“This doesn’t concern you, young lady. Get to your studies.”
“But only the other day . . . what was it you called him? A thug with a badge! ”
“Keep thy enemies close.”
“You hypocrite.”
“Gabby!”
“Go then! Dance with the devil! Draw attention! Yet you shout at me with poor dead Cliff? What of your precious practice? What if Inspector Ransom sees through it all?”
“He won’t.”
“He came damn close getting you drunk! He’s notorious!”
“He’s . . . that is, his asking me— Jane—out . . . it’s—”
“A surprise?”
“He is unpredictability personified.”
Gabby looked at her mother anew. “Hold on . . . you’re flattered, aren’t you?”
“Why nonsense. I must take care is all. He’s seen me. I must be . . . natural.”
“Ahhh . . .” Gabby paced off and returned. “All right, but if you’re to do this right, we’ve got to do up your hair, and Mother, a little rouge and lipstick, please.”
“I’ll not waste a moment primping for that man.”
“Really? Mother! You must lay a foundation, make some preparations. I’ll help you. I’ve got new cosmetics from Carson’s, so be here at six.”
“An hour before his arrival?”
“Right . . . more time’s needed. Make it five.”
Gabby hugged her mother and whispered in her ear,
“Still, I worry.”
“Stop it.”
“He’s so darkly . . .”
“Mysterious?”
“Notorious.”
“Ten percent true, ninety percent bull-swallop.”
198
ROBERT W. WALKER
“Mother! Bull-swallop? Is that the same as bullshit?”
“Gabby!”
Gabby followed her mother into her bedroom. “Well . . .
Inspector Ransom uses the term pig-swallop for—”
“Gabby! Watch your tongue! Is this what you’re learning at Northwestern Medical? How to swear like a sailor?”
“I’m a liberated woman, a suffragette now. I think I can say bullshit when the need arises, and this is a time for—”
“You’ve been sneaking to meetings with that fanatical friend of yours, Lucy Wistera, haven’t you?”
“Lucy talks sense! It’s time we had a say-so in politics.
Look at how G’damn awful the world is with men running things since Roman times!”
Jane sat at her makeup counter, carefully applying her mustache. “You, young woman, are going to get your mouth washed out with lye soap if you—”
“Oh, please, Mother!”
“I raised you a lady! Not a tramp of the streets!”
“You ought to be in the rally, Mother. You’d be a beacon to all women everywhere as Dr. Jane Francis, but no! You’ve gotta go about dressed as a man!”
“That is enough! Taking such a tone, young lady! What is happening with you?”
“You taught me to stand up for my rights! It’s time you did! As for taking God’s name in vain, if he’s a man like men insist, then Lucy says it’s time He got us the vote!”
Turning from her mirror, Jane stared Gabby in the eye.
“Look here, I’m trying to make a life for us, to—to keep you in school, and you need to put all effort and con—”
“Concentration, I know, into my studies! But damn it what confounded good’re studies when the end result is . . . well, look at you, Mother! Having to masquerade as a man in order to get equal pay and equal treatment? Do you plan to vote in the upcoming elections as Dr. Tewes as well, Mother?” Jane’s voice cracked when she replied, “I raised you a lady, groomed you a professional, not some pseudo
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intellectual, Bible-thumping, horn-blowing brat with a cause and a flag made of bloomers! Do you have a notion what’s to become of Lucy Wistera and her pack once they’ve been stoned and arrested and jailed?” “Stoned and jailed by ignorance. People who haven’t a clue as to what a suffragette is!”
“Well, you’re right there. Most of the city can’t read English! In fact, most can’t read in any language!”
A huge silence came down around them, and as Dr. Tewes stared back at Jane in the mirror, the doorbell rang. “See to the door; if it’s for Dr. Tewes, show them into the clinic.”
“Oh, it’s just Waldo Denton. He’s becoming a nuisance.”
“Where did you say you met him? At the university?”
“Not exactly, but yes.”
“What?” Jane’s confusion was clear even through her makeup.”
“I catch his cab most days out to the school, and . . . he’s made it his business to flirt.”
“I hope you have enough sense to not encourage it. A cabby!”
“He’s apprenticing as a photographer and is trying to get me to sit for him.”
“Don’t fall for it!” Jane bristled. “Get rid of him. Get your mind off the vote, photographic modeling, boys, and onto your studies!”
“You’re so romantic, Mother.”
Evening at the Tewes residence
“It’s him! Inspector Ransom,” Gabby called out to Jane.
Just the other side of their sheer drapes paced the pipe-chewing Ransom.
“Now behave, young woman. Use civility but stall him.”
“You talk of civility,” Gabby replied, stealing a glance at the infamous Inspector she secretly admired, “while lying to a police official?”
200
ROBERT W. WALKER
He looked the size of a Montana grizzly she’d seen depicted in Harper’s Illustrated Weekly. Ominous and threatening and alluring at once, always striking just the right pose—in tune with his reputation. Her friend Lucy had once, in passing, said of the notorious detective that he doled out his own unique brand of justice before any judge or jury got the case. Said Ransom gained full confessions more than any other inspector in the city, the county, and perhaps the country by employing horrible instruments of torture like the widow-maker, the thumb screw, the rack, the spiked cage, the firebrand, and jagged broken bottles fused to chains, while ordinary coppers used only nightsticks and saps. According to rumors repeated by Lucy—“Occurs in a secret place ’long the river, close ’nough when a prisoner expires, his body’s tossed out a window into the dirty waters to float far from any interrogation, and no one the wiser.” Such talk had begun with Millie Thebold saying, “No one speaks of it, but this is Ransom’s city . . .”
“Meaning?” Gabby had asked, taking the bait.
“Meaning,” replied Lucy, “nothing happens without getting back to him in one fashion or another.”
Millie chimed in again. “Police talk! Means Chicago is Ransom’s city, like Paris, France, is Vjdoc’s city or was ’fore he died.” She then held up a dime novel, the title reading The Adventures of Inspector Vjdoc.”
Gabby opened the door, smiling wide. “Welcome once again to our humble home, Inspector. You look quite dashing tonight.”
The sounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition competed with horse hooves over the cobblestones as cabs came and went, bringing people to and from the gay lights and activity of the fair this warm summer’s eve. Ransom had been feeling awkward, unsure what they might talk about, he and the lovely Miss Jane, until he finally blurted out a comment. “I CITY FOR RANSOM
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am often too serious, too involved in my work, with not enough time to relax much less visit a place like this.”
“I’d’ve never guessed,” she teased.
He felt comforted that she could so easily joke with him.
“What about yourself?”
“What of me?” she countered.