Shadows in the White City

CHAPTER 4

At the World’s Fair, the chaos of hundreds of thousands continued unabated as though nothing untoward had occurred in the least here, and the increased numbers of uniformed police stationed about the fair also went unnoticed, but for some the police presence was much appreciated, especially the monied men backing the fair and the merchants working it for all they might. In fact, the fair had its own private police force, partially reinforced by part-timers moonlighting from the CPD. The fair cops worked independently of city government, however, answering only to their private employers-Chicago’s elite, and this smacked of the old days when private enforcers and police ran amuck in their zeal to please private business interests and put down any strike or talk of strike as in the days of Haymarket. The sense they’d taken two steps back in police enforcement with this untrained crew stuck in Griffin Drimmer’s craw, aside from their namby-pamby uniforms.

In fitting with the fabulous White City, this specialized army wore a light gray uniform, approximating an off-white, with fake mother-of-pearl rather than copper-toned buttons, a far cry from the traditional blues. Even so, there were never enough of the “Pearly Gate coppers,” as some called them, to cover the massive fairgrounds and huge pavilions, each of which looked in scale and appearance like Roman and Greek halls of learning where Euripides and Socrates might appear in heated debate at any moment amid the fountains and the boats and the columns. Each major exhibit hall looked from a distance like some giant dragon that crawled up out of Lake Michigan to curl up and go to sleep here.

Griffin Drimmer had been assigned here, but he’d gotten lucky. He must wear his old CPD uniform as the fair force had run out of grays. On the other hand, he’d been unlucky. He missed working real detective cases. This was, to be sure, his comeuppance for having, in the end, sided with Alastair and in helping clear Philo’s good name, and for not further supporting Chief Nathan Kohler. Busted to rank of a footman is what must be on his horizon, unless…unless he himself could catch the Phantom.

Although he strolled amid the throngs of fairgoers, revisiting known areas where the killer had struck, he came up empty. Nothing doing.

He decided to make inquiries to determine where everyone had got off to. What was Ransom doing right this moment? Keane? Dr. Tewes? He located the same call box he and Ransom had used the night they were so cocksure they had Denton by the shorthairs. He called in to inquire if there’d been any calls for him at the station he worked out of. It took an interminably long time to get a reply. When he did, there was a message for him to call Dr. James Phineas Tewes.

He had additional difficulty getting the blasted dispatcher to make connections to Dr. Tewes’s residence. Something made possible only recently. Still Griffin had to threaten the man with his job as the last dispatcher who caused Inspector Drimmer problems had been fired. He was finally put through.

The good doctor came on to static, a note of concern in his high-pitched voice. “Your friend and colleague is barely capable of remaining on his feet another hour, yet he’s on a stake-outting at Lincoln Park.”

“Do you mean stakeout, Doctor?”

“Whatever! Can you please get over there and relieve him? Please?”

“God, the whining doctor sounded like a woman in his concern for Alastair. “I’m on my way, Doctor, but whereabouts in Lincoln Park is he, and what is he staking out there? The lake?”

“The cabstand. He’s shadowing Denton.”

“Ahhh…of course. I hadn’t seen Denton about the fair all day.”

“He’s removed himself from the fair traffic in an attempt to get clear of Ransom, and Ransom, fool that he is, has taken no sleep or rest for two days.”

“Damn…look, I’ll try to get him home.”

“He’ll only do so if you take over for him, Griff…ahhh, Inspector.”

“I understand.”

He rushed from the call box past the stone steps of the newly erected building exhibiting the sciences and industries that had carried America to the forefront of global production of food and manufactured goods. The exhibits here recognized the importance of such inventions as the Cotton Gin, the McCormick Reaper, and other marvels of modern farming, and the wonders of lighting a city, and the telephone, and the phonograph-all among other amazing new instruments, and the newly created machines housed inside the museum. The giant steam engines that powered a huge platform that descended and returned up a mock coal mine-shaft. The massive displays of ocean liners of the White Star and Cunard class, to mighty generators like those used at Cook County in the event of an electrical shut down, to the mighty train engines of America. All the marvels of mechanical science under one enormous roof.

