“My God… my God, Declan, what’re you trying to do?” asked Thomas Coogan as his best friend, Declan Irvin, using long-handled bone cutters, severed McAffey’s spine with a single snap.
“There!” Declan announced, a look of satisfaction passing as quickly as it had arrived. “I was… .was afraid for a moment we’d have to turn him over and open him up from the posterior.”
Declan seems a natural at this, thought Ransom, while Thomas appears queasy, but who am I to talk? Ransom felt on the verge of losing his last meal. While Alastair had been to countless autopsies and inquests back in Chicago, none were anything like this; nothing so putrid smelling as the gases emanating from McAffey’s leathery corpse.
“I’ve seen a lot of things in my sixty some odd years on the planet, lads, but never what’s been done to these men. It leaves me speechless.”
“Why’s it necessary, Declan,” pressed Thomas again, looking over his glasses, “to-to sever the spine?”
Declan answered not with words but by holding the end of the severed section of the spinal cord up to their eyes. “What’s missing from this picture? Thomas, what do you see? Answer me.”
“Dry as bone inside—not a drop of spinal fluid… .”
“As I suspected—somehow the spinal fluid and even the bone marrow… it’s just gone, but by what power?”
“Why take a man’s spinal fluid?” asked Thomas.
Declan shook his head. “Somehow this thing robs a man of every ounce of fluid in the body.”
“But down to a man’s spine!”
“Empty as a beer keg,” agreed Ransom, eyes wide.
“All of it gone, but how? Sucked from the bones do you think?” If Thomas had looked unnerved before, he looked doubly so now.
“Thomas, hold yourself together, man. We have two more bodies to open up.”
“To what bloody end? We damn well know the others’ll be identical to McAffey, Declan.”
“We can’t know that unless we put eyes on it.”
“It’s bloody obvious they suffered the same fate.”
Ransom held back to allow the young doctors to settle this.
Declan got nose to nose with his friend. “And suppose O’Toole lived longer than McAffey, and your uncle even longer? Suppose it’s obvious one of them had put up a better fight than did McAffey?”
“We’d be well informed to know as much, yes.” Thomas stepped back half a foot.
“If that’s so, Tommie, we have to determine how the one may’ve fought it off, don’t you see?”
“To affect a cure, of course… I realize but are we up to it, Declan? I mean, we’re just a couple of medical students at best.”
“We’re up to it.”
“It’s not as if we’re the best equipped for the job!”
“Dr. B and the dean surely are not up to it, Thomas, and so If not us, then by God who will step into the breach?”
Ransom placed his bear-like paw onto Thomas’ shoulder to steady the young man. Thomas looked from Declan to Ransom and nodded. “All right. All right but we may well be doomed before we’ve begun; there isn’t the time.”
“Close up Mr. McAffey for me then, Thomas, and I’ll start on O’Toole, unless you wish to do the honors.” Declan held up the scalpel for Thomas, but he declined it.
“Perhaps I’ll… I’ll open up Uncle Anton.” Thomas held a quivering chin high, his eyes challenging now.
“That’s not going to be easy, Thomas. Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure of anything—not a single bloody thing. Are you?”
“To be honest, no!” Declan saw his gritted teeth reflected in Thomas’ glasses.
“All right, give it to me.” Thomas held his hand out for the scalpel that Declan had earlier offered. “I’ll do O’Toole and leave Uncle Anton in your hands.”
“Well played, Thomas.” Declan reached for a scalpel that Thomas had laid out for his own use, and he handed it to Thomas.
Ransom had come to admire the young interns for their care with one another and their obvious, powerful bond, not to mention their concern for the general population. He paid little attention as Declan sewed up McAffey with the medical string—cat gut— binding the skin together in a way that made him think of a popular book he’d read entitled Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, wife to the famous English poet. He felt a chill run through him on recalling the account of the hybrid thing brought back from the dead. The unnatural condition of these bodies brought the imagery full on within his mind.
