Jed Rubenfeld - The Interpretation of Murder

'Hush, Nora,' her father replied. 'That word is not spoken.'

'You cannot know, poor thing!' her mother exclaimed. 'You have no memory of the crime. You will never know.'

Now was the moment when, if she were going to, Miss Acton would have said that she had recovered her memory. She did not do so. Instead, the girl replied, 'I will stay here in the hotel to continue my treatment. I don't want to go home.'

'Do you hear her?' cried her mother.

'I will not feel safe at home,' said Miss Acton. 'The man who attacked me may be watching for me there. Mr McClellan, you said so yourself on Sunday.'

'The girl is right,' the mayor replied. 'She is much safer in the hotel. The murderer does not know she is here.'

I knew this to be false, because of the note Miss Acton received in the street. Miss Acton obviously knew the same. In fact, at the mayor's words I saw her right hand clench; a corner of the note was sticking out from her fist. Yet she said nothing. Instead, she looked from McClellan to her parents, as if he had quite vindicated her position. It came to me that she was avoiding Mr Banwell's scrutiny.

Banwell had been eyeing Nora with a peculiar expression. Physically, he dominated the others. He was taller than anyone else in the room with the exception of myself and had a barrel chest. His dark hair was smoothed back with an unguent of some kind and graying handsomely at the temples. His gaze was fixed on Nora. It will seem preposterous, and another observer would no doubt have denied it, but the best way I can describe his expression is to say that, to me, he looked like he wished to do her violence. He now spoke, but his voice betrayed no such feeling. 'Surely the best thing is to get Nora out of the city,' he said with what sounded like gruff but genuine concern for her safety. 'Why not my country place? Clara can take her.'

'I prefer to stay here,' said Nora, looking down.

'Really?' replied Banwell. 'Your mother thinks the murderer is in the hotel. How can you be sure he isn't keeping watch on you even now?'

Miss Acton's face reddened as Banwell spoke to her. Her whole body, to me, seemed tense with fear.

I announced that I would be leaving. Miss Acton looked up at me anxiously. I added, as if just recalling something, 'Oh, Miss Acton, your prescription — for the sedative I mentioned. Here it is.' I withdrew a script from my pocket, quickly filled it out, and handed it to her. On it was written, Was it Banwell?

She saw my message. She nodded to me, slightly but definitively.

'Why don't you give that to me?' asked Banwell, narrowing his eyes on me. 'My man downstairs can run to the pharmacy right now.'

'Very well,' I replied. From Miss Acton's hand, I took my note. I handed the latter to him. 'See if your man can fill that.'

Banwell read it. 1 half expected him to crush it and glare at me menacingly, revealing himself like the villain in some cheap romance. Instead, he exclaimed, 'What the devil is this — Hold your tongue? You'd better have an explanation, young man.'

'This is a warning Miss Acton received on the street this morning,' I said, 'as you well know, Mr Banwell, since you wrote it.' A stunned silence followed. 'Mr Mayor, Mr Littlemore: this man is the criminal you are looking for. Miss Acton remembered the attack on her just minutes before you came in. I advise you to arrest him at once.'

'How dare you?' said Banwell.

'What is this — this person?' asked Mildred Acton, referring to me. 'Where does he come from?'

'Dr Younger,' said Mayor McClellan, 'you do not appreciate the gravity of a false accusation. Withdraw it. If Miss Acton has told you this, her memory is playing a trick on her.'

'Mr Mayor, sir — ' began Detective Littlemore.

'Not now, Littlemore,' the mayor said calmly. 'Doctor, you will withdraw your accusation, offer Mr Banwell an apology, and tell us what Miss Acton has said to you.'

'But Your Honor — ' said the detective.

'Littlemore!' the mayor barked so furiously it drove Littlemore back a step. 'Didn't you hear me?'

'Mayor McClellan,' I broke in, 'I don't understand. I have just told you Miss Acton remembers the attack. Your own detective seems to have something confirmatory to add. Miss Acton has positively identified Mr Banwell as her assailant.'

'We have only your word for that, Doctor — if that's what you are,' said Banwell. He looked hard at Miss Acton; it seemed to me he was laboring strenuously to restrain a powerful emotion. 'Nora, you know perfectly well I have done nothing to you. Tell them, Nora.'

'Nora,' said the girl's mother, 'tell this young man he is under a misimpression.'

'Nora dear?' said her father.

'Tell him, Nora,' said Banwell.

'I won't tell him,' answered the girl, but that is all she said.

'Mr Mayor,' I said, 'you cannot allow Miss Acton to be cross-questioned by the man who attacked her — a man who has already murdered another girl.'

'Younger, I am convinced you mean well,' replied the mayor, 'but you are wrong. George Banwell and I were together Sunday night, when Elizabeth Riverford was murdered. He was with me — do you hear it, with me — all that evening and night and well into Monday morning as well. Two hundred fifty miles out of town. He could not have killed anyone.'

In the library, after Jung's departure, curling tails of smoke wafted up to the ceiling. A servant removed glasses, replaced ashtrays, then quietly withdrew.

'Do we have him?' asked the balding man, who had been referred to as Sachs.

'Without doubt,' answered Dana. 'He is even weaker than I had imagined. And we have more than sufficient to destroy him in any event. Does Ochs have your remarks, Allen?'

'Oh, yes,' answered the portly, sideburned gentleman with the thick lips. 'He will publish mine the same day he interviews the Swiss.'

'What about Matteawan?' asked Sachs.

'Leave that to me,' Dana replied. 'What remains is to block their other means of dissemination. Which, by tomorrow, we will have done.'

Even after hearing the mayor exculpate him, I could not accept Banwell's innocence. Subjectively, that is. Objectively, I had no grounds for disbelief or protest.

Nora refused to go home. Her father pleaded. Her mother was indignant at what she called the girl's obstinacy. The mayor resolved the situation. Now that he had seen the note, he said, it was clear the hotel was no longer safe. But the Actons' home could be secured. Indeed, it could be made safer than could a large hotel with its many entrances. He would station policemen outside the house, front and back, day and night. Moreover, he reminded Miss Acton, she was still a minor: under the law, he would be obliged to effectuate her father's wishes, even against her will.

I thought Miss Acton would burst out in some way. Instead she gave in, but only on the condition that she be permitted to continue her medical treatment tomorrow morning. 'Especially,' she added, 'now that I know my memory is not to be trusted.' This she said with apparent sincerity, but it was impossible to say whether she was faulting the trustworthiness of her memory or rebuking those who refused to trust it.

She did not look at me after that, not even once. The silent ride down the elevator was excruciating, but Miss Acton held herself with a dignity lacking in her mother, who appeared to regard everything she encountered as a personal affront. An appointment was made for me to visit their house on Gramercy Park early the next day, and they departed in an automobile downtown. McClellan did the same. Banwell, casting a last glance in my direction, by no means benevolent, departed in a horse-drawn carriage, leaving Detective Littlemore and me on the sidewalk.

He turned to me. 'She told you it was Banwell?'

'Yes,' I said.

'And you believe her, don't you?'