stale, so profitless to me. What good
was it? What good did thinking ever do?
'This is an outrage,' said Coroner
Hugel, with what looked like a barely controllable indignation. 'I demand an
explanation.'
George Banwell grunted in pain as Mrs
Biggs applied a plaster to his skull. Blood remained clotted in his hair, but
it was no longer running down his cheeks.
'What is the meaning of this,
Littlemore?' asked the mayor.
'You want to tell him, Mr Hugel?' was
the detective's answer. 'Or should I?'
'Tell me what?' asked McClellan.
'Let go of me,' the coroner said to
Reardon.
'Let him go, Officer,' ordered the
mayor. Reardon complied at once.
'Is this another of your jokes,
Littlemore?' asked Hugel, straightening his suit. 'Don't listen to anything he
says, McClellan. This is a man who pretended to be dead on my operating table
yesterday.'
'Did you?' the mayor asked
Littlemore.
'Yes, sir.'
'You see?' said Hugel to McClellan,
his voice rising. 'I am no longer in the city's employ. My resignation was
effective at five o'clock today; it is on your desk, McClellan, although no
doubt you did not read it. I am going home. Good night.'
'Don't let him go, Mr Mayor,' said
Littlemore.
The coroner paid no heed. Placing his
hat on his head, he began striding toward the door.
'Don't let him go, sir,' Littlemore
repeated.
'Mr Hugel, remain as you are, if you
please,' ordered McClellan. 'The detective has already shown me one thing
tonight I would not have believed possible. I will hear him out.'
'Thank you, Your Honor,' said
Littlemore. 'I better begin with the photograph. Coroner Hugel took the
picture, sir. It's a photograph of Miss Riverford with Mr Banwell's initials
showing on her neck.'
Banwell stirred at the foot of the
stairs. 'What's that?' he asked.
'His initials? What are you talking
about?' asked McClellan.
'I have a copy of it here, sir,' said
Littlemore. He handed the picture to the mayor. 'It's kind of complicated, sir.
You see, Mr Hugel said Miss Riverford's body was stolen from the morgue because
there was a clue on it.'
'Yes, you mentioned that to me,
Hugel,' said the mayor.
The coroner said nothing, eyeing
Littlemore warily.
'Then Riviere develops Mr Hugel's
plates,' the detective continued, 'and sure enough, we find this picture of
Miss Riverford's neck with some kind of imprint on it. Riviere and I didn't get
it, but Mr Hugel explained it to us. The murderer strangles Miss Riverford with
his tie, the tie still has his pin on it, and the pin has his monogram. So you
see, Your Honor, the picture shows the murderer's initials on Miss Riverford's
neck. That's what you told us, right, Mr Hugel?'
'Astounding,' said the mayor, who
peered at the photograph, holding it close to his eyes. 'By God, I see it: GB.'
'Yes, sir. I've also got one of Mr
Banwell's tiepins, and you can see they're alike.' Littlemore drew Banwell's tiepin
from his trousers pocket and handed it to the mayor.
'Look at that,' said the mayor.
'Identical.'
'Rubbish,' said Banwell. 'I'm being
framed.'
'Good Lord, Hugel,' said the mayor,
ignoring Banwell. 'Why didn't you tell me, man? You had proof positive against
him.'
'But I don't - I can't - let me see
that photograph,' said Hugel.
The mayor gave the coroner the
picture.
Hugel shook his head as he
scrutinized it. 'But my picture -'
'Mr Hugel's never seen that
photograph, Your Honor,' said Littlemore.
'I don't understand,' said the mayor.
'On Mr Hugel's photograph - on his
original photograph, sir - the initials on the girl's neck weren't
GB.
They were the reverse of
GB,
the mirror image.'
'Well, as a matter of fact, the
initials should have been in reverse, shouldn't they?' McClellan pointed out.
'The monogram should have left a reverse imprint, just like the seal on an
envelope.'
'That's the trick of it,' said
Littlemore. 'You got it right, Your Honor: the pin would have left a reverse
imprint, so the reverse
GB
on Mr Hugel's photograph made it look like Mr
Banwell was the killer. That's exactly what Mr Hugel said. The only problem was
that Mr Hugel's photograph was already a reverse image. Riviere told us. That's
what Mr Hugel didn't realize, sir. His picture showed a backward
GB
-
okay? - but his photograph was already a reverse image of the girl's neck. That
meant the imprint left on her neck was a true
GB,
and that meant the
murderer's monogram was
not
a true
GB
but a reverse
GB!
'Say that again,' said McClellan.
Littlemore did. In fact, he repeated
the point several times until the mayor understood it. He also explained that
he had made Riviere produce a reverse image of Hugel's picture, turning the
GB
around again, making it forward- facing, so he could compare the
initials to Mr Banwell's actual monogram. This reversed picture was the one he
had just shown the mayor.
'But it still makes no sense,' said
the mayor irritably. 'It makes no sense at all. How could the monogram shown in
Hugel's original photograph be the exact reverse of George Banwell's?'