There is only one problem. When does a working cop find the time? Where does he find the money it would take to spend a day at the fair? Lucinda kept demanding Griff give more time to her and their children.

The grotesque headless corpse of the beautiful Miss Mandor found burning in a boat here on the lagoon had dissuaded no one from attending the Chicago World’s Fair. Odd as that seemed, Griffin imagined it went right along with human nature. A cynical Alastair would have plenty to say.

He pulled out a pipe like the one Alastair used, and as he found a cab to take him to Lincoln Park, he tamped in some tobacco and worked on lighting up. He looked closely at the cab driver of the dram he climbed into to be sure it was neither Denton nor the madman who’d opened up his horses at full gallop with Griff and Ransom on the cushions, bouncing about that night they’d busted into the Tewes’s residence to ostensibly save Miss Jane Francis and Gabby Tewes from the clutches of the maniac that Alastair had identified as Waldo Denton.

Griff thought he’d die in a hansom cab accident that night long before arriving at the Tewes home. He now called out an address he knew a block off the park where Ransom must be. He’d disembark a block early; to go unnoticed.

Along with the rhythm of the cab ride, a flitting thought of a future victim struck him as an inevitability. He imagined some poor defenseless woman, her throat cut by the garrote, her body set aflame. When and where would it happen?

Then he gave a good deal more thought to why the killer liked fire. Then he thought of Ransom’s history with fire, the awful rumors, the awful truth no doubt embedded there, and he wondered if this killer who seemed to have a penchant for Ransom’s circle of friends, if he did not have a quite personal reason for terrorizing Ransom’s life and city.

Then he wondered if Waldo Denton might not have an alias. Then he wondered if Waldo Denton were an alias. He had the cab stop at another call box, and he got Luther Noble, an able man, to run Denton’s name as an alias. It was not found. Then try Campaneua. If anyone by the name of Campaneua has been arrested at any time in the city in the last say three years.

“That’ll take time.”

“Then take time. I’ll call you back later.”

“It is already later. I am headed out the door. But there is tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, then, and thanks.”

“Oh hell, look…I will turn it over to our new intern.”

“And does he have a name?”

“She…she has a name.”

“She? A woman on the force?”

“Not yet. She has as yet to go through boot camp.”

“Gotcha, so what do I call her when I call back?”

“Gabby.”

“Gabrielle Tewes?”

“Ahhh…then you know her? A friend of yours, Detective?”

“I’d have never guessed her to be interested in police work.”

“Wants to learn it all, she says.”

“Damn surprise is all.”

“Keep an open mind, Inspector.”

“Is she good at it?”

“A natural.”

Junior Inspector Griffin Drimmer stared across from his position behind a tree at Philo Keane and Ransom, disbelieving. “Ransom,” he whispered, “what are you doing here?”

“More to the point, Griff, what’re you doing here? Are you converted to my cause?”

“A call came in that you were about to make a public nuisance of yourself at this location.”

“Really? And who made the call-prophetic as it was?”

“An anonymous caller,” Griff lied.

“Denton, no doubt. One cheeky bastard.”

“The complaint came from a woman. At least it sounded like a woman.”

“Jane…Jane Francis?”

“Like I said, it came as an anonymous call.”

“She’s trying to protect you from yourself,” suggested Philo.

“So I’m to thank her?”

“We are all worried about you, Rance,” added Griffin.

“I should give her a piece of my mind.”

“All right! It wasn’t Miss Francis,” said Griff.

“Then who?”

“Dr. Tewes. He’s also concerned about you, though I can’t understand why.”

“Tewes and Jane, both concerned.” Both Philo and Griffin had as yet to discover that Dr. James Tewes and Jane Francis were one and the same.

“And Gabby,” added Griff.

“And everyone who cares about your hide,” put in Philo.

“I’ve already given everyone a piece of my mind!” retaliated Ransom.

“All they want, you fool,” said Philo, “is your mean heart. Go see Jane and smooth it over.” Philo pulled at him.

“Leave off. Let go.”

