Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

“Where might that be?”

“Number 9 mineshaft; they’d closed it down, you see, but later sent those two in to inspect it. Odd thing is…” he trailed off as if picturing the odd thing.

“Walter, what odd thing?” asked Wyland, leaning into the table.

“They’d been inspecting, but strange thing is the lift, she come up alone by some accounts… but at least one man claims to’ve seen O’Toole come up. But the super, McAffey, he wasn’t with him.”

“What kind of a town is this?” asked Wyland. “You mean to tell me two men were sent into a questionable mineshaft, but no one was in charge of seeing they’d come out?”

“It was quittin’ time, and management don’t pay overtime.”

“Ahhh… makes perfect sense.”

“See the lift was up next day, so it’s a cinch they left outta there.”

“A cinch, eh? Take me to the shaft in question.” Wyland looked hard now at the two young men who had hired him. He opened his palm for payment. “You fellows don’t look like miners.”

“How would you know either way?” asked Declan, withholding the bills.

“Your hands… no coal under the nails, no discoloration of the skin.”

Thomas unconsciously studied his hands. “We are—”

Wyland stopped Thomas with a finger to his lips. “You are students at the university no doubt.”

“No doubt?” challenged Declan. “I suspect you are making an educated guess.”

“Your method of dress, and your politeness give you away—along with a slight scent of the dissection room—formaldehydes, I should say. Aside from this, you are disciplined but show no sign between you of ever having been in the military. Guessing that professors keep you in stringent line rather than sergeants.”

“How can you… how can he… Declan, he’s reading our minds!” Thomas appeared astounded.

“No, no—just quite good at reading our fingernails and ascots,” countered Declan. “The art of detection, correct Mr. Wyland?”

“True but it oft requires intuition and instinct as well as a trained eye. Come along, and we’ll see if the shaft or the lift will tell us anything.”

The two medical students followed the private detective, who in turn followed the miner named Walter. A handful of other curious miners slowly got up and followed the group. Walter said over his shoulder, “No one’s wanted to go near that shaft.”

“Curse on it, eh?” asked Wyland, smirking.

“Had a cave in; McAffey and O’Toole were ’spose to assess the damage, and when the lift was discovered, boss decided they’d gone home for bed. But no sooner’n next mornin’ wives were down at the jail then the mine looking for ’em.”

“Life’s a mystery,” muttered Wyland.

“Not been seen since.”

Wyland calmly replied in his best Sherlock Holmes imitation, “Most likely there exists a logical explanation.”

Walter shrugged. “May’ve gone over to the next town to confer with the owners, and may’ve gotten drunk there.”

“That’s good thinking, Walter; you might have a future in detective work,” Wyland half-joked.

“Don’t go pullin’ me leg again, Alastair.”

“But you’re on the money! The man’s most likely in lock-up for destruction of property, perhaps for disturbing the peace. Maybe got into a fight over one of those imponderable questions men pose when drunk.”

Walter laughed lightly. “Guess you’d know about that.”

“Careful, you’ll make the lads here distrustful of me.”

“What ever do you mean?” asked Declan.

“Mr. Wyland, here in Belfast, rumor has it that you know how to find missing people,” said Thomas in a shaky voice, “and … and that you’re also the most dangerous man in Belfast.”

“No, no, no! Who says such dribble?” Wyland laughed as they approached the mine. “I am not; it’s all stuff and nonsense, and it would please me mightily if you spread the truth rather than the bloody rumor—ahhh, pardon me language but it gets old.”

Declan firmly said, “We do want a man who’s had experience and is expert in his field.”

“Some say you were a police detective in New York,” added Thomas, blinking. “Others… others say Chicago.”

“Speculation, rumors. I’ve never been to either city except to take the train to Chicago to see the World’s Fair way back in 1893. But it was just a weekend. I lived in Boston.” He clenched his strong right hand around his wolf’s head cane, his free hand tightening into a fist, and Declan noticed this gesture; he’d seen it many times in patients at the university hospital, and it always meant one thing—lies. This man Wyland also looked more and more uncomfortable as Walter had held forth with what Wyland insisted was nonsense and rumor when Wyland philosophically spoke the bloated remark, “The most dangerous man indeed; the most dangerous man is the man everyone else believes to be the most dangerous man.”

Declan wondered exactly what that meant, and he exchanged a questioning look with Thomas who shrugged. “You were a policeman in Boston?”

“I was a records keeper, kept the files on villains is all, but it taught me a good deal about detection.”

Declan whispered into Thomas’ ear, “I suspect this fellow is a charlatan, Tommie.”

Thomas pulled away, obviously not wishing to hear the truth, and they were soon at the mine shaft in question, undisturbed since the two missing miners had reportedly entered after hours on the night of their disappearance. The same night Fiore had vanished.

According to Walter, officials of the mine could not get anyone to go down into this particular shaft; that they’d had to pay McAffey and O’Toole a hefty bonus to do so. First there had been a cave in, and now two men who’d gone to inspect the extent of damage had disappeared. The mystery was complicated by a witness who said he’d seen O’Toole exit the mine in good ‘spirits’, but not McAffey.

In Wyland’s mind wheels turned in all directions; it was his basic makeup to listen with care, consider all sides, weigh up everything and carry on from there. His thinking had come of a lifetime as a former police detective in his native Chicago, where he had become so embroiled in a death he had no hand in that he’d become suspect number one for the murder, arrested, about to be placed on trial, his cagey lawyer suddenly dying of an ‘accident’ and he set up by long-suffering enemies in high places; politics very much involved.

He had for years rocked the boat in Chicago by privately investigating every detail of what had led up to the notorious Haymarket Riot. He’d been wounded in the riot when the bomb was thrown into the crowd, and six police officers were killed. It’d left him with scars and a limp, and it’d earned him the rank of Inspector.

This little missing-persons mystery would find a quick and likely a mundane resolution: Most likely the two miners had a falling out, a fight, and O’Toole had won, and he’d left McAffey hurt, possibly unconscious down in the mine shaft. O’Toole, in a state of anxiety, thinking he’d killed a man, had left the vicinity altogether.

Alastair Wyland, which was his alias, thought of a familiar phrase among police and detectives—‘Whenever two or more of you are gathered in Bacchanal’s name… anything can happen’.

“Take me down then, Walter,” Wyland told his guide. “Could be a hurt man down there.”

“I’ll drop you down, but I’d rather not go in. I’ve a new babe on the way and six mouths to feed as is.”

“Fine, get me down to the bottom.”

“We’re going down there with you.” It was Thomas, Declan backing him up with a vigorous nod.

“Don’t know what we’ll find down there,” countered the private eye, Wyland, taking his coat off, hanging it on a rail, standing now in his vest, his hefty stomach and chest like a barrel.