“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.”
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“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 cab
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bie 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 RECOVER . . .
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
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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.
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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.
To the untrained eye, it might appear the flames had begun on the bottom floor, but not so with Chief Harold Stratemeyer, whose experience told him just the opposite, and this belief was given more credence when all the upper stairways caved in from the center. And now after this small explosion of debris amid the flames, Stratemeyer could see the result after the smoke cleared a bit.
Ransom stood alongside Stratemeyer unbelieving. Sitting atop the charred bar . . . like a mockery of Alastair’s former love nest, the bedsprings and still burning mattress precari-ously balanced. This was art of the devil.
Harry Stratemeyer was acting as the new fire marshal—old Warrick having been found floating in the Chicago River’s north branch. Death by what was being called an accidental drowning helped along by alcohol, but there remained the curious part—no wallet or money in his pockets.
At any rate, Stratemeyer, who’d been Warrick’s second in command, ordered men to water down surrounding buildings, having long since given up on the clapboard two-story and its surrounding outhouses. Chicago firefighters had in fact evolved greatly since the devastating fire in 1871. While still in need of more and better equipment, they did have far better access to water, as sewers now carried needed supplies to hydrants throughout the network of streets. And their tanks were larger and their horses faster and generally—but not always—better trained on chaos. His men were also better trained and outfitted.
Strateymeyer grabbed Ransom the moment he saw the big inspector wandering in a daze toward the flames, pointing and shouting about someone he called Merielle. But it was no easy grab; Stratemeyer had had to subdue Ransom with the help of several of his men. Otherwise, Alastair would’ve CITY FOR RANSOM