“Have you read a paper in the past week, Ransom?” Griffin sternly asked. “They’re saying you’re spirit possessed, that you fingered Waldo Denton through some sort of drunken occult spiritualism. Séances, they’re saying! Even your old friend Carmichael has-”

“Bastard son of a bitch is on Kohler’s bribe list?”

Philo and Griff exchanged a look of concern. Philo said, “You are beginning to sound like a raving lunatic, Ransom, and you don’t even hear it.”

“Indigestion…just indigestion,” Ransom replied.

“And in the meantime, we wait until the monster strikes again?” complained Griffin.

“In the meantime, we have to rely on our instincts,” countered Ransom. “And my instincts are still screaming that Waldo Denton kills people for the fun of it.”

“Intuition is often all we have left in the last analysis,” agreed Philo. “My own tells me that Denton shrewdly doctored the second photograph, making a comparison of the two handprints impossible.”

“All the while you were whoring, he was doctoring the photo under your nose.” Ransom gritted his teeth and glared.

“In fact, I, ahhh…taught him too well every process I know.”

“Sounds like a willing learner, heh?” asked Griff, blinking.

“Crafty, cunning little prick is what he is.” Ransom smothered a cough.

“After all, he was my apprentice.” Philo looked sheepishly at the other two. “Well…think of it. He cops to the first bloody print due to mere clumsiness at the crime scene. Then he exposes the second in development just a bit too soon.”

“Leaving us with nothing, and Fenger testifying on his behalf instead of ours.”

“Galls me to think he himself took the second handprint photo with my Night Hawk, complained Philo. Used my materials and my studio, all while I sat behind bars, arrested as the Phantom! Me!”

Ransom held back a laugh. “As absurd as that Chinaman singing our national anthem at the fair in Chinese.”

“Did you hear about that?” Griff’s words dripped with disapproval.

But Ransom returned to the subject of Denton. “Then the weasel doctored the second one to make it inconclusive as evidence. So why can’t we get him on evidence tampering?”

“Ransom, it can only be proven a bad job of processing. Even Christian Fenger couldn’t testify that it was doctored and not simply fouled up.”

“Fenger should’ve lied then; should’ve made it fit.”

The other two remained silent, unsure what to say to make Alastair feel better. Philo finally muttered, “It’ll be a great ally some day-science-if you beefy-headed coppers’ll ever open your eyes to it. And maybe learn to prize it and to protect scientific evidence.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Griffin’s defenses had gone up.

“If you had a processing center kept under lock and key, for instance, Denton could not’ve handled that photo alone. There’d’ve been channels, proper procedures, all of it.”

Ransom only grinned at his friend, while Griff firmly replied, “Now hold on, Inspector Ransom’s the one got the CPD to go full force into fingerprint collections.”

“And still no headway in that area! Dragging their feet. They don’t trust it…don’t trust anything new or scientific. You law enforcement types are the worst for it.”

Dr. James Phineas Tewes stepped from nowhere it seemed, and said, “I suggest we have some ale and talk about it at length, sirs, at the nearest establishment for libations.”

“Coffee perhaps,” replied Griffin. “I think Inspector Ransom needs coffee or tea more so than alcohol.”

Philo quickly put in, “Fact is, Griffin and I were just saying that Ransom here could use your cure, sir. I understand it worked well for him once before.”

“That can certainly be arranged. My residence is only a few blocks away. Shall we, Inspector Ransom? I know my sister would be pleased beyond measure to see you again at our home.”

“Did I ask for a committee meeting out here? Is everyone following me?” Ransom looked on the verge of collapse.

“You fellows are quite welcome to join us, of course,” said Tewes, ignoring Alastair’s complaint.

“Perhaps another time,” said Philo. “I’ve much work awaiting.” He secretly punched at Griffin’s side. Griffin got the message that he needed an exit line.

“I…I too have a lot of paperwork back at the office.”

“No, Griff, stay on Denton for me. Will you do that, Griff?” asked Ransom.

“I will, Ransom. You may rely on it.”

“He is our man, so don’t take your eyes off the monster.”

“Aye, Inspector, I will not.”

“I always knew you were a good lad, Griff.” Ransom sounded drunk, fatigue slurring his words.

