The owner of the power-boat continuously anchored on the other side of Z’s was aboard from 2:30 until 4:30, and is positive no one approached Z’s boat from that side. The owner of a third power-boat continuously anchored thirty-five feet from Z’s in another direction also spent the afternoon on board, and tells the same story. Two men [custodians and renters of boats] busy all the afternoon around the wharf fifty yards away saw no one go to or come from Z’s launch.
[To me the most probable solution of Z’s death is that it was neither murder nor suicide, but accidental man-slaughter. Perhaps Z had the habit, to satisfy his mania for female-impersonation, of taking on his yacht as an audience young bachelors who owned launches usually anchored near his own. Perhaps a launch, on that Sunday afternoon ideal for yachting, was kept at anchor near Z’s because its owner had plotted to teach Z a lesson, with the “good” intention of curing him of his habit of female-impersonation, believing—as nearly every one does at |Torturing an Androgyne.| present because prohibited by public opinion from learning the truth—that it is a wilful bad habit. When Z had rigged himself in feminine garb (because the female side of his duality demanded it), one or more of the young men from one of the anchored yachts—according to my theory—had tied ropes around him, even around his neck, the latter merely in order to frighten him and prevent his calling for help. The newspapers stated that only a “seaman” could display such skill in tying ropes, and these yachtsmen were amateur seamen. They then, late in the afternoon, after they had had their “fun” with the pitiable androgyne, went ashore, having no thought that the rope around the throat would tighten sufficiently to strangle Z. They designed merely to punish him for his androgynism (1) through his being compelled to lie helpless on the cabin floor for several hours, with a rope tight around his neck to prevent him calling for help, and, (2) more than that, through humiliating him before his family, who finally, anxious over his not returning home, would visit the yacht and discover him in his most ignominious garb and predicament.
[But Z, in his writhings to free himself from his bonds, unfortunately tightened the rope about his neck and was fatally strangled, the young men having departed and no one being at hand to succor him in his death agony. Z was only one more of the many martyrs to the public’s prohibition of the showing up of the myth that bisexuals are monsters of depravity, deserving the crudest forms of torture and even murder. Those guilty of Z’s death—under the theory now being propounded—were fundamentally irresponsible. |Church and Public Opinion Guilty.| The guilt lies with the Church and public opinion, both of which teach that no punishment is too bad for an androgyne.
[A few days after Z’s death, I wrote letters to Z’s father giving all my theories. I desired to do all I could to avenge my brother in calamity by bringing his assailants to justice. It would not be surprising if Z’s father was disinclined to press matters because of shame over the son’s being an androgyne combined with the public’s so terribly misjudging androgynism. Z’s near neighbor, a young college graduate whom I “pumped,” told me first that the fact at the bottom of Z’s death “was of such nature that it could not be discussed”! I could get at the truth only by putting repeated frank questions, since he labored under the terrible delusion that sex is a subject beyond discussion. This college man expressed the opinion that Z was wilfully depraved and “got all that was coming to him.” I interviewed several others who knew the Z family merely by sight and reputation. They all showed intense antipathy, being of the opinion that a family’s having an androgyne relative was sufficient cause for its ostracism.
[A personal parallel: To only one member of my own family—a brother—have I ever confessed my addiction to female-impersonation sprees. I did it twenty years ago, at the age of twenty-seven, because I then had enemies at Ft. X (at the time my regular stamping-ground) who hated androgynism so fiercely as to be capable of murdering an individual in whom the phenomenon cropped up. I therefore explained matters to a brother: that if ever I was found murdered, to look for my assassin among the common |Androgynes’ Relations Ashamed to Prosecute.| soldiers of Ft. X. He replied: “Ralph, if you are ever murdered on one of your female-impersonation sprees, the family would be too much ashamed ever to take the first step to bring your murderer to justice!”]
At the supper hour, Z’s mother telephoned to the wharf and was informed her son had not returned from his yacht. Fearing he had met with an accident, she and her daughter went by automobile to the wharf, arriving at 6:30. It was then almost dark. A boatman rowed the mother, shivering nervously, to the launch. As Mrs. Z descended the forward hatch, her foot struck a human body lying at the foot of the steps, face downward. She felt the hands, which stuck out above the body, and found them cold.
“Linnie has fainted!” Mrs. Z exclaimed. She hastily lighted a lantern, while the boatman remained at the top of the short flight of stairs, apparently paralyzed with fear. But having a light, Mrs. Z discovered the inert body to be clothed in a long blue dress, while the head was covered with a black oilcloth bag. [Such covering of the head indicates non-suicide. The man-killer covered Z’s head because, before abandoning him with the rope around his neck, he (or they) tormented and tortured Z. I have myself had a handkerchief thrust into my mouth to prevent an outcry and been thereupon tortured merely because of insane loathing of androgynism.]
Mrs. Z now exclaimed: “Why, it’s a woman! She’s been strangled, and Linnie’s not here!”
Overcome with terror, she left the boat without further examination. Mr. Z, when his wife greeted him with the frantic cry: “A woman has been strangled on our yacht!” immediately visited it. He removed |Father’s Assertions Discarded.| the hood from the form on the cabin floor, and in amazement recognized the face of his son. Around the neck was a tightened noose of Manila rope tied with a hangman’s knot. Mr. Z is positive the knot was at the back of the neck. [This position is an indication of non-suicide. A suicide would naturally have placed the knot in front.] Unable to loosen the knot, Mr. Z cut the rope. He noticed that both his son’s hands were behind the back, apparently tied with a sash cord, although he did not think to make sure both were tied. For, finding the body cold, he was convulsed with grief and immediately left without making further examination.
The next arrivals were policemen.