Robert Walker - Shadows in the White City

“All but your ring-Polly’s ring?” Jane asked.

“That and your locket. Keep it.”

Jane understood the look in his eye; Alastair wanted to keep Gabby’s name out of it altogether.

“What’s the point of shutting all these items away in a box behind some locked door, Alastair?” asked Philo.

Gabby piped in with, “Against the day when Denton will be brought to justice of course. Evidence in the event it’s called, in police parlance.”

Jane frowned. “I still disapprove of this new position of yours, Gabby. You should be concentrating on your medical studies.”

And so began a mother-daughter “discussion” that sent Philo and Alastair in search of the smoking car.

On arriving back in the city, before getting out of the station, Inspector Ransom was suddenly surrounded by news hounds, all barking questions at him about the story on page one. Jane wisely whisked Gabby off in another direction, going in search of a carriage, Philo Keane helping with their bags.

Insisting that Alastair pay attention, Thom Carmichael held up a copy of his Herald to Ransom’s astonished eyes: phantom strikes again!

The headline screamed inside his head even louder than it did on the page. “No, this can’t be!” he shouted.

“I tried to tell them it wasn’t the work of the Phantom,” began Carmichael, his tone clearly conspiratorial as he took Alastair aside, “but it’s papers they want to sell, not truth. I’m on the verge of writing out my resignation again.”

But Ransom was busy reading the details of this latest atrocity. “You’re right about one thing, Thom.”

“I know.”

“But you’ll never quit the Herald. ”

“Ohhh…watch me.”

But Ransom continued scanning the story instead. The murder was indeed brutal and might live up to such billing as a result. By the same token, the missing Mr. Waldo Denton did not appear an item for discussion in the press or a concern of the other journalists.

Alastair gripped the copy of the Herald and made his way out of the station and into the night. September one and already a nip in the air. Fall was coming. Soon the followers of Burnham, the architect of White City, and the merchants of the World’s Fair would have to concede an end to the biggest party the city had ever hosted. But it was not planned anytime soon. Likely only a brutal early frost might curtail the glorious problem that had half the Chicago Police force baby-sitting tourists here.

“Hint of an early winter, I’d say,” said Philo, joining him and Carmichael. Philo had sent off Jane and Gabby.

“Yes, an early clipper outta Canada ought to settle us all in for a long winter,” suggested Alastair.

Philo Keane nodded. “Might even cut down on crime.”

“Still…highly unlikely that icy Chicago conditions will ever cool the passions, heh?”

“May I quote you on that?” asked Carmichael.

“You may.” Alastair gave a fleeting thought to how he’d had the Phantom of the Fair frozen near to death before disposing of him in the deep. A wild, crazed notion flit behind this thought, that somehow Denton survived his drowning in Lake Michigan. But this was impossible.

“What’s got you newsies all up in arms?” Philo asked Carmichael, snatching the copy of the Herald from Alastair’s grip. They awaited a carriage as Philo got the gist of the article on page one. It read in part,

An innocent dove of Chicago, a young girl of a mere fourteen, named Anne Chapman, has joined others now collectively being called “The Vanished”-victims of some fiendish butcher, possibly a man of the Yards, possibly a knacker. Young Chapman was found murdered and floating in the Chicago River near the Wabash Street Bridge, horribly disfigured. In fact, gutted like a slaughtered animal, her entrails taken off by her killer for what reason no one in authority can say. It was subsequently determined by Chicago Police investigators that Chapman is the granddaughter of Senator Harold J. Chapman and his wife, Anne Sr., who has undergone rigorous medical treatment since learning of young Annie’s awful fate. The girl’s parents grieve her passing and a closed casket wake is being held at Scrimlure’s Funeral Emporium, 248 North Irving Park Road, 7 P.M. Tuesday evening, funeral to follow 9 A.M. Wednesday.

“How much bloody speculation and latitude do your editors give you, Carmichael?” asked Philo. “Do you know how many butchers work in this city?”

“They call us hog-butcher to the nation, so yeah…I got some notion.”

Philo slammed the rolled newspaper into his palm. “You fools in the press’re going to get someone hung before day’s end.”

“We don’t create the news or mobs, Keane. We can only report the brewing storm. Nature and human nature in particular creates the storm.”

“You fan the damn flames!”

Carmichael only shrugged, then added, “We sell papers. You know that.”

“And this damnable, confounded headline calling it the work of the Phantom?” asked Ransom.

“Yeah,” agreed Philo, poking a finger in Carmichael’s chest. “The victim has her head intact and was not set aflame!”

“That’s likely no comfort to her loved ones, Philo.” Ransom got into a cab and Philo climbed in beside him.

“Share the cost?” asked Philo.

“Sure, but I’m going to the station house. Still have some contacts there, and these vanishings began some time ago. Need to check some missing persons reports.”

“On other vanished people?”

“On other vanished children, Philo. These poor missing appear to’ve been snatched off the street at random. Possibly kept like animals until starved. According to cops working the case, the last one turned up like Chapman…dead and gutted. Her name was Millie Edeh, aged eleven.”

“Another little girl?”

“If it is the same monster, he does not discriminate; several boys of the same or close age have also gone missing.”

“Bloody hell, and the papers’re just getting it now?”

“Yes, well who’s story is it now? Senator Chapman’s granddaughter’s involved.”

“Are you saying the Chicago press doesn’t care if the victims are unknowns, say, homeless children?”

“What rock do you live under, Philo? It’s not the press doesn’t care if homeless children go away-by any means-but society’s wish!”

This silenced Philo for a moment. “And have all these young victims gone missing their entrails?”

“Entrails, organs, fleshy protrusions, eyes-”

“Enough!” said Philo.

Ransom gritted his teeth and shrugged. “We may well have a cannibal-killer on our hands.”

“A man eater?”

“A child eater.”

“You think he’s cooking up their entrails?”

“What else does a madman do with entrails than to boil ’em and consume ’em?”

“Like so much sausage?”

“Do you have another theory?”

“Perhaps he feeds his dogs thus.”

“Yeah…there is that possibility.”

“So how’re you feeling now, Alastair, now that you’ve had time to reflect on events?”

“Events?”

“The end of the Phantom, of course. Taking out the garbage, I think you called it.”

“ Ahhh …you mean, how do I feel about myself?”

The carriage slowed to a standstill over the brick street outside the Des Plaines Street station house.

“Yes, now that you’ve set the scales right?”

“Set the scales right? I am the scales, Philo, in the end…setting myself up the avenger?”

“I suppose, yes. But you are evading my question: how do you feel?”

“How do I feel?”

“About yourself, my friend?”

“Philo, my father left me with little, but he often said the only material thing you can gain, lose, or possess that is of any consequence is how you feel about yourself.”