Tewes led a still weak Ransom off toward her and Gabby’s home. Alastair asked, “Has Denton come around to the house? Have you seen him skulking about for glimpses of Gabrielle?”

“No, there’s been no such trouble out of the young man, and while Waldo has pursued Gabby, she’s utterly rejected his advances.”

Philo turned from watching Tewes and Ransom walk off into a growing mist in the park, actually a low-hanging fog moving steadily in from the lake with unseasonably cool weather. In fact, a fog was beginning to envelope the entire city. In the gloom, he tried to get Griffin to come away with him, that Waldo Denton did not deserve the attention of a stakeout.

“Perhaps, but suppose it should turn out Ransom is right about Denton? What then?”

“Are you mad? You’re going to stand round in this mucky weather on some off chance that Denton will show himself a murderer?”

Raindrops began falling. “I will do it for Ransom, yes. A promise is, after all-”

“A promise, yes, I know all that rubbish.”

“You, sir, you need to spend less time in Bohemian taverns and more time deciding precisely what you do believe in.”

“Hmmm…and I was about to suggest that you go home to your wife and kiddies, and allow me to stand guard over this criminal suspect.”

“No…this calls for a badge. Go home, Mr. Keane.”

“Do you imagine if it is Denton, and if he never kills again…do you imagine he will have gotten away with murder?”

“Neither Rance nor I will let that happen, not if it takes the rest of our careers.”

“If it is Denton at all.”

“Yes, well, why don’t you have a close look at that Night Hawk shot that you suspect he doctored. That could go a long way to prove his guilt.”

“Good idea. I will.”

“A search of Denton’s house turned up nothing in the way of additional stolen goods from the victims, like the ring found in your possession. Tell me, did Polly Pete give the ring to you as some sort of payment? You said so the night you were questioned.”

“The night I was questioned, I would’ve said anything to be left in peace, man!”

“Yes…well that is the way of interrogation, sir.”

“So I’ve learned.”

“Good night, sir.”

“Then I take it, you will keep vigil on Denton until he retires to whatever hole he sleeps?”

“A ramshackle place down on Halsted among the rows of shantytown there.”

“Where he keeps a chicken coup atop the roof.”

“Correct. I understand he is no longer in your employ.”

“Damn straight, right-o,” replied Philo. “And that scoundrel has yet to return my camera!”

“I could arrest him if you choose to swear out a warrant for theft.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Do it! It would get me into his private quarters, where I know I’ll find items torn from his victims.”

“First thing tomorrow.” Philo Keane slowly, reluctantly walked off, going in a direction that would cause no curiosity from the cabbies or Denton. He curiously looked back at young Griffin Drimmer, and a twinge of eerieness came over him as Griff disappeared ghost-fashion on fog. Alastair had once himself suspected Griffin of the crimes, later confiding how foolish it’d been, but if it were not Denton, then who better to plant evidence than another copper?

From his vantage point, obscured now in a blanket of fog, Griffin watched the strange Philo Keane amble off, and when Philo had disappeared into the encroaching night, the young inspector felt a chill loneliness pass through him as if a spectral creature of dream walked over his grave. He took out a photo of his Lucinda, and next a photo of himself, Lucinda, and the children-all of whom he’d secretly moved to Portage, Indiana-far from harm’s way, until the Phantom of the Fair should unequivocally be either jailed or killed.

The following morning at the Tewes residence

Everyone in Chicago was awakened by the shrill bells of emergency fire equipment and police wagons careening down the streets, going away from the city proper toward the fairgrounds of White City. The noise awakened Ransom, who was equally startled to find that he lay in his underwear alongside Jane Francis. He recalled nothing of the night before, except that he’d fallen asleep under her caressing fingers. He feared the worst with respect to their relationship. He feared he’d fallen asleep while in her embrace.

He rushed to the window and stared out.

“What is it, Rance?” she asked.

“I can’t say, but whatever it is, it’s big. Perhaps a fire’s broke out at the fair. Best make a call. May I use your phone?”

“By all means, yes.”

He quickly dressed and coming out of the room, he found himself face-to-face with Gabby, whose eyes informed the inspector that he needn’t concern himself over her sensibilities.

