“I already do.”
“A more pronounced limp, then. Just please know that I am dreadfully, terribly, horribly sorry, and I did not mean to fire. It just went off.”
“I understand. I suppose a bit more caution on entering was called for, after all. Like diving into a hot springs without knowing enough about it. Entirely my fault, Gabby, and none of your own.”
She reached over and hugged him, still tearful. He did not know how to react, but said, “Had I the use of my arms, I’d hug you.”
This made Gabby erupt, bawling.
“It’s all right…it’s all right…it’s all right, Gabby, dear.”
“You are a fine man, no matter the stories people tell,” she replied.
He laughed lightly and this hurt too. “Tell no one! And, Gabby, will you be the one to loose my-”
“Do not ask it of her!” Jane’s face flushed red with anger. “It is not fair to play on her guilt, and you well know it, Alastair Ransom.”
“It’s all right, Mother. I’m not about to go against Dr. Fenger’s wishes.” Do you take me for a fool?”
Jane reached out to Gabby, but Gabby rushed for the door.
“Whatever you do, steer clear of that Waldo Denton!” shouted Ransom to Gabby’s back as she rushed out. He then glared at Jane. “Do you have any idea the danger Gabby is in so long as that maniac lunatic is walking free?”
“Alastair! Just stop it!”
“What?”
“I won’t release you from this bed any more than Christian-not before it’s time.”
“But Jane, I must be-”
“You know very well more surgical patients die of infections afterward than from surgery!”
Jane’s final stern comment acted as a signal to Christian’s two ghouls, Shanks and Gwinn, who left the room now.
Alastair could hear their scratchy, crowlike mutterings and hyena laughter trailing after.
“I can’t abide those two anymore than you,” she confided.
“Yeah…they’re like a pair of grim bookends. How could you allow them to put me into that meat wagon of theirs?”
“Speed was of the essence.”
“Speed in the back of that thing can kill, trust me!” He realized his tone had hurt her. He softened, adding, “Hey…thanks.”
“For what?”
“Saving my life.”
“I had my daughter’s future to think of.”
“And perhaps ours?”
She blushed.
“Now undo these damnable straps.”
“No.”
“But-”
“End of argument, Inspector Ransom.”
CHAPTER 3
The following day in Ransom’s hospital room
“Now that we’re alone and out of earshot of everyone, Jane,” Alastair whispered, “please, undo Christian’s damned horse cinches.” He pulled at the hospital bed restraints.
“Alastair…please.”
“What do you say? I promise I’ll not go for my clothes.”
“Then you’d run out and down the avenue naked. I know you by now, Alastair Ransom.”
“I’d never insinuate my nudity on the public.”
“I’m sure.”
“Jane, if ever you cared a wit about me, and since you have not left my side for a moment, from the opening cut till now-yes, I heard you there in the operating theater dressing down McKinnette for doing a botched job of the anesthetic.”
“You were dreaming. No such thing happened.”
“But it seemed so real.”
She laughed. “Imagine a woman with no standing in the hospital or the college telling a Chicago doctor how to do his job! Horror of horrors!”
“You did so, as Dr. Tewes.”
“Preposterous-a phrenologist telling an anesthesiologist what to do during an operation.” Uncanny, she thought, as she’d wanted to do exactly that-had thought it-but she’d held herself in check.
“Are you of the same mind as Griff? Regarding Denton being the murderer?”
“Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, flesh for flesh? If we all lived by that rule of ancient times, where would civilization be now, Alastair?”
“Then you think I am drunk on vengeance?”
“It has crossed my mind. After all, Waldo Denton hardly looks capable of multiple murder of a hand-to-hand nature.”
“Nonsense, Jane, even a petite woman like you could kill with a garrote, and it was no coincidence that Denton attacked and killed Gabby’s boyfriend.”
“You’ll not terrify me into untying you.”
“Then it’d be a useless exercise for me to again ask that you remove the restraints?”
“I’d say so, yes.”
“You fear my pursuing Denton?”
“When you are healed and stronger, but not now…not in a weakened state of mind and body. Whatever you decide, it should be done when you’re fully recovered, a hundred percent.”
“I feel just fine now. Please, undo the straps.”
She feared doing so, feared he’d come up like a shark, tearing at everyone in his path, and what would become of him in the bargain? She thought of the old fairytale of the beauty and the beast.
“Do it for me,” he said.
She moved her hands to the strap closest to her.
“Undo it.”
“Will you kill Denton when everyone thinks him your mistake?”
“Do you have an opinion of Waldo Denton? An impression?”
“The night he came to the house, the night you were shot, I…we talked, and I convinced him to sit for a phrenological examination.”
“All while he had me chasing phantoms at the fair.”
“Alastair, I’ve never touched a more quivering bundle of nervous energy in my entire practice.”
“Which tells you what?”
“That he feared me-ahhh, actually Dr. Tewes.”
“He thought you the doctor?”
“I was on my way out to a call, but then I didn’t want to leave Gabby alone with him.”
“Aha! So, you did think him a deviant!”
“Not deviant but troubled. The feeling I got from him was…I don’t know…a mind that never stops planning, working, ticking?”
“You mean plotting, I think.”
“A con artist, crossed my mind.”
“Plotting your and Gabby’s murder.”
“I didn’t get that, Alastair, no.”
“But you said you got a…a confused mind. Suppose he is right this moment plotting your death or rather the death of Dr. Tewes? Suspicious and unnerved by your mind-reading act, that the great Tewes might unmask him?”
“That’s just such a stretch.”
“And Gabby? Take no chances. You must get her and yourself out of the city, unless you undo these bindings!”
“I got some anger during the reading, but murdering Gabby was not coming through.”
“My God…then it is Tewes he’s after! Don’t you see?”
“Due to my readings of the earlier victim’s skull? Well…at least someone ‘believes’!”
“Yes, the last one you want to believe! Jane, it’s so clear now. He’s been sniffing about Gabby to test Tewes, to learn if you-Tewes-is a fraud or the genuine article, capable of seeing into the Invisible World and straight through his lies and secrets using your pseudoscience of phrenology.”
“I-I did come away with some fear of the young man.”
“Aha!”
“Not for myself but for Gabby. After, the sitting, I pulled her aside.”
“Yes? Go on.”
“And I made the mistake of asking her to get rid of him.”
“And her response was to sit him down to tea?”
“I was in the process of talking him out the door when she guided him in for tea.”
“She can be contrary.”
“Moments after this, moments after, you charged in, Gabby shot you, and I feared Griffin might shoot her. By the way, you owe me for two kicked-in doors, two ruined locks, and a demoralized French parlor table.” She paused, taking a deep breath, holding firm to his huge hand. “Frankly, I felt something strangely odd about that young man from the moment he walked in with Gabby’s umbrella.”
“Gabby’s umbrella?”
“She’d left it in his cab.”