City for Ransom

by Robert W. Walker

  “Bring the doctor inside, please.”

  He threw Tewes over his shoulder, the doctor’s pants leg revealing as small an ankle as he’d ever seen on a man. It made him think of the Bertillon method, the fact no two men had the same measurements, and he wondered if he were to “take the measure” of this man, and send it to contacts at the Suréte in France, if he might not get a match to a wanted fugitive or fraud under another name.

  Ransom always carried a tailor’s measuring strip in his pocket. Normally, his subject was awake and frightened or beaten into complying with having his measurements taken. But he’d also performed it on a few with whom he’d struggled and knocked senseless, and he found measuring the unconscious a great deal faster and easier. Thirty seconds alone with Tewes now was all he required.

  “Get him some water, and I’ll get him into bed,” Ransom now barked orders at Gabby.

  “I won’t leave you alone with him under any circumstances.”

  “I mean your father no harm, child! Now go! Get water or better yet, black coffee!”

  Gabrielle waved the gun before his eyes. “All right, but you just lay him out on the bed, and don’t touch him in any other way!”

  “I’ve no desire to touch him in any way, child. Now, please as I say!”

  She acquiesced, backing out the door, gun weighing down her hand like a pipe.

  As soon as she disappeared, Ransom whipped out his measuring tape and gave Tewes the Bertillon once over, memorizing each figure in his head as he measured forehead, distance between eyes, nose to chin, eyes to chin. Circumference of neck; shoulder to shoulder. Chest. Again the sponginess of Tewes’s body struck him. He then measured the waistline. The man had none! He noticed how the man’s belt looped one and a half times around the waist. He hadn’t time to contemplate this more, as he now measured length of leg from crotch to knee, then knee to ankle, finally tearing off his shoes to measuring foot size.

  But he failed to finish as Gabrielle was returning; he pocketed the unraveled tailor’s tape. What’d alerted him to her quick return, he realized only when seeing her enter, was her gun clinking against the glass on the crowded tray she carried. She had a pot of coffee on the tray alongside the water. “I’d made coffee earlier,” she explained. “Father never stays out so late, ever.”

  “And you were worried.”

  “And rightly so, it appears.”

  “He tells me that you knew the victim at the train station.” Fenger had told him this.

  “I had only known him for a few days at Northwestern when we met quite by accident at the fair, you see. I was playing hooky from my studies. Gabby’s eyes had filled with tears. “We were to meet at the fair again next eve…”

  “He was quite taken with you, then?”

  “He was sweet…smitten, I’m afraid.” She teared up and he offered her a handkerchief that she accepted.

  “I had no idea your father couldn’t, you know, hold his liquor. I do apologize.”

  “I’ve never seen him this way, ever.”

  “You take good care of your father. Admirable.”

  “I do my best.”

  “He is not always making wise decisions, I would hazard a guess.”

  “Certainly not tonight! Going off with you! No…I mean, yes. He is not always showing the best judgment, but he is my father, and I…I love him dearly.”

  “That much is obvious.” Ransom poured himself a cup of coffee and sipped at it before asking, “What about your aunt, his sister?”

  “His sister?”

  “Your aunt…who I met earlier?”

  “Ahhh…Mrs. Ayers…Jane Francis.”

  “You do not call her Auntie?”

  “I’ve not known her long.”

  “Ahhh…I see.”

  “She’s only recently joined us.”

  “From France?”

  “Ahhh…I believe by way of New York.”

  All facts he could check later, he told himself. The young one seemed absolutely befuddled. She’d not gone near the gun in all this time. Perhaps she was getting used to Alastair. He could only hope. “It’s a fine gun you carry about.”

  “It is mother’s,” she blurted out. “I mean…was my mother’s. The…the only thing she bequeathed me.”

  “Interesting heirloom then. But I was given to understand she died in labor, giving birth to you, so how was it she bequeathed you a gun? Or is that mere street talk, rumor I’m repeating?”

  “She set it out in a letter in the event anything should happen to her during her pregnancy.”

  “Ahhh…foresight she had, perhaps a premonition?”

