“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“I see. I’d’ve never guessed it. You are full of surprises, Tewes.”
Today Christian Fenger had people flocking to see him work; so many in fact, the crowds had to be regulated. He now put bottle and glasses away. “Did I know your father?”
“No, sir. We were passing through on our way to the Northwest territories.”
Jane straightened and turned away from Fenger, tightening the ascot all in one fluid motion as Fenger cried out,
“Enter! Come on in, Inspector.” To Tewes, he added, “I know his signature knock.”
Ransom stood in the doorway.
“Well now,” said Fenger, “I see we are all here.”
“Kohler informs me, Christian, that it was your idea all along to have Tewes here sticking his nose in on my case.”
“He’s right.”
“What’re we coming to when a street charlatan can just waltz in on an official police investigation?” Alastair’s voice rose with each syllable, “Claiming divining powers by reading bumps on a dead man’s head!” “Now, Alastair —”
“What’s bloody next? Tewes here telling us what steps we need take, and who we interrogate, and who we let slide, and who we shadow? Christ! Tell me that!”
“Just calm down, Alastair. Don’t get your feathers up.”
“And a fine hello to you, too, Inspector,” said Tewes.
112
ROBERT W. WALKER
“Tewes, if some night I see you coming along a dark alleyway—”
“Just so politic is this man, such a wit with words.”
“Calm down! Both of you!” shouted Fenger as Tewes and Ransom glared into one another’s eyes.
Ransom thought the man’s eyes familiar, and he put them together with the sister. They were damn near identical; definitely related.
“Alastair, James here is—”
“James?”
“Yes, James has a useful plan to help discover who your killer is. Now this fiend has struck three times we know of, and any fresh perspective as unique and as thoughtful as James’s bears a hearing.”
“I don’t believe you’re buying this nonsense, Christian.”
“Dr. Tewes has a
“What’s he got on you and the chief, Christian? Is it your lifestyle, your—”
“He’s got a plan to psychologically examine the killer’s methodology, his steps, his choice of murder weapon, his very thinking, Ransom.”
“That’s my bloody job!”
“You need bloody science on this one, Alastair. Get used to the idea.”
“I don’t take orders from you, Dr. Fenger.”
“Stubborn, hardheaded Irish Mick-cop!”
“This is not the way I solve cases,
“I claim only healing powers,” corrected Tewes.
“Reading the bumps on a dead man’s head—that is not my idea of solid police work, Dr. Tewes. And as for you, Christian,
“Every new science has its critics so why should phrenology be any—”
“I’ve seen Tewes’s clinic, Christian. Like a carnival wagon full of bottles and potions and colored water so far as I can tell.”
CITY FOR RANSOM
113
“You’ve gotta be the tightest wound man I’ve ever met,”
countered Tewes. “Do you have a single friend?”
“I want to talk to you about your bad-mouthing me to the few friends I do have, like Polly Pete.”
“
You do her no favor. Substituted one—”
“I do not hold her in bondage.”
“You won her in a card game! How wonderful is that for her esteem? Do you know she’s slipped your firearm into her throat on occasion as you slept nearby, contemplating blowing her head off with you in the room?” “What? Never. You lying—”
Tewes did not quake or shirk or back off, but rather leaned into the coming blow. “Go ahead, strike me like you did her! I saw her blackened eye! Go on! You don’t frighten me, Ransom. And I tell you this in strict confidence, what she’s revealed. Whether true or not only Polly or Merielle knows.” Ransom held the shaking fist at bay. Tewes knew both her names; how could he know this unless Merielle had confided it? What if sad Merielle
Fenger met Ransom’s eye. They had had long, deep conversations about Polly, and Ransom had not even told him about her dual nature or the depth of Polly’s sexual needs and masochism. Fenger had only told him that he understood what a pull love—any brand of love—could have on a man. Christian didn’t judge him on this; he only feared for Ransom’s own soul in this twisted relationship, that he could lose it as surely as Polly could slit his throat one night—actually or metaphorically. Fenger’d had a similar experience with a lady-of-the-night to whom he’d given his heart.
“To hell with you! To hell with you both!” Ransom dropped his bull stance and rushed out, his face flushed.
“Well . . . that went well,” Fenger said sarcastically.
114
ROBERT W. WALKER
“I’ve come to expect very little of the man.”
“He is an excellent investigator.”
“He must be for Chief Kohler to put up with him. I think he is a crude barbarian.”
“You have to get to know him to appreciate just how polished he is, given what he’s been through.”
“You mean the limp, the burn marks at his neck? Haymarket bomb incident?”
“He survived it . . . physically. Mentally, he is still warring with it . . . here.” He pointed to his head.
“Does everyone who knows this man excuse his behavior?”
“Tell me exactly what did the man do to you at the train station?”
“It’s an involved story.”
“Will it harden me against Ransom? I’ve long wanted a condemnation of the man so’s to excuse myself from his company.”
Jane described that moment when Inspector Ransom lost his temper, wrenched the boy’s head from its loose moorings and shoved it into Tewes’s white suit and hands.
Dr. Fenger laughed uproariously. When he settled, he choked out, “That is so like Alastair . . . so like the man. Had you known him better, you might’ve seen it coming.”
