City for Ransom

whether loaded or not.

Apparently, Gabby found Alastair not only an exotic fellow, but at least as frightening as if a bear had wandered up onto the porch.

She wondered momentarily at the strangeness of life in its permutation through the aging process; how such a handsome, bright-eyed, intelligent, soft-spoken, pleasant, sweethearted, concerned, giving creature as Alastair’d been as a child could be so different now. How had he become such a clod, a sot, a womanizer, and a fool?

“What are you doing here, Inspector?” she asked as Tewes. “Surely, you’ve not come to beat me senseless or to shoot me?” She said it loudly enough for neighbors to hear, but primarily, she wanted Gabrielle to calm down.

“Here to offer my apologies.”

“Really? This comes as a surprise,” she lied.

CITY FOR RANSOM

135

“I know you mean well.”

“And what has brought you round to this startling conclusion?”

“I’m trying to apologize for what occurred at the train station.”

“You’re here about Polly . . . Merielle.”

He glared. “Yes, was ’round earlier on that errand. Look, you had no right browbeating my Merielle and —”

“Browbeating?”

“—and running me down, using dubious methods to de-moralize her and—”

“Dubious? Demoralize?”

“—to set her against the only man who’s been good for her, and who has her best interest at heart. If you’d bothered learning the nature of our relationship, you’d know—despite my shortcomings—I bring a certain stabilizing force into her life, a certain, ahhh . . .” “Normalcy?”

Tension palpitated between them.

“Yes, damn you, normalcy.”

“I doubt, sir, you’ve any acquaintance with normality.”

“And you do, I suppose, you the magician of Belmont Street, espousing magnetism and this . . . this bogus science of phrenology, no better than reading the stars or tea leaves.”

“If the tea leaves fit.”

“Look, I did not come here to argue—”

“But that is all you’ve done!”

“I want you to advise Merielle of my strengths, the list of reasons why she should remain mine.”

“You men—” she stopped herself. “Fellows like you, I mean—police and others in authority . . . you really do believe you can own someone, don’t you? Body and soul.”

Their voices had risen and there came a tapping on the windowpane. Both men stared at Gabrielle. Finally, Ransom asked, “She any good with that hog leg?”

“She’s quite good with it,” Jane again lied.

“I suppose you taught her at an early age to point guns?”

136

ROBERT W. WALKER

“In this environment, is that so wrong? Seems the norm, in fact. Hair Trigger Block is a short stroll.”

“Then you value your daughter well.”

“That I do . . . yes.”

“Perhaps then we should continue elsewhere, say Muldoon’s end of the block?”

Jane feared going off with this man anywhere, but as Tewes, she must show no flinching—just as she’d not failed the test of manliness at the railway station. “Give me a moment to settle Gabby then,” she calmly replied.

“Agreed.”

“Then we’ll reconnoiter how to civilly work together.”

“Work together?”

“On how best to help Polly.”

“Ahhh . . . yes.”

“And on how best to pursue a killer?”

“Hold on. My being here’s in no way a conciliatory gesture in that direction.”

“Fair enough. Only a moment then.” Tewes disappeared into the house. Alastair could hear the daughter giving Tewes hell about going off into the night with Inspector Ransom.

The young thing was wise. Tewes must’ve told her what had transpired at the train station. Ransom relit his pipe beneath the gaslight and paced the sidewalk, his cop’s eye reading the night street. A ragged little Italian family searched through discarded items in an alleyway. Two desperate-looking men stepped from a darkened doorway, perhaps engaged in a shady deal. Along the packed Clark Street, a hansom cab rolled by, pulled by a weary horse favoring its right front hoof. “Likely your mare’s thrown a shoe!” he called after the driver, but the warning went unheeded.

Merielle let him in again. He seemed harmless, and he’d been so complimentary when she really needed complimenting, and he’d apologized for striking her, after all. So she let him back inside, or perhaps she did so, just so she’d CITY FOR RANSOM

137

have something to tell Dr. Tewes. She’d tell Tewes, “Yes, I opened the door because he struck me.” She knew that Ransom wouldn’t return tonight. How devilish to conduct an affair behind Alastair’s back. How devilish indeed to have two men in one night handle her as roughly as Polly preferred.

The gentleman calling himself Mr. Stumpf had asked if she’d seen any of the fair. He spoke of the Ferris wheel, how glorious the lake and the land and the town looked from the sky. “Like a blanket of stars fallen to earth,” he’d said, adding, “what with the lights below instead of above!” How marvelous it’d sounded, and so she’d gone out with the man in cape and top hat to feel for once like a lady, to allow Merielle an opportunity to play herself. Merielle did not disappoint either Polly or the gentleman. She held on his arm like a proper lady, just like her mum had done for her dah.

So they had gone out and taken a carriage ride, something Alastair had never done for her. The gentleman spoke of the great art treasures from around the world housed in the various pavilions of the fair. He spoke of sculpture and artifacts from Asia and beyond. He spoke of it as another world she must see before she died.

“Silly,” she twittered, “I won’t be doing that for some time.”

“Of course not,” he’d replied.

Twice more he apologized about the moment of anger in which he’d blackened her eye. He’d brought a cosmetic just for her to cover it.

To further make up, he’d paid her admission to the fair.

He’d showed her a magnificent night of extraordinary sights, sounds, odors, tastes, and touch. She’d had a popcorn-peanuts-molasses confection called Cracker Jack, and she’d seen how they made saltwater taffy, and she’d seen farm animals and amazing new inventions, all amid a Grecian world of fake white marble.

Polly’d felt stirrings that she’d never felt with any man.

Here was a man who’d not just talked about showing her the world but showed her the world! Sure, he was younger than 138

ROBERT W. WALKER

she, and sure his manhood was small—the reason he’d hit her when she’d laughed—but here was a fellow who didn’t just talk of improving her lot, of keeping her from boredom, but a man who actually followed through on promises, unlike the too busy Ransom.

This little man was Alistair’s opposite in so many ways, except for his roaming hands. Even on the Ferris