“What do you suppose the uproar is about?” Gabby asked.

“Dunno…maybe someone’s hurt, maybe an accident at the fair with that blasted wheel in the sky. See to your mother, Gabrielle.”

Gabby did exactly that, going in to her mother. Behind him, he could hear their feminine whispers, no doubt about his being here and coming out of Jane’s bedroom. He did hear Gabby jokingly say, “Mother, you must join the suffragettes! We need the scandalous among us so badly!”

He then heard Jane declare there was nothing scandalous about love.

This only served to set Gabby off further and the whisperings returned.

He grabbed up the phone and called into headquarters, getting a dispatcher named Llewyn on the line. The man stammered until Ransom yelled, “Settle down and just tell me what’s happened at the fair, man!”

“Dead he is…hanging on the door like a ragdoll, they’re saying.”

“Who? Who is killed?”

“His head near severed by the garrote.”

“The garrote!”

“Trussed up on the door like a pig-at the science and industry exhibit hall-hog-tied through the underarms was the way I got it.”

“Who damn you! Who is dead?”

“Your young assistant, Inspector.”

He went cold inside.

“Young Drimmer,” said Llewyn.

“Griff…but it can’t be.”

“I’m sorry, Inspector.”

“But we left him in Lincoln Park only hours ago.”

“Yes, sir.”

“He was fine when I last saw him.”

“Sorry,” continued the mantra. “So sorry, sir.”

Behind him, the women wanted to know what’d happened.

News of a body hanging from the huge doors of the Science and Industry Pavilion spread fire fashion throughout the city, and the further news that it was the murdered body of a police inspector fueled fear and nonstop speculation. It was obvious that the Phantom of the Fair was back with a vengeance, and that, as always, he loved taunting the police. Now he had killed one of their own in the same hideous fashion as with previous victims.

No doubt Griffin’s body had been left on public display to rub it into the collective face of authorities, and in particular, Alastair Ransom. The Phantom had returned to his ugly modus operandi to the letter, the pattern of his work vengefully intact and identical.

Ransom had raced to the scene, and he’d gone to his knees on seeing Griffin in the same state as the earlier victims. No one had dared touch the body, not until Alastair arrived. Now that he was here, he shouted, “For God’s sake, cut him down, and do it with a care to the head!”

Ransom recognized Griffin’s shoes, his argyle socks, and a few other elements of his clothing. The head and face and torso had been cruelly torched. “Neither his wife nor children’ll recognize him,” Ransom lamented to Philo, who’d just reached him. “It’s as though this monster has it in for me personally.”

“My God…I left him alone out there,” muttered Philo. “He…Griff insisted I go. I should’ve insisted I stay.”

“Then I’d be burying both of you. This little fiend kills like…like some sort of preternatural badger. Had you been out in that fog, you’d now be hanging here lifeless, your body burned, your throat severed.”

“What’ll you do now, Alastair?”

“Kill Denton my way, in my time.”

“I never heard that.”

“Good…keep it so.”

“When will you strike him down?”

“Look there, in the crowd over your left shoulder and tell me what you see?”

Philo glanced over his shoulder to find Waldo Denton amid the milling crowd with his hansom hack and horse. Philo saw the slight little near imperceptible nod he threw in Ransom’s direction, as if tossing down the gauntlet, as if Griff’s death was just that-a taunt to further infuriate Ransom.

“Philo, I want you to plan a trip.”

“A trip?”

“Perhaps go to Mackinaw City…maybe out to Mackinac Island.”

“Where the deuce is that?”

“Michigan, top of the Great Lakes.”

“Lovely there, I’m sure, but-”

“And I want you to escort Miss Gabrielle Tewes and her aunt there, to get them to a place of safety until I come for you or send a telegram. Is that understood?”

“But, Ransom.”

“No buts. Just do it. This maniac is killing everyone who means anything to me, and Philo, you are my closest friend, and as for the women-”

“All right…I’ll do it. I’ve never cast myself a hero.”

“You will be if you take care of Jane and Gabby.”

“What about Dr. Tewes and Christian Fenger? Do you imagine either or both in danger?”