Ransom struggled to banish the bad thoughts from his mind’s eye. Ironically, the only thing that managed it in the least was to look over Thomas’ shoulder as the lad now opened up O’Toole. It always had fascinated Alastair to watch a good medical man at his surgical task. Back in Chicago, during times when not too busy, he’d sit in on dissections at the great theater built for students of the famous Dr. Christian Fenger to observe and learn. He’d also seen his lover, Dr. Jane Tewes in action there—her deft hands like a butterfly one moment, like a strong machine the next.
He longed to see Jane again, to be with her, imagined what she might look like after so many years, how she had gotten on without him any longer in her life. Perhaps she’d wisely moved on. Perhaps she’d found a good man. Jane remained his greatest loss on having to leave, or rather escape Chicago. How often had he wanted to send her and Gabrielle a letter, reveal where he was, pray that mother and daughter would join him, perhaps in Paris? His damnable logical side had always stopped him, asking what kind of life could he provide for her and Gabby so long as he remained a fugitive on the run?
Ransom had learned a good deal over the years about autopsies, and he suspected should Thomas falter or faint out, that he could in a pinch, take over for the boy—but only if need be.
The dead Mr. O’Toole’s facial features, like those of McAffey, had coalesced into a sickening grin, a gut-wrenching grimace. Still this gargoyle’s grimace gave Ransom a mild comfort in that at least this was, oddly enough, something familiar to him; familiar in so many corpses. ‘Death’s Smile’ as some called it so often accompanied the end right alongside the rattle of a final breath.
“Holy Mother of God!” Thomas erupted as a foamy, bubbling material rose from the cut he made at O’Toole’s chest, making a gurgling noise and sending Thomas backing into Ransom which caused him another start, and one hand landed in the soupy, brown matter oozing from O’Toole. The only saving grace was the glove running up Thomas’ arm and his matching leather apron. “The man has some strange fluid here like ichor… color of black tea…”
Declan joined them, and all three stared at the ooze bubbling up from the Y incision begun by Thomas. “Maybe there’s something to your theory, after all, Declan. I mean if this—O’Toole’s got some residual fluid—whatever it is.”
“Residual fluid, yes. Whatever’s devastated McAffey, O’Toole lasted longer. He managed to get out of the mine… was found behind a bulkhead in the ship. Perhaps something in his makeup, resisted the disease more vigorously than did McAffey.”
“Something in his blood perhaps?” asked Thomas.
“Blood is not the answer to every bloody question,” countered Declan.
“What about the heart? The other organs?” asked Ransom. “Are they in any better shape than McAffey’s?”
Declan shook his head. “No… wish we had time to look at the brain, eh, Thomas?”
“No time as it is.”
“Do be careful not to touch the leaking fluid to your exposed skin, Thomas.” Declan had taken a step toward his friend to emphasize the danger.
“Thank God I used the leather gloves.” Thomas had backed off, not wanting to get even the odors bubbling up from the body in his nostrils. Still, he returned to his surgical instruments and continued his incision while suddenly ordering Declan around. “Keep calm, Declan and don’t snatch away those gloves you have on.” He indicated the elbow-length gloves on Declan’s forearms and hands.
“You too, Detective Wyland.” Declan tossed Alastair a pair. “I refuse to bury you, too.”
Alastair willingly took the tight-fitting surgical leather gloves that went up and over the forearms. He’d seen similar gloves used by cattle butchers in Chicago, and while they did encumber the fingers of a surgeon, they were deemed a far safer form of defense against noxious and infectious organisms than the typical white cloth gloves surgeons preferred during an operation.
Again Thomas continued cutting, and as he did so, the dry cordwood of the exterior of the corpse cracked, crinkled, popped, and came wide, popping again as it did so. The noise alone was disturbing, but the sight proved worse yet.
He soon could see the condition of the organs, and like McAffey’s before, the organs had dried and shrunken to the point they were nearly unrecognizable, despite the soupy, bubbling brackish fluids they floated in.
“What now?” Thomas asked.
“Check the bone and the spinal cord to make the comparisons, but take care. Don’t get that unnatural fluid on your skin.” Declan made more notes in his ledger. His meticulous care with his records impressed Ransom.
