The Devil in the White City

Prendergast

ON NOVEMBER 28, 1892, Patrick Eugene Joseph Prendergast, the mad Irish immigrant and Harrison supporter, selected one of his postal cards. He was twenty-four years old now and despite his accelerating mental decline was still employed by the Inter Ocean as a delivery contractor. The card, like all the others, was four inches wide by five inches long, blank on one face, with postal insignia and a printed one-cent stamp on the other. In this time when writing long letters was everyday practice, men of normal sensibility saw these cards as the most crabbed of media, little better than telegrams, but to Prendergast this square of stiff paper was a vehicle that gave him a voice in the skyscrapers and mansions of the city.

He addressed this particular card to “A. S. Trude, Lawyer.” He sketched the letters of the name in large floral script, as if seeking to dispatch the cumbersome duty of addressing the card as quickly as possible, before advancing to the message itself.

That Prendergast had selected Trude to be one of his correspondents was not surprising. Prendergast read widely and possessed a good grasp of the grip-car wrecks, murders, and City Hall machinations covered so fervently by the city’s newspapers. He knew that Alfred S. Trude was one of Chicago’s best criminal defense attorneys and that from time to time he was hired by the state to serve as prosecutor, a practice customary in particularly important cases.

Prendergast filled the postcard from top margin to bottom, from edge to edge, with little regard for whether the sentences formed level lines or not. He gripped the pen so tightly it impressed channels into the tips of his thumb and forefinger. “My Dear Mr. Trude,” he began. “Were you much hurt?” An accident, reported in the press, had caused Trude minor injuries. “Your humble servant hereby begs leave to tender you his sincere sympathy and trusts that while he does not appear before you in person, you nonetheless will not have any doubts as to his real sympathy for you in your misfortunes—you are wished by him a speedy recovery from the results of the accident which you had the misfortune to meet with.”

He wrote with a tone of familiarity that presumed Trude would consider him a peer. As the note progressed, his handwriting shrank, until it seemed like something extruded rather than written. “I suppose Mr. Trude that you do understand that the greatest authority on the subject of law is Jesus Christ—and that you also know that the fulfillment of the whole law depends upon the observance of these two commands thou shalt Love God most of all & your neighbor as your self—these are the greatest commands if you please sir.”

The note clicked from theme to theme like the wheels of a train crossing a freightyard. “Have you ever saw the picture of the fat man who looked for his dog while his dog was at his feet and still did not have the wit to see what was the matter—have you observed the cat?”

He did not add a closing and did not sign the note. He simply ran out of room, then posted the card.

Trude read the note and at first dismissed it as the work of a crank. The number of troubled men and women seemed to be increasing with each passing year. The jails were full of them, a warden later would testify. Inevitably some became dangerous, like Charles Guiteau, the man who had assassinated President Garfield in Washington.

For no clear reason, Trude kept the card.