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.'
Chapter Twenty-five
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.'