“I’ll talk to them, but neither man is likely to do as I say. Still, I’ll warn each off and away from this madness.”

“If Griff’s body was transported in Denton’s cab, there’ll be blood in the coach. I could get photos.”

“Forget about it.”

“What? Why?”

“Denton’s thorough.”

“He’d have cleaned up by now, you mean?”

“Even if the cushions were soaked in blood, it wouldn’t be proof enough for the likes of Kehoe and Kohler!”

“They’ll say he was carving up chickens in the coach, heh?”

“The dirty bastard’ll be handled in Chicago fashion.”

Philo, a Canadian native, asked, “Chicago fashion by way of Galway? Belfast?”

“Waste no time and travel light as to stir no interest. Tell the women the same.”

“When will you do it, Ransom, and what form will it take?”

“The least you know, the better.”

“I suppose it’s the only way now.”

“I see no other way to combat this evil. This creep’s convinced a willing cadre of my enemies that I’ve faked evidence against him-including the weapon and even his own handprint.”

“Planted there by you, I’ve heard it said. As you’ve some unreasonable hatred of the poor boy. But, Rance, everyone in the city will know when they find Denton’s body that you killed him.”

“There are ways to dispose of a body in a city this size, trust me. No one will ever find Denton’s remains.”

He placed a hand on Alastair. “You will be careful?”

“As always, of course.”

“Griffin was not a big man by any means, but he had forty pounds on Denton and he was a trained investigator with fight in him.”

“Nothing saved him…I know.” He stared again at Griff’s corpse. “That unholy bastard Denton must’ve come up out of the fog, took him from behind like all the others.”

“You should at least have the coach inspected for blood, Rance.”

“For all the bloody good it’d do! He’ll explain it as some fare who called for Cook County emergency, someone whose hand perhaps had been cut in a bar fight. He’s twisted each piece of evidence to Kohler’s liking and Kehoe’s excusing of it-even the photograph of his handprint at two crime scenes-direct lies.”

“Yes, the charming little fellow has convinced Kohler and Kehoe that handprints can be misread and flawed.”

“Corroborated by Dr. Fenger’s findings-inconclusive.”

“A magic trick in the developing room,” said Philo.

“I am convinced there’s only one path now.”

“Will you go down that path today?”

“No. Today I see to Griff’s family, to his proper burial, to the scant policeman’s fund his wife has coming, and in my private moments, I plot Denton’s execution.”

“I can imagine any number of fine executions you’ve dreamed up.”

“Aye, but keep your voice down.”

“Will you burn him alive?” whispered Philo, eyes dilated.

“It would be fitting.”

“But first you’ll wanna beat it from him as to why he’s done this.”

“Officially, we say learn what possible motive set all this in motion.”

“Good luck, my friend, but beware the truth.”

Ransom reacted with a deep glare into Philo’s eyes. “Waste no time putting distance between Chicago and the ladies. Off to Mackinaw, and tell no one your destination.”

“Promise.”

“And try…try to explain to Jane and Gabby for me, please.”

“No one is likely to applaud your actions, Ransom.”

“I want no applause, nor expect absolution afterward.”

“How long then until we might expect to hear from you?”

“As long as it takes. Look…look at him, sitting atop his cab now, moving off as if…so damn smug.”

“I suppose even if you could get the goods on him, it would take a long time to see justice done, and they’d likely give him a suite at Straight-jacket Academy.”

“Cook County Asylum, where at everyone’s expense Christian Fenger will be his keeper to study him like a zoological wonder.”

“And what justice for the dead?”

The question hung in the air between the two men, both of whom had lost people they’d loved to the fiend.

“You naive wonder, Philo.”

“Naive? How so?”

“Whenever have you seen real justice meted out?”

“I-I…dunno, really.”

“You haven’t. Few have! When does it happen? True justice found in this life?”

As he spoke, Ransom had watched Denton take on a new fare. The hansom cab carrying a new passenger from this section of the fair to another with Waldo Denton sitting taller, prouder atop it. Alastair then saw Chief Kohler closely watching Ransom’s reaction to facing his dead partner. Kohler had been made curious of the whispers passing between Ransom and the former suspect, Philo Keane. What scheme is Nathan now hatching?

