Robert Walker - Shadows in the White City

“Of course. He’d used his cab to transport the body here to the museum to make a show of it. Philo was right-said as much.”

“And to make matters even more suspicious and eerie, he was humming a tune.”

“A tune?”

“Yes, the one they play to distraction at the beer gardens till you forget to hear it.”

“What tune, man?”

“‘Comin’ through the Rye,’ and if I ne’er hear it again, I can die a happy-”

“Same as has been heard by our only witness, Saville.”

“You’d confided as much, but had asked me to not publish it, recall? When it dawned on me, drunk as I was, I went cold to the bone.”

Ransom had gone deep into thought.

Carmichael nudged Alastair, the odor of alcohol wafting off him still. “So what will you do next?”

“What indeed. I think that, sir, must remain between me and my Maker and-”

“I see.”

“-and not between me and the Herald. ”

“Time to clean the city streets, you mean?”

“They have been gathering a great lot of dirt and blood of late.”

“For too long, yes.”

A deep silence fell over them where the lakeshore breeze lifted their hair, and the warm morning sun bathed them, making them blink. Nearby birds chased one another through the agricultural exhibit meant as an orchard and garden. By night, the modern miracle of electric lampposts lit the paved paths that snaked through the White City wonderland. So much of the fair stood at odds with what they spoke of- murdering a murderer before he should murder again.

“I want to express my deepest, sincerest apology, Alastair, about Griffin Drimmer.”

“You already said that, my friend.”

“All right damn you, then, I want to say I am in…that I’m sorry in general for ever doubting you.”

“For doubt? It’s the most natural of all human-”

“All right, then! Sorry for any libelous, felonious words I may’ve used against you.”

“In print?”

“Or in the ale houses!”

“Just doing your bloody job. Dirt…it’s your business. Words are weapons to a man like you.”

Carmichael fell silent. He looked so contrite. “Aye, my business, and it cost me dearly. I wonder what might’ve occurred last eve had I opened that cab door?”

“You’d’ve lost your head along with Griffin, and we’d not be here having this conversation.”

“Yes…difficult to speak if your throat’s cut. Just that knowing who Denton was…knowing my own suspicions of him, and even sensing some unease in him as he spoke…I knew I’d not open that door for any reason, not even for a story, not on any account.”

“Smart of you, Thom.”

“Do you find me a coward, Alastair?”

“A coward? No…a man of words. No one expects more from you, Thom.”

“But suppose…suppose Denton was alive in there, only stunned? Perhaps I could’ve done something to…to help him, you see, and-”

“Damn it, man! You do your battles with words. Your sword is language. You have nothing to feel ashamed of.”

“And you? Your weapon of choice?”

“I can tell you it is not a garrote.”

“Yes, I imagine if you used a blade, it’d be a full-blown guillotine.”

“Do you know where I can find one?”

“Gotta be one somewhere at the fair. France’s contributions to the world since Columbus discovered America, all that.”

Ransom couldn’t help but laugh at Thom’s sardonic wit.

“Then you are off to outwit the Phantom once again?”

“I am his match, sir.”

“But there is something you want from him first, something you must have or know? Before you kill him?”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Well, is there? Something you want from him?”

“I want to know where the jewelry is kept.”

“No…come along. You must confide in someone, trust someone.”

“I have confided in someone.”

“A person or God? The confessional?”

“A person, the only man I trust.”

Ransom walked off, leaving Carmichael to ponder who it might be that had Alastair Ransom’s complete confidence. He suspected Thom would guess it to be Philo Keane, so often seen with Ransom in bawdy houses and at the gambling table, but Thom was a bright fellow, and he’d likely soon dismiss the notion and instead go in search of Dr. Christian Fenger for the answer.

As he stormed off, Alastair heard his former chief, County Prosecutor Kehoe, laughing over some joke made by another man who’d come on scene, a man who created a sensation among the reporters and populace-Mayor Carter Harrison. Alastair did not look back as he stepped out of the circuslike atmosphere of White City and continued into the real city -cold-blooded murder on his mind.

Thom Carmichael went to see Dr. Christian Fenger at Cook County, and making it clear that he’d come as a friend of Ransom’s and not as a reporter, he asked Fenger if he were the one man that Alastair had confided in. “I need to know, Doctor, please.”

Christian Fenger poured Thom a drink. “I’d prescribe something more medicinal, but you’d never take it.”

Carmichael took the offering, his hangover killing him. “What about my question?”

“Ransom did not lie, but I am not the man you seek.”

“Then who? To whom does he confide?”

“One man.”

“Yes? His name?”

“His name is Ransom.”

“Yet he confides in you as well.”

“On certain topics…at times.”

“Then you know very well he intends to dispatch Denton to the cosmos, don’t you?”

“I know nothing of the kind, and neither do you.”

“But, Doctor-”

“Put it out of your mind, Carmichael, and I never want to see an inkling of it, not a whisper of it in that rag you call a newspaper.”

“ Ahhh …yes, of course, the bane of every reporter’s existence, ‘No one knows nothing.’”

“And if we are friends of Ransom, let’s keep it that way.” Dr. Fenger laughed heartily. Carmichael, after a hesitation, began laughing with the good doctor.

For the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, the time period Ransom allowed to dispatch Waldo Denton, he’d designated himself the avenging wind that would rid the city of the ghost of Campaneua. He’d do it for his murdered partner, Griff, his murdered mistress, Merielle, the farm boy who wanted to be an architect, the young woman, Miss Mandor, to whom Philo had lost his heart, the officious bean counter, Trelaine, the already forgotten by public and press earliest victims, two defenseless women, and one unborn child.

But before this monster crushed the life of the other monster, Alastair Ransom would know why…why? He wanted to know what forged this collision, this coming together of forces bent on destruction, this seemingly inevitable, unalterable fate?

This he must know.

Must know if my instincts and what Griff and Gabby had uncovered is true or not.

The same instincts tore at him with talons of a great beast. He must know if it were true that this horror and death were all somehow his fault. He had to know if God had meant for it to be all laid at his doorstep for past indiscretions.

Even so, Waldo Denton would not spend a day in jail, or in an asylum. Nor would Denton face a quick and painless execution. Not if Ransom’s justice rained down on him.

In Ransom’s time and in his court, with him as judge, jury, and executioner. People would know, but he’d leave no evidence, not even Denton’s body. It was good that people would know. Men like Muldoon, Kohler, Kehoe, Carmichael, the mob bosses, the Tong leaders, the Irish thugs, all the rats inhabiting Ransom’s city would know to fear him-to fear his idea of retribution.