City for Ransom (30 page)

“Where did Griffin get the notion to go after Philo's studio? To uncover evidence there?” he asked himself aloud. “Griffin, you
disappointment
.”

He recalled how Drimmer had so quickly taken up Philo's Night Hawk, handing it to Denton to get the photo of the handprint on the overpass. Dr. Fenger had studied this print
from the photo that Denton had taken, and it'd been compared to the one Philo had taken at the train station, and according to Christian, the prints had indeed come from the same man. But neither matched Philo's hand.
But what of Griffin's hand?

Again the evidence pointed to a man small in stature…a man hardly larger than Dr. Tewes. Griffin was hardly larger than Jane Francis.

“I thought I'd find you here,” said Griffin Drimmer who seemed to've stepped from out of Ransom's thought! “Word's all over the city.”

“Word?”

“That you've challenged the Phantom to some sort of duel.”

“Reckless, I know.”

“Foolish…to roam about here
alone,
without me at your back?”

“I assumed your back's still up over my ranting and my ring.”

Griff held a seething anger just below boiling. “You ought to've come to me first with this plan. We ought to've coordinated on it.”

“By the book, is it, Griff?”

“By the book, hell, by the notion we are a team!”

“As when you put Philo behind bars?”

“At the very least, he knows something.”

“Were we a team on that solo act?”

Over Alastair's shoulder in the sky, the massive Ferris wheel sent colored lights flitting across Griffin's features, which took on a separate life—as if another man altogether resided within. Possibly a man who felt a deep-seated hatred not only for his mentor, Alastair, and not only for authority and society and rules and regulations, but all the comforts and familiarity of
normalcy
. A kind of Beowulf in sheep's clothing, loose on the world. Even his name, Griffin, spoke of a changeling.

What if Griffin, stymied at every turn, felt that Ransom's
confusion represented some sort of prize? What if the killer felt weak, ineffectual, and in fact
invisible
in the company of other men, especially bulls like Ransom?

While not invisible, suppose Griffin felt invisible? Suppose he had pent-up notions, mad goals, secret anger that'd gone unchecked for so long that it'd all suddenly burst in pure venom in a kill spree? Suppose he'd had a sudden loss of faith, of charity, of humanity, of relations…a loss of a loved one, a mainstay…someone who'd kept him stable and sane all this time? Hadn't he lost his mother recently?

What did he really know of Griff? He never spoke of his parents, only his wife and children on occasion, and Ransom had never seen them—not in the flesh. So much chicanery went on these days with photographs. Suppose…just suppose Griffin Drimmer had created the Phantom in order to make himself visible on two fronts? Visible as the new, young, virile detective who comes on to solve the case, and visible indeed as the Phantom, a killer on page one of the
Tribune
, the
Times
, the
Herald
? And suppose…just suppose it was all a way to strike out at Ransom for perceived wrongs?

Ransom wondered how he could live with such a development, that a detective he'd treated as his gopher—snubbed one day, ignored the next, or spoken harshly to—had some larger vendetta to act on? Jekyll and Hyde was now showing at the Lyceum Theater. Could Stevenson's character be alive in the form of Drimmer? Had the killer stood coldly at his side—in each frame—from the beginning? Watching his every move?

The Phantom's first two victims included a prostitute that Ransom had known and had a soft spot for, one too old to ply her trade much longer. He'd not known the Polish girl or Purvis, but the next victim was his Merielle. Suppose it was all working up to Merielle? Suppose it'd been Griffin who had blackened Merielle's eye one day and cut her throat and fired her body the next?

The next two victims—Mandor and Trelaine—implicated
Philo, Alastair's best friend, sending the photographer into a deep depression.
It could all very well be about me,
Ransom determined.
All the killings designed to destroy me.

And who stood in the best position to know what Ransom held dearest? Who but Griffin? All this rain of suspicion flash-flooded through Ransom's consciousness in a matter of seconds.

“It's not wise, Rance, acting as bait for a madman, one who strikes sudden as a viper, no matter your size or strength or reputation!”