  “I am told she was sickly…always.”

  “Difficult pregnancy?”

  “Hard labor came as no surprise.”

  “I see. Your father here, being a doctor…he must’ve known the risks…”

  “Aye…I mean, I should think so, as he’s a medical man.”

  “But they had not consummated their wedding? He then had to legally adopt you, his own child is how I heard it.”

  “No…common street talk is that, sir!”

  Was Gabby embarrassed by this? Her clenched hands spoke of discomfort, perhaps a lie. He lifted the gun, and her allowing this felt like a new, fresh start between them. They smiled across at one another, the gun held up between them while Tewes mildly snored.

  Ransom examined the gun for the missing cap that Tewes had mentioned. The firing pin was in place, and the cap in the caplock. Either Tewes failed to tell the truth about the gun, in an attempt to ease Ransom’s fears at having it pointed at the back of his head, or Gabby knew as much about guns as her father’d intimated. Likely the latter.

  “Whataya think of my gun?”

  “It belongs in a museum.”

  She looked indignant. “That gun is in fine working order. I keep it clean.”

  “It’s a cannon, not a gun. Blow a hole the size of a medicine ball in a man.”

  She threw her hands up to cover her laughter. “Now you exaggerate.”

  “Not by much.”

  “My…my family wants me to pursue a medical degree, but I’m so fascinated with what men like you do, Inspector Ransom.”

  “Really?”

  “I’ve read Alan Pinkerton’s accounts of heroic deeds during the late war, about his army of spies—We never sleep!—what a motto and that evil eye they use to signify themselves, it’s all so…so adventurous and…and…”

  “Romantic it is not, I can assure you.”

  “Oh, but it is…what you and other Chicago detectives must see daily! I bet no two of your days are alike! Can I tell you that medical school is a bore down to my…well, to my core!”

  “But isn’t medicine in your makeup?”

  “I hate it. Hate that it’s in my blood, too!”

  “It should come easily to you, following in your father’s—”

  “The last thing in the world I want to become is…is my father.”

  He stared grimly across at her as if taking this blow for Tewes. “Does your father know your feelings?”

  “He’s rather wrapped up…busy with patients. Hasn’t seen me…not the real me in…in…well, in forever.”

  “But all that tuition going to Northwestern…”

  “If I could figure out a way to use it…my studies…in tracking down and catching killers…what you do…then it might be worthwhile, but just dealing with sick and depressed and grim people all day as Father does. I know I’d rather be a copper like you, working with the dead!”

  “Hmmm…perhaps you should talk to Dr. Christian Fenger then.”

  “Dr. Fenger? The famous surgeon?”

  “And pathologist. Does work for the police…helps us identify victims of foul play, and determines just who is and who is not a homicide victim, and how precisely their lives ended.”

  “I…I’ve not given this area of medicine a thought, not a single thought.”

  “It’s not entirely new. Been with us since King Willi
am ordered a medical man to investigate suspicious deaths.”

  “The first coroner? I wonder who he was.”

  “Physicians working for the crown, only now you work for a municipality like Cook County.”

  “Coroner…I rather like the sound of it.”

  “Call on Dr. Fenger sometime, and tell him of your interest.”

  “It’d be behind Father’s back.”

  A way to get back at Tewes, Ransom thought. “Ahhh…once you’ve established yourself with Dr. Fenger, how can your father balk? No one has a greater reputation as a surgeon.” Complicate Tewes’s blackmailing effort.

  “I’ll visit him at his office tomorrow!”

  “You’ll never catch him in an office. Does everything afoot. Go by County Hospital at exactly ten A.M. He’ll be there. Tell him two things.”

  “Yes?”

  “That Inspector Ransom sent you, and that your father is Dr. Tewes.”

  “But with my father’s reputation as a mentalist, Dr. Fenger’ll toss me out.”

  “Not so. Your father enjoys a good relationship with Dr. Fenger,” he lied, “and I am sure that if Christian finds you as determined a pupil as you seem, why then he’ll side with you.”

  “Imagine it…Dr. Christian Fenger in my corner.”