'There's only one way, Your Honor,'
said Littlemore. 'Somebody drew it.'
'What?'
'Somebody drew it. Somebody etched it
right onto the dry plate before Riviere developed it. Somebody who had access
both to Mr Banwell's tiepin and to Mr Hugel's plates. Somebody trying to make
us think Mr Banwell killed Elizabeth Riverford. Whoever did it must have worked
at it real hard. They did almost everything right, but they made one mistake:
they made the photograph show a mirror image when they shouldn't have. They
knew the imprint on Miss Riverford's neck had to be the mirror image of the
real monogram. So they figured the photograph had to show a mirror image. But
what they forgot was that a ferrotype is already a mirror image. That was their
big mistake. When they put a reverse
GB
into the photograph, they gave
the game away.'
Hugel broke in. 'Why, even I can't
understand what the harebrain is saying. We have a clear photograph here of the
girl's neck. And it says
GB
on it - not a negative, or a double
negative, or a triple negative, or whatever Littlemore is babbling about. Just
a simple
GB.
It is proof that Banwell was the murderer.'
There was a brief silence; the mayor
broke it. 'Detective,' he said, 'I believe I have followed your reasoning. But
I must say things are turned around so many times I am at a loss to know who is
in the right. Is this the only reason you have for believing that Mr Hugel has
tampered with evidence? Is it possible that Hugel is correct? That your
photograph proves George Banwell to have been the murderer?'
Littlemore frowned. 'Let's see,' he
said. 'I guess there
is
a lot of evidence against Mr Banwell, isn't
there? Mr Mayor, could I put a couple of questions to Mr Banwell?'
'Go ahead,' replied McClellan.
'Mr Banwell, can you hear me okay,
sir?'
'What do you want?' Banwell growled.
'You know, Mr Banwell, now that I
think of it, I'm pretty sure we can convict you of Miss Riverford's murder. I
found the secret passageway between your apartments.'
'Good for you,' was Banwell's reply.
'There was clay in her apartment that
matches the clay at your construction site.'
'That's proof for you.'
'And we found the trunk with Miss
Riverford's things in it - the one you buried in the East River below the
Manhattan Bridge.'
'Impossible!' cried Banwell.
'Got it last night, Mr Banwell. Just
before you flooded the caisson.'
'You were in the Manhattan Bridge
caisson last night, Littlemore?' McClellan demanded.
'Yes, sir,' said Littlemore
sheepishly. 'Sorry, Mr Mayor.'
'Oh, never mind,' replied McClellan.
'Go on.'
'I'm being framed,' Banwell
interrupted. 'McClellan, I was with you all Sunday night. At Saranac Inn. You
know I couldn't have killed her.'
'That's not how the prosecutor will
see it,' Littlemore replied. 'He'll say you had someone drive Miss Riverford
down to Saranac, that you snuck out of the dinner with the mayor, met her
somewhere for a few minutes, and killed her. Then you had her body driven back
to the Balmoral where it would look like she died there. You figured you'd use
the mayor himself as your alibi. Too bad you left your initials on her neck.
That's what the prosecutor will say, Mr Banwell.'
'I didn't kill her, I tell you,' said
Banwell. 'I can prove it.'
'How can you prove it, George?' asked
McClellan.
'Nobody
killed Elizabeth
Riverford,' said Banwell.
'What?' said the mayor. 'She's still
alive? Where?'
Banwell shook his head.
'For God's sake, man,' said
McClellan, 'explain yourself.'
'There
is
no Elizabeth
Riverford,' said Banwell.
'Never was,' added Littlemore.
Banwell expelled a deep breath. Hugel
took one. The mayor expostulated. 'Will someone explain to me what's going on?'
'It was her weight that first got me
thinking,' said Littlemore. 'Mr Hugel's report said Miss Riverford was five-
foot-five and weighed a hundred fifteen pounds. But the ceiling thing she was
tied up to wouldn't have held a hundred- fifteen-pound girl. It would've broken
right off. I tested it.'
'I could have been slightly off in
height and weight,' said Hugel. 'I have been under considerable strain.'
'You weren't off, Mr Hugel,' said
Littlemore. 'You did it on purpose. You also didn't mention that Miss
Riverford's hair wasn't really black.'
'Of course it was black,' said Hugel.
'Everyone at the Balmoral will testify it was black.'
'A wig,' said Littlemore. 'We found
another one just like it in Banwell's trunk.'
Hugel appealed to the mayor. 'He's
lost his mind. Someone is paying him to say these things. Why would I
deliberately misrepresent Miss Riverford's physical appearance?'
'Why, Detective?' said McClellan.
'Because if he had told everyone that
Elizabeth Riverford was five-foot-two, a hundred and three pounds, with long
blond hair, things would have gotten real sticky when Miss Nora Acton,
five-foot-two, a hundred and three pounds, with long blond hair, turned up with
the identical wounds the very next day - the same day Miss Riverford's body
disappeared - wouldn't they, Mr Hugel?'