“I appreciate your concern after all the bad blood between us, thanks to your kowtowing, taking Kohler's lead.”

“Like it or not, Ransom, I never worked for you. I work for Kohler. Always have, and if you'd bother to check, so do you.”

“Yeah…right…” Ransom purposefully turned his back on
his only suspect. Come ahead, you weasel; make your play…attack me from behind and we'll see what happens.
But Griffin made no move. Still, Alastair kept his back to him.

He next laid his bone-handled cane on a park bench, bothered with his pipe, lighting it. Puffing away, his back still to Griffin. Teasing him, disregarding the rawhide gloves.
Do it, you wimp! Do it now! Dare attack!

Still no supposed attack.

Ransom complained of a shoe button coming unlatched. He cursed the bother and sat down, and he exaggeratedly leaned over his shoes like a Falstaff, complaining of being unable to reach his shoes.
This tease must have Griffin's killing urge, this cure to his invisibility, salivating. The attack will come now!

Instead, Griffin started talking about his Lucinda while pointing down the lane. “Asked her to marry me under that box elder there.”

“What the hell're you talking about?”

“My wife, Lucinda.” He launched on a reverie of how feminine and lovely she was. He produced a photo. “An an
niversary shot below that same tree. Ran into Denton with that camera.”

Alastair saw some elements of the fair in the backdrop. “Denton's taking photos at the fair?”

“Why not so long's he has possession of—”

“Keane's Night Hawk, while Keane is in lockup…”

“What's going through your mind now?”

“A payment for services.”

“What do you mean?”

“Griffin, tell me, who first led you to believe that Philo could be our killer?”

“No one led me—”

“You needn't answer!” Alastair grabbed his cane, began running and shouting. “We've got to find a phone box and a cab now!”

 

Griffin gave chase. He'd never seen Alastair move so fast; he hadn't thought him capable of it. He hadn't thought it possible that any man with a cane and a limp could out-distance him, but Ransom was doing just that.

“Where the bloody hell is a phone box? Griffin, we must find a phone box and now!” Alastair was beside himself with agitation, looking the lunatic as the first drops of rain began to fall.

“To call headquarters? Reinforcements? There's a phone a block off the fairway!” Griffin's words stopped Alastair from rushing farther in the wrong direction. “This way, Rance!”

 

Mayor Carter Harrison in 1880 appointed William McGarigle as superintendent of police, and McGarigle started the patrol telephone and signal system in Chicago—the most important police innovation of its day. The system—375 hexagonal pine boxes—supported lampposts in each police district. Inside one of these locker-sized wood booths, an
alarm box dial awaited Alastair, who opened it with his departmental key. He knew that he could not call directly to Jane Francis to warn her, and he did not have direct access to a Bell operator. Nor could he reach Christian Fenger or any individual. The system frustrated such desires, as all he could dial was the local station. This meant, he could not even ring up the station closest to Jane and Gabby, as he believed the two of them in serious danger. However, if he got the right dispatcher, he could conceivably relay the message from station to station.

How long might that take? He could be losing valuable time without result.

He feared risking it, and he feared not risking it.

“What to do,” he said aloud.

“How should I know?” replied Griffin. “As usual, I've not the slightest clue what you're doing or thinking!”

Ransom hit a single number on the phone that signaled
murder
to a dispatcher. “I've got to get this message to the home of Dr. James Phineas Tewes, immediately!”

Ransom listened intently to the dispatcher. “Please identify yourself, Officer, by name and badge number, and verify the nature of your emergency.”

He lost the connection due to his not having ground the monkey organ mechanism required to keep the connection. He shouted at the dead receiver, pounding it several times into the box. He hated it that he must keep monkey-grinding the damn newly invented thing like he must his gramophone. Why couldn't they make one that worked without all the effort?

And then he erupted when he got the dispatcher back. “What difference does it make who is making the request? Only an officer of the law can call on this bloody phone, so just do what the bloody hell I'm asking!”

