Robert Walker - Shadows in the White City

This new victim had not looked in any better shape than had the Chapman girl, but this one had not been in the water as long and more of her clothing had survived. It seemed someone had made a feeble attempt to dress her before laying her into her watery grave.

Dr. Fenger, his sad eyes downcast, grumbled, “I have to leave you two. Must give Shanks and Gwinn strict orders regarding transportation of the body.”

“Do they take directions well, Christian?” Ransom held back a snicker.

“I’m sick to death of seeing attendant bruises and especially broken necks postmortem.” Fenger rushed off on this odious duty. Ransom glanced at Shanks and Gwinn where they stood sharing a stogie.

“Well, Jane…Dr. Tewes,” said Ransom, “have you eaten lately?”

“Don’t think I could swallow a thing save some ale.”

“Then you’ve taken a liking to red ale, have you?” He recalled the night he’d gotten her drunk on ale while investigating her alias, Dr. Tewes. How he’d had to carry her home to Gabby. The same night as he had become attached to Gabby, who was so fiercely protective of her “father,” Dr. Tewes.

“Well, I think a pint would not hurt.”

“I know a nearby place. Shall we?”

After the single pint, Dr. Tewes wanted a refill, but Jane held him to one. Instead she and Ransom enjoyed a horse-drawn cab ride through Lincoln Park and down tree-lined Clark Street. While passing the scenery, he dared ask, “Jane, I thought you finished with this Tewes act. I thought we agreed- made a pact -on the train back from Mackinaw City…remember Mackinac Island? Our getaway?”

“You agreed with yourself, Alastair. Look, first and foremost, I have Gabby to think of, and Tewes is beginning to rake in too much cash right now for me to simply drop the act.”

“And besides, you like it, don’t you? Playing police-adviser.”

“I’m no longer on Nathan’s payroll, if that’s what you mean. I’m being paid by Christian through his Cook County budget.”

“But Christian draws partial payment from the Chicago Police Department. So he actually still works for Nathan, and so then does Dr. J. P. Tewes.”

She laughed lightly at this, her femininity showing through. “And who do you answer to directly at the end of the day?”

Alastair frowned and changed the subject in rapid fashion, asking, “You know what it will sound like among the men at the station house if it gets out I am having moonlight rides through the park with James Phineas Tewes?”

“Oh…please. It may soften your reputation a bit.”

“Will you ever learn? I don’t want some things softened…ever, and my reputation ranks high on that list.”

“Kiss me, Alastair, and shut up.”

He considered following her order but stopped short. “I can’t do it with that mustache on your face. You look too much like my Uncle Fred.”

“You are incorrigible. Take me home.”

“If it is your wish, Doctor.”

They traveled along in silence for a time save for the hooves on bricks outside and the occasional row at a corner tavern. Ransom peeked from behind the window sash and mentally began counting the number of children he saw wandering about so late. Where were the parents. Didn’t they read? Didn’t they have ears? How could they not know of the danger afoot in the city now, the danger lurking for their children. He saw a smaller boy than the one he’d put on his payroll panhandling at one pub. When he had gotten a coin, he shuffled off to a black recessed doorway and handed his beggings to a man, someone who then set him on his mission for another coin, possibly his father or stepfather, reasoned Ransom. Poor bloke was likely down on his luck and had to use his kid to beg a pittance.

It had become brutally competitive to find the least job in the city nowadays. Whole families had wandered in from the various states all around, many from the Illinois prairie land in a bad crop year. There had been destructive weather all round the city and serious flooding in areas along the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers, as well as the Kankakee.

It all conspired to swell the streets of the city with an out-of-control transient population beyond the municipality’s capacity to cope. Chicago, the Gem of the Prairie, was like a beacon to all comers. Stories of land speculation and endless work and new construction and a better life according to advertisements in national magazines had brought about a deluge until the population numbers outstripped any hope of a newcomer making a living here. Many a family went straight to the few churches and shelters about, and many slept on the floor of City Hall, and many wound up in lockups all across Chicago. Meanwhile, the number of police remained woefully inadequate, and many on the force secretly worked for private companies-moonlighting-despite new laws enacted against this.

“Has Christian promised you any, ahhh …unusual bonus…or special remuneration for working on the Vanishings case with him?” Ransom finally asked the question burning inside.

“No…no more than normal.”

“ Ahhh …I see.”

“See what?”

“I just mean that… ahhh …” Ransom did not want to tell her about Christian’s meeting with Kohler and Chapman, and if Fenger hadn’t offered to cut her in on the scheme, he certainly did not wish to spill it to her this way. “It’s going to take some time, perhaps a lot of time, away from your-from Tewes’s-practice, so a bit additional seems not out of line, you see.”

“Perhaps I’ll push him on it…next time.”

They arrived at Jane’s door, the sign still proclaiming it to be the clinic and residence of Dr. James Phineas Tewes. She climbed down, and he walked her to the door where, with a glance back at the bored cabbie who was digging out a pipe and feeding an apple to his horse, Alastair kissed her, mustache or no and said, “There…good afternoon and a pleasant good night, then, Doctor.”

“You really know how to charm a girl,” said Jane.

“Get some rest, and we’ll put our heads together on this case tomorrow.”

“Pray there’s not another abducted child by then.”

“Trust me, in some back rooms, Chicago oddsmakers are banking on it. And we both know the Vanishings won’t stop until we put the mad dog down.”

Another good-bye kiss, and Alastair returned to the cabbie, who’d given up on his pipe and had opted for chewing tobacco instead, remaining so intent on his tin that he remained completely oblivious to two kissing men on Tewes’s porch, unlike Gabby at the window.

“Horrible thing, Inspector,” said the cabbie when Alastair began to reboard.

Alastair did a double take, thinking that the man had witnessed him kissing Dr. Tewes after all, and Ransom’s face flushed as red as a Santa Claus advertisement. “Horrible?” he repeated the single word.

“This Vanishing business,” replied the cabbie, scratching his pockmarked face.

“Yes…yes it is horrendous indeed. Look here, you see a lot going about, hear a lot.”

“I do…and am sure this is worse even than the Phantom, I say. I mean this madman’s victims are mere lil’ knickers.”

Ransom pulled forth a five-dollar bill and held it up to the man.

“What’s this?”

“Beyond your charge, Joseph is it?”

“Yes, ’tis my name, but what’s the large tip for?”

“It’s no tip.”

“Then what be it?”

“You’ll have more if you bring me any information you hear on the street regarding these murders.”

“ Ahhh …I see, and sure it’s a deal. Where are you off to now?”

“Moose Muldoon’s, just down the-”

“Aye, I know Muldoon’s, Inspector.”

“You’ve learned my habits. Watch the habits of others for me.” Ransom climbed in for the short ride to Muldoon’s, where he intended to drink until midnight to blot out the sight of Alice Cadin’s body so that he might find sleep somewhere in the labyrinth of a horrible struggle going on inside his mind.