  “Stranger things’ve happened.”

  She looked at the prone figure of Tewes, who was out and had no need of water or coffee.

  “Will you have more coffee and stay longer, to tell me harrowing tales of cases you’ve worked on, Inspector?”

  “It grows late, and I fear we’ll wake your aunt.”

  “Oh, poooh on her! She sleeps like a stone a way off in the other part of the house. You must tell me of your cases!”

  “Really, it is late.”

  “But the coffee, and I made cookies earlier.”

  “Hmmm…you can be persuasive, young lady.”

  “Then you’ll stay awhile?”

  “One cup of coffee, two cookies—”

  “And three lurid tales?”

  “Let’s make it my most lurid case.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Fire alarms from several directions sounded a distress that would wake the entire city. Still, Ransom ignored the Chicago Fire Department at work in the black of night, instead launching into the story of how he’d almost single-handedly caught Morgan Nels and his equally deadly wife, Nellie “the Hawk” Nels, a twosome who’d begun as flamboyant con artists, but had graduated to murder when a con went bad. “Found contract killing far more to their liking—faster results—so they embarked on a career as a tag team.”

  He was in midsentence when the phone rattled to life in the other room.

  “You have a telephone?” he asked.

  “We do. It’s needed in a medical practice.”

  “A most helpful new tool for the police as well.”

  “So I’ve read.”

  “Read?”

  “I know a young policeman who sneaks the police news to me whenever he can.”

  “I see…the Police Gazette.”

  “I love it.”

  “You really do have the blue bug then, don’t you?”

  “Is that what they call it?”

  The phone continued to ring. “I’d best get going,” he said.

  “But you didn’t finish. How precisely did the Nels do their murdering?”

  “I suspect you’ve already read of the case.”

  “I have, but to have you, the man who brought them to justice to tell it…this is such an…an honor.”

  Am I blushing, he wondered.

  “I did some checking up on you; learned a lot about you, Inspector, and I’m not ashamed to say it, but”—she had begun a blush now—“I so admire you, sir.”

  “Why thank you.”

  “So few people…so few men could possibly be as brave as you.”

  He swallowed hard at this. “I cannot remember a time when anyone has said as much to me. I don’t know what to say, except…well…thank you, Miss Tewes.”

  “Gabrielle or Gabby…you must call me Gabby, yes.”

  “All right, Gabby. I take it as an honor.”

  “But for now…we must keep our alliance between us. Should Father learn, he’d scalp me, and most certainly send me to convent.”

  “Really?”

  “He says you’re not to be trusted, that you’re a scoundrel, and that he suspects you have, on occasion, crippled or killed men to make them talk.”

  “I had no idea he held so high an opinion of—”

  “Is it true?”

  “True enough.”

  “I’m not sure I believe either of you.” She threw one of her cookies at him, making him laugh.

  The sound of sirens continued closer now. The phone had stopped rending apart Ransom’s head, but it’d left a throbbing. His contorted features telegraphed the depth of pain he entertained.

  “Are you all right, Inspector?” she asked.

  “Have this headache, you see. Should be off to bed.”

  “You ought to’ve had Father diagnose your problem ’stead of spending the evening drinking, the two of you.”

  “So right.” He stood to leave.

  “I suspect the headache is the tip of the iceberg,” she hazarded a guess.

  “You’re going to make a fine doctor.”

  She escorted him to the front door. A red glow against the sky in the distance made them both stare in wonderment.

  “Whataya suppose?” she began. “Fireworks at the fair?”

  “Another fire. They break out routinely. So many of the original homes built substandard before the new laws were enacted, and when they go up in flame, well the way they are atop one another over there on Broadway, Clark, the Lincoln Park area…” he paused, giving a thought to Merielle. She lived in the area in question.

  “Can you imagine someone calling here at this hour?” she asked.

  He banged the floor with his cane. “By my word, perhaps the doctor is being called to assist at the fire?”

  “I think not, but who knows.”

  “If it should ring again, answer it. If they need him, get that coffee into him and get him there.”

  “Are you going to see the fire? Would you take me with you?”