Thomas swallowed hard, and took the bone cutter handed him by Ransom. With his leather bound hands literally in the soup, in a matter of minutes, Thomas snapped one of the ribs open, cut out a section, dried it of superfluous fluid, and held it up to the light for all three of them to inspect. “Bone dry inside—no fluid, no marrow,” muttered Thomas.
“I’m surprised,” replied Ransom.
Declan kept silent council on this finding. He then urged Thomas on, saying, “Now the spinal column, just as we did with McAffey. It’s vitally important that we duplicate each step.”
“It’ll be the same, Declan; I know it, and so do you—and this fluid, this is not natural… not supposed to be here, not in a body in this condition.”
“You’d think all three were dead for a thousand years,” added Ransom.
“This unusual dehydration of the body, coming as it has before decay… it’s as if all the natural process of breaking down was somehow sped up!” said Declan, chewing now on a piece of beef jerky he’d found in one of the freezers. The snack likely belonged to one of the faculty members. He took a moment to share it with Thomas, but Ransom declined the offer.
Thomas next found a spot on O’Toole’s spinal column, and the cutters sent up the snapping sound that Ransom was beginning to detest. Then came a second cut. With forceps, Thomas lifted out the section he’d taken and held it up to the overhead light.
“Again nothing… dry as desert air.” Thomas placed the section of spine the length of a thumb onto a metal plate for later tagging.
“We need a sample of the brackish fluid pooled in the body,” said Declan, and Ransom grabbed up an empty small jar and handed this to Thomas. Declan then lifted a slide, “and I want a look at this muck under the ’scope.”
Thomas scooped some of the brownish-to-black gruel from where it had bubbled and pooled; he captured a heaping specimen in the jar. Declan, leather gloves still in place, took a smear of the stuff for his slide. He rushed over to the microscope and began working the scope to get a clear magnification. With his eyes still on the lens, he moaned, “My God, Thomas, have a look.”
Thomas stepped to the scope, hesitated a moment, and then examined the slide. He said nothing but looked up at Thomas and the two medical men exchanged a look of deep, abiding concern.
“What the hell is it?” asked Ransom, pushing between the young men—a veritable bull in a china shop here in the lab area of the surgery. Ransom took a long look at what was beneath the slide which was magnified five seven-hundred and fifty times. When Ransom looked up again, he repeated, “What in hell is that?”
“Who bloody knows,” cursed Thomas.
“It’s nothing we’ve ever seen before, but thankfully, whatever it is, the good news is its dying before our eyes.”
“Whatever it is… it doesn’t appear well adapted to oxygen and light, now does it?” asked Thomas. “Whether dying or not, we have to culture it… keep it alive, Declan.”
“What?” asked Ransom. “What’re you saying—keep it alive?” He watched Thomas who’d set about the lab in search of what he needed.
Declan held up a hand to Ransom. “Thomas is correct; to learn from this thing, to understand it, this is the only way, and besides, we can prove its existence to others far easier if it wiggles under the scope.”
“And the only way we can defeat it,” added Thomas. “It’s no use to us dead if we’re ever to find a cure.”
“We need to place it in a culture that will support its life, you see…”
“And at the same time keep our distance from it.” Declan went about the process of finding a culture that the organism might either flourish in or go dormant in yet maintain life.
“Where did this thing come from?” asked Ransom, pacing now, thinking what might happen if this organism were to spread. “Is it a form of the Black Plague?” “No… I don’t think so,” replied Declan, covering his mouth as he coughed to one side.
“I wish it were the bloody Black Plague,” muttered Thomas, who appeared more knowledgeable in disease organisms than Declan, who was obviously the better surgeon. “Black Plague, now there’s a condition we’ve had some experience with over the years, and we know it.”
“Aye, the enemy you know,” muttered Ransom.
“We know next to nothing of how this thing, whatever it is, is transmitted,” began Declan.