Whoever it might be at dispatch, this time switched Alastair off, leaving only a sickening silence on the line.

“Idiot! He didn't even ask what the message was!”

“Try again! But use a bit of civility.” Griffin had not as yet
seen the interior of a phone box, and so he jammed in at the entryway, examining every corner. He wanted to see the technology in action.

“If it takes civility, then damn it, you make the call! I am off for a cab!”

“But what do I say?”

“Tell them to tell Dr. Tewes to get himself and his daughter out of that house and to a public place, preferably to Dr. Christian Fenger's!”

“But
why
?” he shouted as Ransom and his cane rushed off.

 

Griffin monkey-grinded the phone and looked at the series of buttons, each coded number standing for a category of offense: accident, drunkards, violation of city ordinance, fire, theft, forgery, riot, rape, and murder in that order. But he did not know which to press. Hesitating for a moment, he reasoned since they were chasing the Phantom that murder was on the bill. He hit the appropriate dial number. This supposedly instantly summoned between five and twenty uniformed officers to his location, depending on the nature of the emergency.

But when the dispatcher came on, the gruff man, still angry with Ransom's swagger, shouted, “Stop muckity-mucking with the call line!”

This did not make sense to Griffin, who'd read statistics on the call boxes. It usually sent out a five-man team of officers in a patrol wagon that carried a stretcher, cuffs, blankets, and their obligatory clubs. Each box cost the city twenty-five dollars! And over the past two years alone some 879, 548 distress calls to the various stations had been made. But this fellow at the other end must be reported as derelict or drunk on duty, as again he hung up!

Griffin raced from the box, forgetting to close it, as a storm began to break around him, lightning streaking the black backdrop of sky against the Ferris wheel and the mas
sive buildings of the fair, all the White City bathed in sudden downpour. Griffin knew if he were to make the same coach before Ransom completely disappeared, he'd have to hustle as never before.

Ahead of him, Griff saw the cabstand, some of the horses reacting to the sudden thunder and lightning, raising hooves skyward and in need of gentling. He saw Ransom had stumbled and was now slowed, limping, with the cane working harder for him than ever.

Griffin sprinted now, confident he could catch Ransom. But Alastair was not going to like the news of his failure to get a message to Dr. Tewes.

“Do you think Tewes's life is in danger? Both he and his daughter? Or have you concluded that the phrenologist is the Phantom and may harm the child?”

“You could not be further from the truth, Griff.”

“Then who are we chasing amid the storm?”

But Ransom did not answer, instead shouting to the first cab he came to, “To Tewes's—the dispensary and residence of Dr. James Phineas Tewes, now!”

“Address, sir?” asked the cabbie, the same thick-browed Cro-Magnon that Ransom had noticed on an earlier occasion.

“Three-forty Belmont, two doors north of the Episcopal church, and you are paid twice your rate, sir, if you lose a wheel getting me there!”

Something in Ransom feared for Jane Francis and her Gabby. Something deep within whispered a horror, and Alastair imagined a scene of carnage awaiting him at what most in the city knew as the Tewes's residence. He imagined the worst, and at the same time as the carriage pulled away and Griffin slipped through the open door, he recalled how Waldo Denton had seen to it that Alastair would be chasing phantoms of the wrong kind while Waldo, apprentice photographer, sometime cabbie, sometime fair photographer, garroted Gabrielle and Jane Francis in their home!

The cab driver used his whip, and the hansom wheeled
around street corners and clattered insanely over the cobblestones, the sound of the two whinnying horses mimicking the pitiable sounds that Gabby and Jane may be releasing at this same moment. To add to the thunderous assault of hooves beating wildly against stone and the bullwhip cracking, a series of thunderclaps struck as if crashing symbols to this macabre dance they found themselves in.

“What the deuce is going on, Ransom? It's time you treated me as your equal! I demand to know what the—”

The coach lurched, sending Griffin into a corner, pinning him, while Ransom extended his cane at the crucial moment, using it like a wedge against his own tumbling.