CHAPTER 7
Still in the train station, going mad inside his head, Ransom paced wildly along the corridor outside the stationmaster’s office, his crime scene now a circus so far as he was concerned. He toyed with the notion of just immediately shutting the crime scene down, when O’Malley rushed up, panting, holding out a wallet and papers. “It’s the boy’s student identity card. A freshman at Northwestern, sir.” Another coincidence? An educated guess? Or a sixth
O’Malley extended the wallet to Ransom, who opened it on the ID, which read: Purvis, Cliffton O., address 194
Blount St., Homerville, Iowa.
“Where? Where was this found, Mike?”
“One of the lads spotted a ragged fellow with burns to his hands.”
“Where?”
“In the food commissary slurping coffee, stuffing ham and eggs, sitting at table pretty as you please.”
“What tipped your men off to him, O’Malley?”
“His clothes were sooty . . . the hair on his forearms singed. We think it’s our man, but—”
“No garrote?”
“Sorry, no sir. That’d cinch it, I know.”
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ROBERT W. WALKER
Ransom asked, “Where’s he being held?”
“Downstairs in Dr. Fenger’s meat wagon, under lock and key to be sure.”
“I don’t suppose you found any Cuban cigars on him, O’Malley?” Ransom didn’t wait for an answer, going for the
“suspect” instead.
Ransom followed O’Malley to where the horse-drawn medical wagon awaited the release of the murder victim. A faded whitewash showed an earlier sign on its side in faint letters: oscar meyer. It’d indeed seen an earlier life as a bona fide meat wagon.
“Get the suspect outta there, O’Malley.”
Mike did so, his fingers twitching over his nightstick.
Soon Ransom was shaking the dead man’s wallet in the homeless drifter’s face. The poorly dressed, elderly fellow immediately told his tale.
Alastair felt convinced of the man’s version of events, which metamorphosed from having simply found the wallet lying on the floor, to having been awakened in a stall in the men’s room where he routinely slept since arriving in Chicago. He’d emigrated along with tens of thousands of others from the prairies and surrounding states. Once in the city, he could find no work. He’d been in town for two days and two nights when he was awakened to the sound of two men conversing.
“Then what?” asked Alastair. “What in blue blazes did they speak of, man?”
“Not too many words passed before it happened. Awful . . . murder most foul, sir, most foul!”
“Can you recall the tenor of the conversation? Angry, argument, foul words, what?”
“Oh, no, sir, as friendly as you please and the boy spoke of his girlfriend and the fair and how he was so happy, and suddenly the killer lit on him with a horrible attack.”
“Friendly—draws the boy into talking, relaxing, washing his hands in the sink—was he, when the attack came?”
“Yes . . . but how’d you know?”
CITY FOR RANSOM
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Ransom imagined that his own recreation of events must represent as much magic to this homeless vagabond as Tewes’s sideshow disclosures had made on brighter fellows like Griff and Carmichael. After all, he had himself imagined the boy a student at a nearby college. Still, Tewes had known the boy’s name and where Purvis hailed from. Tewes knew too much—more than enough to incriminate himself but not enough for an arrest! “Did you have a talk with anyone about this at any time before O’Malley and me?” “No one, I swear.”
“Then you showed the wallet to no one? Spoke to no one named Tewes?”
“I swear . . . the madman talked to the boy as if he knew him, and then suddenly he is cutting his throat, and next setting his body out on the column and setting him aflame.”
“You saw all this?”
“Yes, God forgive me! All happened so fast . . . no inter-vening, sir.”
“Did he say a word over the body? Anything at all, man?”
“He laughed and he sang.”
“Sang?”
“Badly, he sang.”
“What tune?”
“I don’t recall. Something familiar.”
“I—I—I wah-wah own-ly—” the drifter stuttered and stank.
“Spit it out, man!” shouted O’Malley, his nightstick raised overhead as if it’d come down of its own volition.
Ransom placed a soft palm against O’Malley’s chest.
“Easy on the man, Mike. He ain’t used to our ways, are you, mister
“O-rion . . . Saville, Orion Saville.”
“All right, Orion. Tell us what you saw. Every detail. You want to help the authorities, don’t you?”
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“Y-y-yes-sir . . . only . . . only got a fleetin’ glimpse of the killer’s legs and shoes—”
“Through the slit in the stall?”
“Yes. Thought he’d see me, turn on me, and—and kill me.”
“Tell me what was noticeable about the shoes?”
“Shined up nice, fine leather. I know leather. Was a tanner before coming here.”
“Expensive wear.”
“The best quality it was.”
“Go on.”
“And when I escaped the bloody men’s room . . . and—and saw the body aflame, I shouted for help but nobody ’round that time o’morn. I tried to put out the fire. And the whole time this madman was whistling a tune as he rushed off.” “What sort of tune?”
“Why . . . I believe it was ‘Listen to the Shepherd’ . . . no, no! Twas ‘Coming Through the Rye.’ ”
“Hmmm . . . OK, tell me just how you put out the blasted flames. Exactly how did you accomplish that?”
“Yeah, how’d you do that?” mimicked O’Malley.
“By—by . . . by dousing it with my own mother’s coat—only thing left me in this world.” If true, this made a liar of the watchman, who’d claimed that he’d hosed down the body while yet aflame.
Ransom noted the moth-eaten coat, parts of it showing obvious signs of fire damage. The homeless man’s gesture had been successful, and he’d salvaged his coat, along with the boy’s wallet. In the process, he’d burned his hands.
“And the name you gave is no alias, sir? What is your given name and where indeed are you from?”
“Orville then . . . Orville McEachern is my true name.