“And we know even less about what kind of defenses we can place up against it,” added Thomas. “With smallpox, the greatest scourge and killer of the ages, at least we know it when we see it. But this… no, we haven’t a clue what it is, nor how to treat it—much less how to defeat it!”
“All the same, it begins in the lab with brilliant young men like Thomas Coogan,” said Declan, dropping into a metal chair for a moment’s respite.
“And yourself, Declan,” Thomas, blushing red, returned the compliment.
“So how long before a cure is found?”
“How long indeed.” Declan laughed.
“Years quite possibly, if at all.”
Ransom didn’t care for the sound of that. “There’s still a fourth missing man out there, the agent, Tuttle.”
“That’s where you come in, Detective. You must locate Tuttle, whether dead or alive.” Thomas stood over the microscope again and studied the enemy, his eyes on the parasite under the light. “I’ve always wanted to say that—wanted, dead or alive like you Americans say.” Thomas abruptly changed his tone. “Look here, Declan, at these little beasties. There’re a few left, cannibalizing the others. We might try taking the stronger cells. See if we can save the little buggers.”
“Perhaps I should get on that search for our missing agent.” Ransom stepped toward the door, his stomach churning. “Do my part… find Tuttle, last seen aboard Titanic.”
“We’d much prefer Tuttle alive, but if so, he may prove a terrible danger to you, detective,” replied Declan, who’d returned his eyes to the scope.
“Do hold on, sir,” suggested Thomas, “and wait for what we find in Uncle Anton.”
“Why bother? You don’t need to open him up now!” countered Ransom, stepping closer. “I mean you’ve got your comparisons with the two miners. You have your aunt’s feelings to consider. You don’t need to cut on your relative.”
But it was as if the young interns, once underway with their scalpels, could not be deterred by any logic Ransom might raise.
“We could be missing the bigger picture here, Detective.” Thomas now stood over his uncle’s body with the scalpel in hand, Declan nodding beside him, encouraging him. The moment gave Ransom pause; it had him recalling two things of great precision: How Dr. Christian Fenger and Dr. Jane Tewes acted whenever given an opportunity to operate—to wield a scalpel. It would appear the scalpel spoke the same language to these young surgeons.
The scalpel sliced through Uncle Anton’s chest, and again the crackling sound beneath the blade rose to their ears. Seeping from the cut, rising bubbles and brackish fluid, but this time the fluid and bubbles proved somewhat clearer. It just about proved Declan’s theory of the sequence of how these men died. McAffey in the mine with that beast they had uncovered from the wall—which now lay within one of the freezers in the wall here, followed by O’Toole, escaping the mine, coming into contact then with Anton Fiore—each man passing the disease to the other. Or so it would appear.
Thomas worked faster over his uncle when something hard hit the floor, the noise turning everyone to it. At first it was assumed that Ransom had bullishly knocked over a lab dish or instrument, but then they saw the white bone near his feet. “Something out of the pile of clothes tossed on that shelf,” Ransom said, shrugging.
“It’s the other sabre-tooth… must’ve been in one of the pockets,” said Declan, going to it and lifting it. “I’m quite willing to bet it’s empty of pulp.”
“We’ve no time for teeth or games of chance now, Declan.” Thomas had kept working as if to stop at any point would end it for him. He’d determined to give no thought whatever that the final dissection was over his beloved uncle. He obviously had made up his mind to treat Fiore’s body as he might any shell rolled into the dissection theater here at the university complex at Mater Infirmorum.
Ransom thought how much a man Thomas had become this night. Meanwhile, Declan pocketed the tooth, saying, “Well it may come in handy later on when we have to explain ourselves, eh?”
After making the initial Y incision on his own uncle, then cracking the chest open, then watching the dank, dirty-brown liquid bubble up, Thomas had felt his entire body relax. He was thinking, ‘I love the work, despite everything’ when suddenly he stumbled back with a startled gasp. This caused Declan to drop a metal dish, creating a gunshot-like sound.
Ransom, certain he’d been fired on, had dropped to the floor as the noise reverberated about the operating theater. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“Membranous tissue… ah-ah where it doesn’t belong.” Thomas pointed his leather-gloved hand with scalpel at the open chest.