Philo asked, “What do you want, Rance?”

“What do I want?”

“Yes, in the best possible world?”

Ransom shook inside with what he wanted as an outcome. He walked in a small circle, contemplating the depth of his hatred for the so-called Phantom. His new wolf’s-head cane tapped at the pavement like small-caliber fire.

Finally, Ransom answered his friend. “What do I want to see happen? Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. And it shall come to pass in a time of my choosing.”

Just then Dr. Tewes himself stood alongside Ransom, pushing between him and Philo. She saw Griffin Drimmer’s body being eased down by Shanks and Gwinn, and she saw Dr. Christian Fenger crossing himself where he stood alongside as the body was laid on a stretcher. Fenger leaned in so close, while the county prosecutor, Hiram Kehoe, stood off to one side, whispering in Nathan Kohler’s ear. Carmichael, the Herald reporter, and a small army of others of his profession were crawling all over this new fresh kill, headlines in their eyes: the phantom returns. A spectacular return it was, too, and obviously meant to strike at Ransom.

Something about the scene reminded Jane of a crucifixion and a sacrifice, as though it had been inevitable that young Griffin give up his life on the altar of these men’s egos and their political wrangling, and to some degree she could not help but blame Alastair Ransom as well. The war between him and Nathan Kohler had brought this about, and young Griff had died a horrible death as a result of their petty differences and the hatred between Ransom and Kohler-which after all had contributed to Denton’s release.

Her voice broke when she shouted, “This is all your faults! All of you!”

She pulled from Alastair’s attempted touch meant to calm Dr. Tewes here in public. She saw that he wanted to console her, take her in his arms and hold her.

She rushed off after her own carriage, and he looked for Gabrielle to be hanging from the window, giving Ransom a slight wave of one hand, two fingers extended as was her habit, but Gabby did not appear. Perhaps young Gabby was the only one in the city who truly did not judge him…up till now. If she were with Jane, perhaps Gabby could not face him, knowing that Griffin had been killed just after taking his place.

“Follow Tewes, Philo. Convince him that he must get his women out of the city.”

“You’d have me baby-sitting Dr. Tewes as well?”

“Tewes as well, yes! Tell Tewes that I confided in you everything. She will understand.”

“You mean he will understand, don’t you?”

“Philo, just do it.”

“Of course. But how safe are you with those jackals there?” His eyes indicated Kehoe, Kohler, and Carmichael. “And when did Carmichael stop being a reporter and turn into a lackey?”

“Philo…go. Pack a few things and quietly get them down to the train station and out of harm’s way. If I’m right, it could’ve been any one of you left disfigured and dangling here.”

“But if you’re right about Denton, and what you say about his infatuation with Gabrielle Tewes is correct, then-”

“No! I will not use her to bait this monster. Now do as I bloody well said!”

“All right, all right, calm down.” Philo finally started off for his assignment.

“Use the girl for bait,” Ransom muttered. The awful idea had crossed his mind but was at once instantly rejected. It’d be like using his own daughter to lure a fiend out of hiding. He would not place her in such jeopardy, and if left in the city much longer, she would likely come to think of doing just that on her own. No, he must relocate her and her mother to a far place.

Like a patient, all-knowing wolf, at the right moment he would pounce on Denton and tear him to pieces with his bare hands, his bear claws. He would send Denton out of this world and to the Hades from which he’d come, but first he would know why Denton killed as he did, and what possible personal connection they had-why the vendetta aimed at him from the beginning?

From the beginning he’d planned on killing his Polly-Merielle and of framing Philo Keane, the two people closest to Ransom-and now this. Killing young Griff and shoving it into Ransom’s face. Public humiliation and private punishment for what wrongs, he could not know for certain, but he’d begun to approach a damned good guess.

He slid to the stones of the Science and Industry Pavilion, one of the few permanent structures built here at the fair, one that would remain forever as a marker and a reminder of the greatest fair the city had ever known. He knew he must sit now or else go to his knees, and he chose to allow no one to see him on his knees, not to this fiend-not a second time.