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so do you.”

“Yeah . . . right . . .” Ransom purposefully turned his back on his only suspect. Come ahead, you weasel; make your play . . . attack me from behind and we’ll see what happens. But Griffin made no move. Still, Alastair kept his back to him.

He next laid his bone-handled cane on a park bench, bothered with his pipe, lighting it. Puffing away, his back still to Griffin. Teasing him, disregarding the rawhide gloves. Do it, you wimp! Do it now! Dare attack!

Still no supposed attack.

Ransom complained of a shoe button coming unlatched.

He cursed the bother and sat down, and he exaggeratedly leaned over his shoes like a Falstaff, complaining of being unable to reach his shoes. This tease must have Griffin’s killing urge, this cure to his invisibility, salivating. The attack will come now!

Instead, Griffin started talking about his Lucinda while pointing down the lane. “Asked her to marry me under that box elder there.”

“What the hell’re you talking about?”

“My wife, Lucinda.” He launched on a reverie of how feminine and lovely she was. He produced a photo. “An an

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niversary shot below that same tree. Ran into Denton with that camera.”

Alastair saw some elements of the fair in the backdrop.

“Denton’s taking photos at the fair?”

“Why not so long’s he has possession of—”

“Keane’s Night Hawk, while Keane is in lockup . . .”

“What’s going through your mind now?”

“A payment for services.”

“What do you mean?”

“Griffin, tell me, who first led you to believe that Philo could be our killer?”

“No one led me—”

“You needn’t answer!” Alastair grabbed his cane, began running and shouting. “We’ve got to find a phone box and a cab now!”

Griffin gave chase. He’d never seen Alastair move so fast; he hadn’t thought him capable of it. He hadn’t thought it possible that any man with a cane and a limp could out-distance him, but Ransom was doing just that.

“Where the bloody hell is a phone box? Griffin, we must find a phone box and now!” Alastair was beside himself with agitation, looking the lunatic as the first drops of rain began to fall.

“To call headquarters? Reinforcements? There’s a phone a block off the fairway!” Griffin’s words stopped Alastair from rushing farther in the wrong direction. “This way, Rance!”

Mayor Carter Harrison in 1880 appointed William McGarigle as superintendent of police, and McGarigle started the patrol telephone and signal system in Chicago—the most important police innovation of its day. The system—375

hexagonal pine boxes—supported lampposts in each police district. Inside one of these locker-sized wood booths, an CITY FOR RANSOM

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alarm box dial awaited Alastair, who opened it with his departmental key. He knew that he could not call directly to Jane Francis to warn her, and he did not have direct access to a Bell operator. Nor could he reach Christian Fenger or any individual. The system frustrated such desires, as all he could dial was the local station. This meant, he could not even ring up the station closest to Jane and Gabby, as he believed the two of them in serious danger. However, if he got the right dispatcher, he could conceivably relay the message from station to station.

How long might that take? He could be losing valuable time without result.

He feared risking it, and he feared not risking it.

“What to do,” he said aloud.

“How should I know?” replied Griffin. “As usual, I’ve not the slightest clue what you’re doing or thinking!”

Ransom hit a single number on the phone that signaled murder to a dispatcher. “I’ve got to get this message to the home of Dr. James Phineas Tewes, immediately!”

Ransom listened intently to the dispatcher. “Please identify yourself, Officer, by name and badge number, and verify the nature of your emergency.”

He lost the connection due to his not having ground the monkey organ mechanism required to keep the connection.

He shouted at the dead receiver, pounding it several times into the box. He hated it that he must keep monkey-grinding the damn newly invented thing like he must his gramophone.

Why couldn’t they make one that worked without all the effort?

And then he erupted when he got the dispatcher back.

“What difference does it make who is making the request?

Only an officer of the law can call on this bloody phone, so just do what the bloody hell I’m asking!”

Whoever it might be at dispatch, this time switched Alastair off, leaving only a sickening silence on the line.

“Idiot! He didn’t even ask what the message was!”

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seen the interior of a phone box, and so he jammed in at the entryway, examining every corner. He wanted to see the technology in action.

“If it takes civility, then damn it, you make the call! I am off for a cab!”

“But what do I say?”

“Tell them to tell Dr. Tewes to get himself and his daughter out of that house and to a public place, preferably to Dr.

Christian Fenger’s!”

“But why?” he shouted as Ransom and his cane rushed off.

Griffin monkey-grinded the phone and looked at the series of buttons, each coded number standing for a category of of-fense: accident, drunkards, violation of city ordinance, fire, theft, forgery, riot, rape, and murder in that order. But he did not know which to press. Hesitating for a moment, he reasoned since they were chasing the Phantom that murder was on the bill. He hit the appropriate dial number. This supposedly instantly summoned between five and twenty uniformed officers to his location, depending on the nature of the emergency.

But when the dispatcher came on, the gruff man, still angry with Ransom’s swagger, shouted, “Stop muckity-mucking with the call line!”

This did not make sense to Griffin, who’d read statistics on the call boxes. It usually sent out a five-man team of officers in a patrol wagon that carried a stretcher, cuffs, blankets, and their obligatory clubs. Each box cost the city twenty-five dollars! And over the past two years alone some 879, 548 distress calls to the various stations had been made.

But this fellow at the other end must be reported as derelict or drunk on duty, as again he hung up!

Griffin raced from the box, forgetting to close it, as a storm began to break around him, lightning streaking the black backdrop of sky against the Ferris wheel and the mas

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sive buildings of the fair, all the White City bathed in sudden downpour. Griffin knew if he were to make the same coach before Ransom completely disappeared, he’d have to hustle as never before.

Ahead of him, Griff saw the cabstand, some of the horses reacting to the sudden thunder and lightning,