“Are those sacs?” asked Ransom, shaken. “Some sort of… eggs?”
“But miscarriages—all of them, deflated, ill-formed, and unfinished.” Thomas’s leather-gloved right hand and scalpel still pointed at his uncle’s splayed open body.
Declan cautiously made his way to the open cavity into which he now stared long and hard. “They’re not doing well these little fellows, but you’re correct, detective.”
“This is some strange sort of life form alien to us, and it’s trying to incubate here.” Thomas perspired and looked as if he might faint out. The damnable things’ve filled the chest and abdominal cavities.”
“Now we know where all the fluids in the host body have gone… into this effort at survival and growth.” The consummate scientist, Declan appeared positively glowing with the excitement of discovering a new life form.
“Each attempt within each human host appears to be coming closer to completing itself.” Declan looked at Ransom, adding, “Tuttle’s body is likely riddled with these… these things. We’ve got to find him, like I said, dead or alive, and maybe even quarantine that so-called unsinkable ship.”
“Sun’s up,” said Thomas who’d looked out the door leading to the small supply room they had entered through. “We’re running out of time. We need to get our story organized and records in order if we’re to convince the Dean and Dr. B.”
“We need more time,” complained Declan.
Ransom put his hat on, lifted his cane, and checked his pocket watch to see that it was indeed nearing 7AM. “Well lads, it has been an adventure. Best be gone before your professor shows up. What time does the professor normally arrive?”
“Eight sharp, ready to cut!” said Declan with an abrupt laugh, and the two young men shook their heads, Thomas slapping Declan on the arm. Ransom realized it was an inside joke they shared about their teacher, and this suspicion was solidified when Declan, fatigue-laden to begin with, began walking in an exaggerated manner, leather-gloved hands snapping at suspenders in mimicking Dr. Bellingham.
While Thomas bent over with laughter—a much needed balm now, Ransom smiled wide, envying the boys their bond of friendship when a sudden, loud pounding all around them silenced the trio, and with guns pointed, police slammed through doors on either side of the operating theater. Constable Ian Reahall entered shouting, “Take them all in—all three, Sergeant! Use your irons!”
Dr. Enoch Bellingham rushed in just behind Reahall, and he stared hard at his two students and asked, “What have you done here? How could you go against my wishes? The wishes of the Dean? To break your vows to me, to ignore our Queensland University code of conduct?”
“But sir!” began Declan.
“You may be interns but you are here at the hospital representing the kind of young men we bring up through Queensland!”
“But Dr. B-Bellingham,” pleaded Declan, “you must examine our findings!”
“We’ve made startling discoveries, sir,” added Thomas.
Dean Goodfriar rushed in now, looking as disheveled as Bellingham, as if both men had thrown on their clothes only moments before. “This is an outrage!” he shouted, looking from one dissected body to the next. “You are looking at expulsion, you… you scamps! You young idiots! I will see to it!”
“The entire place will have to be disinfected,” said Bellingham.
“You’re all under arrest for breaking and entering.” Reahall turned to the dean and the professor, adding, “Your students are now my prisoners. Put the irons on ’em, Sergeant.”
Dr. Bellingham and Dean Goodfriar tried to intervene on behalf of the boys, trying to reason with Reahall. Bellingham insisted, “This is a matter for the hospital and the university to deal with. This so-called detective is one thing,” he shoved a wagging index finger in Alastair’s direction. “But these are my students, and I will see to their punishment, you can be assured.”
“Then you can put up bail for them well enough. Sergeant Quinlan! Do your duty, man. I’ve been up all night, and I’m in no mood for pleasantries among you… you gentry.”
If he weren’t in serious trouble himself, Ransom would have laughed to see the poor sergeant going back and forth at the interns with irons in hand, going forth one step, back two depending on who was speaking. Whenever the dean or Bellingham took exception, he backed off; when Reahall spoke, he stepped to it. In the meantime, the young interns were struggling to get their hands free of the long leather gloves. At the same time, a second uniformed officer clamped irons on Alastair—hands and feet.
