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characterized once by Carmichael as an “eerie cadaver dump for every unclaimed body in the city.”
O’Malley, a master at delegating responsibilities, shadowed Ransom. Realizing that Mike was over his shoulder, Alastair asked, “Wonder why the boy was here in the wee hours . . . on the little-used second floor?” “Men’s room?”
“But there are rooms below. Look, if he were broke from his day at the fair and was sleeping here on and off, he may well’ve found this area safer for his purposes.”
“Apparently, so did his killer.”
“It’s what I like about you, Mike. You cut to the chase.”
O’Malley had informed Alastair earlier that the aged night watchman who’d lied about his having doused the body with a hose while it was still on fire—a retired train conductor—had gone into a babbling state of shock. He’d been taken to nearby Cook County early on and was of no use.
Ransom realized that the bloody handprint could belong to the watchman or even to the drifter, another reason to keep him near.
Chief Kohler and Ransom now passed at the top of the stairwell. All eyes were on the two. Kohler said, “Work with Tewes! He’s a remarkable man!”
“Look, Chief, due in part to a drifter, in part to the actions of the watchman, the damage to the facial features was minimized.”
“Well, yes.”
Alastair showed him the find of the wallet and its contents, giving Kohler a moment to digest this development, allowing Kohler to say it: “So you think Tewes had some prior knowledge of the boy?”
“And is withholding information and—”
“Not so loud. Keep this between us, see . . .”
“—and ought himself to be detained and interrogated.”
Ransom brought it down a few octaves. “How else to explain his knowledge of Purvis down to his studies? That’s not even in the billfold.”
62
ROBERT W. WALKER
“Perhaps the man is psychic after all.”
“Phrenologically gifted I suppose,” Ransom mocked.
“Look, Tewes makes a good point. Predicted we’d find papers on the boy. Said our killer cares not a wit that authorities identify his chosen victims.”
“What has that to do with—”
Kohler held a finger in Ransom’s face. “Other than torching his earlier victims, he took nothing away save a few items of jewelry. Tewes asked a sound question. What does this portend? What does it say about this phantom?” “I suppose your leaving means the séance is over? And I can have my crime scene back?”
“Yes, the doctor is finished.”
“Thank God.”
“Once again this madman threatens the peace of the fair and our city,” said Kohler, his eyes scanning the enormous station. “Sad place to die, don’t you think?” Kohler’s question surprised Alastair.
“We’ve both seen far worse.”
“That flop house on Monroe?”
“Try that warehouse on Kingsbury a hundred years ago.”
Kohler shot him a look of utter disdain. “Let it go, Ransom. The dead bury the dead.” Nathan then stormed off.
Ransom guessed that Kohler, for a moment, was touched by a feeling of disconnection he himself felt here in the train station. “Place does make a big man feel small,” he muttered to Griffin, who now stood alongside him, watching Kohler disappear, a trail of newsmen on his tail.
“Small, you mean? Insignificant?” Griffin’s eye had fixed on the vaulted ceiling above the main concourse.
“The place is designed to do just that, to architecturally turn working stiffs like you and me into ants. Nathan’s reacted predictably—exactly as the city fathers and the railroad tycoons want us to.” Griff smiled and fired back, “But not you, right, Alastair?
How could anything make you feel small?”
Ransom scratched at his mustache, turned to his partner CITY FOR RANSOM
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and wondered at this question. “We don’t need towering columns, vaulted ceilings, and massive Ferris wheels to make us feel small. Police work alone’ll do that for us, Griff.
Seeing what we see on the job—enough this day alone to make a man feel helpless and disposable.” They’d been here now for three hours, from three to six a.m.—through morning’s darkness, dawn, and sunrise.
“Disposable? That raises the question: How’re we going to explain to Dr. Fenger how the head came off the body, Rance?”
“He’s the medical genius. Let him tell us. And as for that matter, I have a few choice questions for Dr. Tewes. Where is the man?”
“Oh, he left in rather a huff down the opposite stairwell, avoiding you, I think, with a stop, that is, in the men’s room where the boy was garroted. Seemed quite shaken afterward.
Hey, Rance, do you ever think this new contraption, the phone, will ever replace the telegraph?”
But Ransom was looking down on Randolph Street, watching the strange Dr. Tewes where he awaited a carriage this busy morning. “I suspect that man of more collusion in all this than I can prove, but I will.” “What sort of collusion, Rance?”
He shared the wallet with Griffin, watching his eyes for a response. With the shock still on Griff, Ransom said, “I suspect skullduggery. Tewes recognized Purvis before I handed the kid’s head to him.”
CHAPTER 8
Philo Keane had packed up what he could carry, leaving his young assistant, Waldo Denton, to arrange transportation for the bulk of the photographic equipment from the crime scene. Philo had one single desire for now—hide away in his darkroom. To bid the annoying world and his assistant goodbye. To be alone with his creations and his music.
He dearly loved sleeping to the sound of a symphony playing on his newly purchased phonograph—his only expensive indulgence, this awe-inspiring invention that placed the decision of a musical score into his hands. He loved live theater, opera, almost as much as a good beer garden. And now he could afford the next best thing! He’d placed on a favorite, Wagner’s “Rides of the Valkyries.” The sound of the orchestra wafted throughout the cramped apartment, and the beauty of it mesmerized and relaxed Keane. Accompaniment to his art and passion that he now wished to immerse himself in. The sooner he was done with the crime-scene cuts for Ransom, the sooner he could sit down to contemplate the photographic art he’d created from his most recent model, Miss Mandor. God, she was gorgeous, and as she was a mute, so perfectly manageable.
For now, he must concern himself with commerce. Aside CITY FOR RANSOM
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from what Ransom needed, which he did purely for the money, he did shoots for area merchants. Another passion, his camera, was the specially designed 1893 Hetherington magazine camera. Sealed in leather with no projecting points, it had a continuous rotary shutter requiring no attention and could be set on slow, medium, or rapid speed. The lens was a beautiful Darlot #1 hemispherical with a lovely revolving diaphragm working between the lenses. Aside from a focusing dial, the camera was outfitted with a tally that kept a record of the number of exposures made. Finally, it had a rack-and-pinion focusing movement, and a back-and-forth double swing back, as well as a side-to-side swivel. Everything in one camera! And it had set him back sixty dollars—a fortune. Purchased through Montgomery Ward & Company, along with his oversized tripod that’d cost another $9.98, his outlay for equipment had put him in the hole. However, he’d talked Ward & Company into barter for partial payment through a commission to create a photo array accompanying a line of veterinary instruments.