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did let Sleepeck Stumpf have his way, however, it would destroy any hairsbreadth of a chance to make Gabby see him . . . really see him and eventually see into him and eventually somehow understand the so-called Phantom of the Fair.

Enough to eventually accept his past ill behavior and forgive his transgressions as only unconditional love could free the beast within to slink off elsewhere, back to its den to hiber-nate and hopefully die of its own loneliness and suffering, which, in the end, Waldo Denton had no part of and had never had any part of—and so his mind raced at the moment of sipping tea and chewing birthday cake.

She had invited Waldo in—dear, sweet angelic Gabrielle, CITY FOR RANSOM

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with the smiling assent of the woman Gabrielle called Aunt Jane.

Earlier . . . it seemed moments earlier, he’d watched Gabby as her aunt called out to her, something about being out alone after dark, that a girl of her social position, being the daughter of Dr. Tewes, she must not give the gossip columnists a scrap to chew on, not even an appearance of impropriety. It had made him, sitting atop the coach, impulsively call back, “Oh, no ma’am, no one could think ill of Miss Gabrielle, never!” That’s when Gabby smiled at him, her attention like a balm. Each time he drove her home from the university, where he intentionally waited, turning away other fares, Gabby gave him all her attentiveness while he spoke of one day owning his own farm and farm animals. No one had ever given him what she offered—attentiveness.

At that moment when she’d smiled up at him, what he saw in her was so amazing. She’d alighted from the cab like a floating princess with hidden wand and invisible wings.

She’d forgotten her umbrella in his cab, a memory lapse or an invitation? Of course, she wanted him to return. She liked men like him. Cliffton hadn’t been so different from him, not really? Save his prospects . . . save his dreams. But even in their dreams, especially their secret desires, to have this angel of earth caress their bodies and touch their trapped souls . . . even in this, he was no different from Purvis. The two of them clinging on Gabrielle, wanting the honor of being possessed by her, and wanting the honor of being able to address her as an enduring love, as her closest intimate on earth, to call Gabby his. And if he could not have her, surely . . . surely Stumpf would.

Waldo wanted more for her . . . more for himself . . .

more for them. He hated the thought of the empty, lost, acrid feeling in his soul whenever Stumpf finished with him.

Whenever Stumpf was sated and fulfilled, the bastard thing just went away with his good feelings and left Waldo empty and lonelier than ever, a depression like a dull blunt knife 312

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cutting directly into his brain and soul. If the word lie had a face, it was Stumpf.

She had left the umbrella, rushing off after pushing the few coins through the slot to his fingertips, touching him as she did so. He’d savored the touch and lingered there, noticing the umbrella, but then he’d been distracted by the aunt’s calling out from the porch.

He’d momentarily forgotten about Gabby’s umbrella, thinking he must get in somewhere, while another part of him gave an evil thought to how he’d manipulated Chicago’s so-called premiere detective away from the Tewes home and the Tewes women he’d been watching now for some time, sending Ransom to stand about in the rain at the lagoon on the say-so of Waldo Denton!

He wondered how it’d play in the press to people if it were known that while Stumpf killed someone tonight, the great detective and “last survivor” of Haymarket spent his night in the park!

Stumpf hated Ransom but Waldo Denton had even more reason to hate him. According to all accounts, Ransom had bound and beaten and eventually burned to death Waldo’s father. Waldo felt justified in unleashing Stumpf—who had always been in the shadow of his soul, awaiting release. Felt justified in allowing Stumpf to terrorize a city that had allowed Alastair Ransom to operate above the law, and in fact crown him in a sense with promotion and career advancement, and why? Haymarket and his bloody injury? As if being injured carried with it some badge of heroism and honor!

Had there been no bomb thrown into a crowd—lobbed from they say twenty or twenty-five feet from some unknown assailant—perhaps authorities would have done a thorough investigation into one Alastair Ransom by now. Would they’ve concluded him a coward and a murderer instead or a hero? Those men who were hung as anarchist of Haymarket long before Waldo knew their names or their connection with his father—these were the real heroes of Haymarket!

He’d gotten a couple blocks away from the Tewes home CITY FOR RANSOM

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contemplating all this when he recalled the umbrella, his invitation to return to Gabby tonight. What must Waldo do then? He must prove himself to her, prove his case, lay it all out in black and white. The war in which he meant to harm everyone Ransom cared for—Polly, Philo, and now Gabrielle if he could not have her. He’d seen them that night up late, Ransom leaving the house, and Gabby saying goodbye at the door.

“Appearances,” the aunt had said on a number of occasions from doorway and window. Hell, it was no appearance the way they’d looked at one another, and the aunt in slum-ber somewhere deep in the house, and the father nowhere to be seen.

And so here he stood in the foyer, Gabby offering him tea, the aunt concerned his wet clothes from the storm might cause him to catch his death.

To catch his death? She oughta concern herself with her own death, he thought from behind the smile as Aunt Jane helped him remove the heavy frock, part of his hansom cab-man’s uniform.

Jane failed to notice the buttons on the hansom uniform overcoat. Each button read CPS. She merely shook off the rain and hung the heavy coat on the rack beside her telephone.

CHAPTER 25

The hansom coach nearly toppled over as it came around the corner at Broadway and Belmont, and then it came to a screeching halt before the newly chiseled and painted overhanging shingle that announced the residence and infirmary of Dr. J. P. Tewes.

Ransom leapt from the cab, shouting, “Mark me, Griff, that idle carriage over there tied to the lamppost! It’ll be Denton’s hack!”

Griff stuck his head from the cab into the rain, and he saw the single horse hansom standing idle under the downpour.

Could Ransom be more right? He was also surprised at how agile the big man could be when circumstances dictated sup-pleness. But just as he made this conclusion, Alastair slipped on Tewes’s stairs and tumbled into a puddle of mud. With cane in hand, Ransom pushed upward and stood, his suit doused and dripping of mud, his face splotched with it, making him into a creature out of H. G. Wells’s books. But the big man allowed nothing to slow him, and like a raging animal, he rushed for the front door, his revolver drawn.

Griffin lifted his collar against the wind-driven rain as he rushed for the rear of the house. “I pray we’re in time!” he shouted against the night. “I have the back covered!”

“Good man, Griff!”

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Ransom began taking the door down with his boot, chop-ping directly at the lock. Two kicks, shoulders pulled in-ward, Ransom crashed through, no warrant sworn out, no caution taken, no thought of anything beyond saving Jane and Gabby from tragedy. The sheer explosion of his entrance sounded like lightning had hit.

Griff found the rear door and hesitating only a moment, he followed Inspector Ransom’s example and lifted his foot and kicked out viciously at the lock. The door came way on the second kick, flying open. Just as he kicked open the back door, Griff heard the gunshot—a single huge explosion crackling at the front of the house. Griff had whipped out his own weapon, a Winchester muzzle-loading six-shooter his father had given him the day he’d joined