“It’s not Mr. Wyland’s doing, Dr. B., Dean Goodfriar, please, I mean… Thomas and I pushed him into this business, but please, whatever you do with us, you must examine our findings. I’ve kept exact notes on our findings, please, sir… please it is a serious disease we’re faced with, one without a name! And we need your help… we all need to work together—as a team, sir—like you always say ‘we men of science must work together’—remember?”
Thomas lifted his hands to Dr. Bellingham, hands in chains now, and said, “Sirs, this disease could be of great importance to you both; in fact, it may even be named after you. Goodfriar’s disease… or Bellinghamitis. Look as interns at the university, Declan and I have no claim to it, and besides, we need your backing, sirs… please.”
Goodfriar considered this argument, tugged at his whiskers as if considering the import of what the boys were saying, but then he took command, saying, “Yes, you’re right, Constable Reahall—shackle them and take them away! After all, we’ve heard the confession. Don’t you agree, Bellingham? We’ve heard enough.”
Ransom saw the old dean’s devious eyes had lit up with this last suggestion coming from Thomas. He could almost see the phrase alight in the man’s mind reading: Goodfriar’s disease. One for the ages. Immortality of a sick kind, literally speaking.
“You can place bail tomorrow at court if you want them back,” Reahall said to Bellingham, “but to get the lesson across, you shouldn’t be rushing to their defense or to place bail without exacting time behind bars—in my humble opinion—sirs.”
Ransom knew that Reahall wanted only him, and that he also wanted to question the lads, especially his paid informant, Thomas, to determine if Ransom had given anything away. The constable now stepped to within inches of Ransom and stared into his steely gray eyes and said, “I don’t suppose anyone will be bailing you out, Detective ahh… Wyland.”
“Constable,” Ransom calmly replied, “tell me you’ve located Tuttle, the Pinkerton agent.”
“That’s naught to do with you now, Mr. Wwwyland.” The exaggeration of Ransom’s alias told him once again that Reahall believed him to be the escapee from the hangman in Chicago. What Reahall hoped to do with that knowledge, Ransom hadn’t a clue, but he knew human nature only too well, and he suspected the constable, up in years himself, was most likely thinking of how he might turn it into ready cash. After all, the Chicago style of politics was born in Ireland.
“Take ’em away, Sergeant, and see that you and your men keep a sharp eye out for this sly fox; I believe he’s escaped justice many times. Take nothing for granted with him; do you understand? If he so much as asks about your health or family, gag the man.”
“But Dr. Belligham, Dean Goodfriar–” cried out Declan—“we’re all in danger of the plague! Not only Belfast but quite possibly Southampton where Titanic’s going next. If this agent is aboard—whether alive or dead—he’ll be spreadin’ the disease!”
“The ship must be quarantined and now!” added Thomas at the top of his lungs.
Ransom joined in as he was led out, “Fools! Damn fools, all of you! You’ve got to listen to the lads!”
“Look at the records I’ve kept, Dr. B, like you’ve taught us—please!” poured forth Declan’s final plea.
Ransom fought his handler, Sergeant Quinlan, long enough to stand before Dr. Bellingham and Goodfriar to add, “This situation needs you men to step up. You’ve a pair of bloody smart doctors in those two lads, and you best heed them! I implore you!”
Reahall had snatched out a bandana, and he now gagged and silenced Ransom. He then gave Ransom a shove and shouted at his subordinates, “Get a-moving, you men!”
In the court yard outside the building Ransom saw the dreaded paddy wagon awaiting him and the young internists, as they made their way down the long walkway past nurses and doctors coming on duty for the morning shift at the hospital proper, many stopping to stare and wonder at the commotion. Ransom took in the last breaths of a breeze, sorry for the boys who must feel the heat of anxiety welling up from within them. Their lives could well be ruined by the night’s work, he imagined. On the other hand, he faced a rope should Reahall discover his true identity.
