'You must take over the analysis, Dr Freud. Or Brill. It should have been Brill in the first place.'
'Nonsense. She is yours, Younger. You are doing very well. But you must not take these feelings of yours so seriously. They are unavoidable in psychoanalysis. They are part of the treatment. Nora is very probably coming under the influence of the transference, as you are of the counter- transference. You must treat these feelings as data; you must deploy them. They are fictitious. They have no more reality than the feelings an actor generates onstage. A good Hamlet will feel rage toward his uncle, but he will not mistakenly suppose he is actually angry at his fellow tragedian. It is the same with analysis.'
For a time, neither of us spoke. Then I asked, 'Have you ever had — feelings for a patient, Dr Freud?'
'There have been times,' Freud replied slowly, 'when I welcomed such feelings; they reminded me that I was not altogether past desire. Yes, I have had some narrow escapes. But you must remember: I came to psychoanalysis when I was already much older than you, which made it easier for me. In addition, I am married. To the knowledge that these feelings are factitious, there is added, in my case, a moral obligation I could not violate.' It will seem ridiculous, but the only thought in my head after Freud finished was this: how could factitious be synonymous with fictitious}
Freud continued. 'Enough. For now the chief task is to discover the preexisting trauma that caused the girl's hysterical reaction on the roof. Tell me this: why didn't Nora tell the police where her parents were?'
I had asked myself the same thing. Miss Acton had told me that her parents were at George Banwell's country house, yet she had never mentioned this fact to the police, allowing them instead to send message after message to her own family's summer cottage, where no one was home. To me, however, this reticence was not mysterious. I have always envied those able to receive genuine comfort from their parents in times of crisis; there must be no comfort equal to it. But that was never my lot. 'Perhaps,' I answered Freud, 'she didn't care to have her parents nearby after the attack?'
'Perhaps,' he said. 'I concealed my worst self-doubts from my father for the whole of his lifetime. Like you.' Freud made the latter observation as if it were well known; in fact, I had not said a word about it to him. 'But there is always a neurotic ingredient in such concealment. Start on this point with Nora tomorrow, Younger. That is my advice. There is something in that country house. Undoubtedly it will be connected to the girl's unconscious desire for her father. I wonder.' He stopped walking and shut his eyes. A long moment passed. Then, opening his eyes, he said, 'I have it.'
'What?' I asked.
'Well, I have a suspicion, Younger, but I am not going to tell you what it is. I don't want to plant ideas in your head — or hers. Find out if she has a memory connected with this country house, a memory predating the episode on the roof. Remember, be opaque with her. You must be like a mirror, showing her nothing but what she shows you. Perhaps she saw something she should not have seen. She may not want to tell you. Don't let her off.'
On Tuesday, in the late afternoon, the Triumvirate were reassembled in the library. They had a great deal to discuss. One of the three gentlemen turned over, in his fine long hands, a report he had recently received and had shared with the others. The report included, among other things, a set of letters. 'These,' he said, 'we do not burn.'
'I told you: they are degenerates, all of them,' added the portly, ruddy-complexioned man next to him, with the muttonchop sideburns. 'We must wipe them out. One by one.'
'Oh, we will,' said the first. 'We are. But we will make use of them first.'
There was a brief silence. Then the third man, the balding one, spoke. 'What of the evidence?'
'There will be no evidence,' replied the first, 'except what we choose to leave behind.'
Detective Jimmy Littlemore exited the subway at Seventysecond Street and Broadway, the stop closest to the Balmoral. Mr Hugel might have his money on Banwell, but Littlemore hadn't given up on his own leads.
The evening before, when the Chinaman had disappeared, Littlemore had not been able to find out anything about him. The other laundry workers knew him as Chong, but that was all they knew about him. An assistant had told him to come back in the daytime and ask for Mayhew, the bookkeeper.
Littlemore found Mayhew recording figures in a back office. The detective asked the bookkeeper about the Chinaman who worked in the laundry.
'Just penciling in his name now,' said Mayhew, without looking up.
'Because he didn't show up for work today?' asked Littlemore.
'How did you know that?'
'Lucky guess,' said the detective. Mayhew had the information he wanted. The Chinaman's full name was Chong Sing. His address was 782 Eighth Avenue, in Midtown. Littlemore asked if Mr Chong ever made laundry deliveries to the Alabaster Wing — more specifically, to Miss Riverford.
Mayhew looked amused. 'You can't be serious,' he said.
'Why not?'
'The man's Chinese.'
'So?'
'This is a first-class building, Detective. Normally we don't even hire Chinese. Chong was not allowed out of the basement. He was lucky to have a job here at all.'
'Bet he was real grateful,' said Littlemore. 'Why'd you hire him?'
Mayhew shrugged. 'I haven't any idea. Mr Banwell asked us to find work for him, and that is what we did. Evidently, he didn't realize how fortunate he was.'
Littlemore s next task was to find the cabbie who picked up the black-haired man Sunday night. The doormen told the detective to try the stables on Amsterdam Avenue, where all the hacks got their horses. But they said he shouldn't bother going until later. The night drivers didn't come on until nine-thirty or ten.
The interval suited Littlemore just fine. It gave him a chance first to take another look at Miss Riverford's apartment and then to drop in on Betty. She was in a much better mood. Agreeing to come out to a nickelodeon, Betty introduced the detective to her mother and gave a goodbye hug to each of her little brothers — who gaped when the detective showed them his gun and who were delighted when he let them play with his badge and handcuffs. Betty, it turned out, had a new job. She had spent a luckless morning presenting herself at the large hotels, hoping vainly to find a spot for an experienced maid. But at a shirtwaist factory near Washington Square, she got an interview with the owner, a Mr Harris, who hired her on the spot. She would start tomorrow.
The hours of Betty's new job were not so nice: seven in the morning to eight at night. Nor was she enthusiastic about the pay, 'At least it's by the piece,' she said. 'Mr Harris says some of the girls make two dollars a day.'
About half past nine, Littlemore went to the stable on Amsterdam Avenue near 100th Street. Over the next two hours, a good dozen hackney drivers came in to drop off or pick up a horse. Littlemore talked with every one of them but drew a blank. When the last stall was empty, the stableboy told Littlemore to wait for one more old-timer who kept his own horse. Sure enough, a little before twelve, an old nag came slow-stepping in, piloted by an ancient driver. At first the old man wouldn't answer the detective, but when Littlemore began flipping a quarter in the air, he found his tongue. He had indeed picked up a black-haired man in front of the Balmoral two nights ago. Did he remember where they went? He did: the Hotel Manhattan.
Littlemore was speechless, but the old driver had more to say. 'Know what he does when we get there? Climbs straight into another cab, one of those red and green gasoline jobs, right in front of my face. Taking money from my pocket, that's what I calls it, and putting it in somebody else's.'
Freud cut our conversation short, abruptly declaring that he had to return to the hotel at once. I understood what was happening. Luckily, a carriage was right at hand.
The instant Freud and I set foot in the hotel, Jung accosted us. He must have been waiting for Freud to return. With inexplicable ardor, he planted himself right in front of Freud, blocking our way, insisting on speaking with him without delay. The moment was the least propitious possible. Freud had just informed me, with evident embarrassment, how pressing was his need.
'Great heavens, Jung,' said Freud, 'let me through. I have to get to my room.'
'Why? Are you having the — the problem again?'
'Lower your voice,' Freud said. 'Yes. Now let me pass. It is urgent.'
'I knew it. Your enuresis,' said Jung, using the medical term for involuntary micturition, 'is psychogenic.'
'Jung, it is — '
'It is a neurosis. I can help you!'
