Jed Rubenfeld - The Interpretation of Murder

'I am the English translator,' said Brill.

Jones looked dumbfounded. To Freud he said, 'You — you don't — you're letting Brill translate you?' And to Brill, 'But is your English quite up to it, old man? You are an immigrant, after all.'

'Ernest,' said Freud, 'you are displaying jealousy.'

'Me?' answered Jones. 'Jealous of Brill? How could I. be?'

At that moment, a boy carrying a silver platter called out Brill's name. The platter had an envelope on it. With a self-important air, Brill tipped the boy a dime. 'I've always wanted to receive a telegram in a hotel,' he said cheerily. 'I nearly sent one to myself yesterday, just to see how it felt.'

When, however, Brill pulled the message from its envelope, his features froze. Ferenczi seized the missive from his hands and showed it to us. The telegram read:

THEN THE LORD RAINED UPON SODOM BRIMSTONE AND FIRE

STOP AND LO THE SMOKE OF THE COUNTRY WENT UP AS

THE SMOKE OF A FURNACE STOP BUT HIS WIFE LOOKED

BACK FROM BEHIND HIM AND SHE BECAME A PILLAR OF

SALT STOP BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE STOP

'Again,' Brill whispered.

'I say,' Jones responded, 'there's no reason to look as if one had seen a ghost. It is plainly from some religious fanatic. America is full of them.'

'How did they know I would be here?' Brill replied, unreassured.

Mayor George McClellan lived on the Row, in one of the stately Greek Revival townhouses lining Washington Square North. Leaving his house early Wednesday morning, McClellan was startled to see Coroner Hugel rushing toward him from the park across the street. The two gentlemen met between the Corinthian columns framing the mayor's front door.

'Hugel,' said McClellan, 'what are you doing here? Good Lord, man, you look like you haven't slept in days.'

'I had to be sure of finding you,' exclaimed the winded coroner.

'Banwell did it.'

'What?'

'George Banwell killed the Riverford girl,' said Hugel.

'Don't be ridiculous,' replied the mayor. 'I've known Banwell for twenty years.'

'From the moment I entered her apartment,' said Hugel, 'he tried to obstruct the investigation. He threatened to have me removed from the case. He tried to prevent the autopsy.'

'He knows the girl's father, for God's sake.'

'Why should that prevent an autopsy?'

'Most men, Hugel, would not relish the sight of their daughter's corpse sawed open.'

If the mayor intended a hint concerning Hugel's sensibilities, the coroner did not take it. 'He fits the description of the murderer in every respect. He lived in her building; he was a friend of the family, to whom she would have opened her door; and he had her entire apartment cleared out before Littlemore could search it.'

'You had already searched it,' the mayor rejoined.

'Not at all,' said Hugel. 'I only inspected the bedroom. Littlemore was to search the rest of the apartment.'

'Did Banwell know Littlemore was coming? Did you tell him?'

'No,' the coroner grumbled. 'But how do you explain his terror at the sight of Miss Acton on the street yesterday?' He relayed to the mayor the account of the previous day's events reported to him by Littlemore. 'Banwell was trying to flee because he thought she would identify him as her attacker.'

'Nonsense' was the mayor's response. 'He met me in the hotel directly afterward. Are you aware that the Banwells and Actons are the closest of friends? Harcourt and Mildred Acton are at George's summer cottage now.'

'You mean he knows the Actons?' Hugel demanded. 'Why, that proves it! He is the only one who knew both victims.'

The mayor regarded the coroner dispassionately. 'What's that on your jacket, Hugel? It looks like egg.'

'It is egg.' Hugel wiped at his lapel with a yellowed handkerchief. 'Those hooligans on the other side of your park threw it at me. We must arrest Banwell at once.'

The mayor shook his head. The south side of Washington Square was not genteel, and McClellan had not been able to rid the southwest corner of the park of a gang of boys for whom proximity to the mayor's house must have been an additional inducement to their prankstering. McClellan strode past the coroner to the horse-drawn carriage awaiting him. 'I'm surprised at you, Hugel. Speculation piled on top of speculation.'

'It will not be speculation when you have another murder on your hands.'

'George Banwell did not kill Miss Riverford,' said the mayor.

'How do you know?'

'I know,' answered McClellan definitively. 'I won't hear another word of this ludicrous slander. Now go home. You are not fit to be in your office in this state. Get some rest. That's an order.'

The building Littlemore found at 782 Eighth Avenue — where Chong Sing supposedly lived in apartment 4C — was a five-story tenement, dirty, grimy, with fragrant shanks of red-roasted pork and dripping carcasses of duck hanging in the second-floor windows, behind which was a Chinese restaurant. Below the restaurant, at street level, was a dingy bicycle shop, the proprietor of which was white. All the other people in and around the building — the old women bustling in and out the front door, the man smoking a long pipe on the stoop, the faces peering out the upper-story windows — were Chinese.

When the detective began mounting the third flight of unlit stairs, a small man in a long tunic appeared out of the shadows, blocking his way. This man had a wispy beard, a queue hanging down his back, and teeth the color of fresh rust. Littlemore stopped. 'You go wrong way,' the Chinese said, without introduction. 'Restaurant back there. Second floor.'

'I'm not looking for the restaurant,' the detective replied. 'I'm looking for Mr Chong Sing. Lives on the fourth floor. You know him?'

'No.' The Chinese man continued to bar Littlemore's way. 'No Chong Sing upstair.'

'You mean he's out, or he doesn't live here?'

'No Chong Sing upstair,' the Chinese man repeated. He pushed his fingertips against Littlemore's chest. 'You go way.'

Littlemore pushed past the man and continued up the narrow stairway, which creaked under his feet. The fatty smell of meat accompanied him. As he trod the smoky corridor of the fourth floor — windowless and dark, though it was a bright morning — he saw eyes watching him from doorways barely cracked open. No one answered at apartment 4C. Littlemore thought he heard someone hurrying down a back stairway. At first, the aroma of roasted meat had stimulated the detective's appetite; now, in the airless upper floors, mixing with curls of opium smoke, it nauseated him.

When the mayor arrived at City Hall, Mrs Neville informed him that Mr Banwell was calling. McClellan told her to put him through. 'George,' said George Banwell, 'it's George.'

'By George, it is,' said George McClellan, completing an exchange they had initiated almost twenty years ago as fledgling members of the Manhattan Club.

'Just wanted you to know I got through to Acton last night,' said Banwell. 'Told him the ghastly news. He's driving in post haste this morning. He should be at the hotel by noon. I'm meeting him there.'

'Excellent,' said McClellan. 'I'll join you.'

'Has Nora remembered anything?'

'No,' said the mayor. 'The coroner has a suspect, however. You.'

'Me?' exclaimed Banwell. 'I didn't like that little weasel the moment I saw him.'

'Apparently the feeling was mutual.'

'What did you tell him?'

'I told him you didn't do it,' said the mayor.

'What about Elizabeth's body?' asked Banwell. 'Riverford's wiring me about it every other minute.'

'The body has been stolen, George,' said the mayor.

'What?'

'You know the troubles I've had with the morgue. I hope to get it back. Can you put Riverford off for one more day?'

'Put him off?' repeated Banwell. 'His daughter's been murdered.'