  “No,” he lied and grimaced. He did indeed mean to determine its origin and extent, but he certainly did not want her on his arm at the scene of a fire.

  “You really should take care of your health, sir, that headache.”

  “I’ve tried all cures.”

  She nodded. “All but my father’s. Come by for it. He does good work, despite what people think.”

  “If it’ll afford me the pleasure of your company, Gabrielle, then I may just do that.”

  Ransom said good night, his body silhouetted against the red sky. She called out as he grabbed a passing cab, “Do take better care of yourself, Inspector. Chicago needs men like you! Many more I’m afraid.”

  “Make for the fire, my good man!” he shouted to the cabbie as he boarded. Out one cab window, he saw Gabby waving him off; out the other, he saw an oddly shaped black plume of choking smoke rising over Chicago. He cursed the fool who’d fallen asleep over his stogie, or the overturned lamp, or the careless fellow with one of those newfangled gas stoves kicked over at the foot of a bed.

  The devastating fire reached beyond the London Royale Arms Tavern, threatening to destroy other tenement houses around it. Most builders at this time, having learned the lessons of the Great Fire of ’71, used brick and mortar and the new concrete, especially in high-rent districts and for the high-rise structures of Michigan Avenue and other downtown locations. In such places, the city upheld new fire standards, but here on Clark new construction followed old paths: payoffs and graft to aldermen and building inspectors allowed substandard housing to again flourish.

  After the debacle of flame that leveled Chicago, headlines had read:

  FIRE DEVASTATES CHICAGO…

  CITY TO NEVER R
ECOVER…

  GREAT LOSS OF LIFE AND PROPERTY…

  END OF GREAT RAIL HUB!

  GONE THE WAY OF ASH…

  Such headlines abounded in the few newspapers whose presses the Great Fire hadn’t silenced. People who’d lived through the fire in ’71 now stood in shock and fear at the sight of any conflagration that even appeared to have the possibility of becoming the next Great Fire. Tonight’s inferno looked far too familiar; older citizens standing and watching the rain of ash and cinder trembled at the prospects while blood orange, red, and blue flames licked at all surrounding structures. Nearby trees and fences ignited. Was 1893 to be the next year of the failure of the Chicago Fire Department?

  As Ransom’s cab neared, all about the street, people ran shouting and pointing and trying to steer clear of the hooves of racing horses pulling the latest in fire fighting equipment—which remained inadequate to the task. Antiquated equipment, too little, too late. The images and sights and sounds of the fire numbered so many, no one could see or hear them all: multiple fire wagons descending on the scene from three directions. Firemen appeared in chaos, hauling out axes, picks, hoses, buckets. Some worked the hoses, others the ladders. It took some to quell the terrified horses that’d supposedly been trained for fire emergencies.

  Ransom felt a stomach gnawing sense of a losing battle. No lessons whatsoever learned since ’71 save those of graft and fraud and phony land speculation. When it’d come time for the displaced families of the Great Chicago Fire to collect on all those many “church” and benevolent society funds, there were no funds. They’d all been systematically disposed of by the shrewd promoters who’d thought up these fine-sounding benevolent “societies.” The funds had gone into the purchase of ash-strewn downtown lots on streets of loss, where nothing but a lone charred and blackened water tower and firehouse made of native limestone sat forlornly at the end of Michigan Avenue. A boon and a lure as it happened for those with deep pockets. Men with both vision and selfishness in mind, greed and glory all balled up in one idea of a phoenix rising from the ashes, making the Gem of the Prairie shine again. But tonight only one thing mattered to the firemen whose very skin was seared and scorched and blackened by the fire at hand. Save the block…lose the whole tavern and entire building, the outbuildings, possibly the building to the immediate right and left, but stop it here and with no more loss of life than might already have occurred. An entire heavy oak bureau drawer with mirror, and a four-poster bed, mattress and springs had fallen through with fire-blackened flooring. The cross beams held longer, but as more and more became compromised these heavy beams—forming the crisscross support that made up the second floor—tore away in groaning complaint; the insatiable flames had licked at this area for too long now.