The two young interns appeared despondent and defeated. But there was a bounce in Constable Reahall’s step as he ushered Ransom along. From just behind Ransom, Reahall whispered in Alastair’s ear, “You’re the bloody fool now aren’t you? Man, you could’ve been away—out of my jurisdiction. Why did you linger?”
Ransom’s answer came as a garbled sound like a dying goose, until Reahall loosened the gag which fell about Ransom’s chin. “Let us say I had an itch needing scratching and an arse needing kissing, and I chose you to take care of it, Constable.”
“You’re sure to feel most at home in a Belfast cell.” Reahall had come around to walk alongside him, and Ransom saw a glint of absolute gleeful satisfaction in his green eyes.
“How much?” Ransom asked.
“A hundred fifty pounds. I’m not a greedy man.”
“You’ll release me then?”
“Aside from myself, no one knows your history; I’ve made it my study of late. But for all anyone knows, you’re arrested for breaking and entering… and this could remain the only charge before the judge. One I can nullify… if you get my drift.”
“I don’t have that much coin,” replied Ransom. “What then?”
“Then I contact your friends in America; you must know someone there who could forward funds. It is, after all, the country where the streets are paved with gold.”
Ransom laughed. “There’re no golden streets in Chicago; golden properties waiting to be developed, yes, but I have no friends back there with deep pockets.”
“Then you are confessing to being Inspector Alastair Ransom here and now?”
“No, not in the least.”
“But you just said you have no friends in Chicago.”
“Correct as I have never lived in that city, although I did visit it once for the World’s Fair. You have me confused with someone else, Constable.”
“Stubborn fool.”
Ransom reiterated his cover story: “As I’ve told ya, Constable, I’ve no friends back there—meaning America and Chicago in particular. I’ve only visited Chicago. I’m Boston born and bred. A seaman at heart, really—hoping to get a berth here in time.”
“Visited Chicago, yes, for the fair… the World’s Fair, so you’ve said.”
“It’s true. I went up on Mr. Ferris’ wheel—a hundred seventy feet into the sky. Terrifying.”
“Liar; you’ve been lying so long, I suspect you think it the truth.”
“Truth be known, you are a common thief, aren’t you Reahall?”
“Not so common, not really.”
“You hold all the cards, sir.”
Reahall smiled. “That much I know… and I know you are a card player—poker, yes? They tell me that’s your game.”
Ransom smiled at this, wondering how many men around the table at the Red Lion were on the constable’s payroll, and how many men in Belfast Reahall had his hooks into. When Walter McComas had volunteered so readily to join them in going to the mine was he, too, on the take—a Reahall snitch? Belfast politics and graft seemed a long way from Chicago’s ills, and yet not so far after all, not now, not as Ransom and his two young clients were forced into Reahall’s paddy wagon.
The ride in the back of the smelly wagon that bumped its way over cobblestone streets gave Alastair pause. Belfast remained behind the times, and his situation now recalled a time when he’d ridden in such a wagon down Chicago streets in 1893, the year of the great fair, the fair that ended with the assassination of Chicago’s most beloved mayor. But why dwell on the unchangeable past, he silently counseled himself, and instead he stared across at the two boys arrested with him. He asked himself the question Reahall had put to him: Why didn’t I disappear when I had the chance? At the same time, the lads kept up a constant chatter about what fools and idiots they had to put up with, and how disappointed they were in their Dr. Bellingham. They outright cursed Dean Goodfriar as a hopeless cause.
The sputtering mechanical wagon, powered by an easily choked off engine, jerked, their bodies reacting, as it pulled for the waiting Belfast jail. When the wagon smoothed out a bit, rattling over the cobblestones, Ransom recalled the evening before when Reahall and Bellingham had come on scene where the ancient creature lay alongside McAffey’s body. He recalled the familiarity between Bellingham and Reahall, and he felt rather lonely in being the only one in the rear of the wagon who knew that Professor Bellingham and quite possibly Dean Goodfriar were as surely in bed with the local constable as any of the toughs at the Red Lion Inn.