“And you took the money?”
“I did! I had no bloody choice. I was in no position to take the high ground. I had Jane to think of.”
“What in the name of God were you thinking, taking Jane out there?”
“Damn it, Christian, have you ever tried to control that woman?”
“Yes, yes, once or twice I’ve made the attempt.”
Ransom looked long into his friend’s eyes. He erupted in laughter over the famous doctor’s last remark. Dr. Fenger laughed now.
People going by the office thought it odd how these two men could switch from shouting to laughter so quickly.
Still sitting, Ransom said, “No one will miss Bloody Mary, and we may never know who the other victim was.”
“How will you proceed? Or rather, will you proceed against Chapman, Kohler?”
“I have no evidence beyond Jane, and I would not jeopardize her life.”
“There is the coachman.”
“Not bloody likely to ever see him again. He was paid well enough to be in Denver by now.”
Inspector and surgeon sat in gloomy silence for a long moment.
“What’ll you do now, Alastair? About the Vanishings…Leather Apron?”
Alastair shared the plan he was putting into operation.
Christian breathed deeply, giving thought to what Alastair proposed. “Have you given any thought to the tunnels below the fair?”
“Tunnels below the fair?”
“Talk to the architect of the fair, Daniel Hudson Burnham.”
“I’ve read about him in the papers, yes, but-”
“I tell you, Alastair, the workers cleared away acres ’pon acres.”
“I realize that, but still-”
“Land that was here is now over there, built out onto the lake even, and the fair builders wanted a lagoon, so they built a lagoon, you know. That takes a lot of subterranean work.”
“I suppose you’re right, now that you mention it…”
“The builders had to create some pylons for the permanent structures, and this means ever more subterranean work.” Fenger leaned in over his desk.
“Then you’re suggesting there are networks of tunnels connecting the museums?”
“No, I am not suggesting. I am telling you.”
“How accessible are these passages?”
“Given the resourcefulness of this killer or killers, I suggest they could find a way in.”
“Where is Burnham? Where can I find him?”
“He has a mansion on North Michigan Avenue, I believe. I’ve only met him at various affairs.”
“He will have blueprints that’ll include these areas below the Columbian Exposition pavilions?”
“He will know them inside and out. He is your guide, and if not, he will send you to his foreman. I suspect someone is in charge.”
They parted in a handshake.
“Good luck, Alastair.”
But luck failed Ransom.
It would not come.
Everything that could go wrong did.
Alastair had gone directly in search of the architect of Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, a man in global demand now, only to learn that Daniel Burnham, with his major work completed, had gotten out of town, and in fact out of the country. With the fair of fairs in its waning days, its chief architect was aboard a Cunard cruise ship bound for Europe.
“A gift he gave himself,” said his butler.
Ransom had to speak to others less knowledgeable about how the fair was built over the lake and what blueprints might exist. He wound up at the Cook County Building Inspector’s Office, where they had no record of anything beyond the buildings at the fair, nothing whatsoever of a network of tunnels below the fair. He then tried the Chicago Public Library on Michigan Avenue, researching Burnham’s baby, again without discovery.
Alastair was told by more than one official that it was not unusual for final “specs” and blueprints to be turned over years after the fact, and that there had been so many new buildings going up this year that what he sought might well be somewhere in-house but below a stack in someone’s office.
For hours, he got the runaround.
During the day, he’d contacted Jane and Gabby by phone, insisting that if either heard anything from Audra, that he wanted to see her and talk to her. He did not go into why he wanted to talk to Audra.
He secretly wondered if Audra knew about the tunnels; if indeed, she knew every inch of the tunnels. He wondered if Audra was one of them-one of the Leather Apron gang. A child cannibal. Daughter trained to it. Sister who shared in the spoils-human spoils. The girl in the family photo, her hair matted and dirty, had been obscured, her face buried in a mother’s apron. But she could be taken for Audra.
As night moved over Chicago with darkening clouds and a threat of storm, Alastair missed Bosch; he needed the little gimp to run down leads. Who had Ransom left to draw on? Samuel, but Sam had disappeared, likely terrified at what he and Ransom had discovered at the warehouse.
Reports from Behan and Logan turned up nothing new. Once again they stood at a dead end. The tunnels mentioned by Christian Fenger seemed the only avenue left. He debriefed the other two detectives on the possibility that the Leather Apron monsters might well be hiding out below the fair.
The three inspectors, Logan, Behan, and Ransom now took a cab to the Science and Industry exhibit, a centrally located permanent structure at the fair. They arrived at an hour when this enormous Greek-styled building was closing for the evening. Displaying their badges, the three Chicago plainclothes cops fanned out, each following a separate guide who took the detectives to separate areas of the sub-basement, each area cut off from the other at the point of entry.
Each inspector was on his own.
They had discussed bringing in whole search parties of uniformed police, but in the end, realizing that their plan was based entirely on smoke, they talked one another into doing the manly thing until which time as they actually turned up evidence that the Leather Apron family had in fact taken up residence here.
“For all we know, it’s got too hot for ’em, and so they mighta moved on,” suggested Ken Behan.
“They’re homeless and without resources,” Alastair replied to Ken.
“If they did shove off,” replied Logan, “they did so afoot or by jumping onto a freight car.”
Alastair had passed through marvels of modern technology, exhibits showcasing such amazing inventions as the steam engine and the McCormick Reaper, machines that revolutionized production and agriculture.
The guard who had ushered Ransom to his point of departure was given strict orders that if he did not return to this door within twenty minutes, he was to alert police and organize a search party-ostensibly for Alastair or his dead body. Behan and Logan made the same demand of their guides.
Most definitely, Christian Fenger knew what he’d been talking about. Before Alastair lay a fluctuating chasm of darkness, a tunnel that seemingly led to Hades itself. It was at once in stark contrast to the brightly lit exhibits upstairs and in consort with them, for huge steam-driven machines had created these tunnels. “And you say it goes from here to the Natural History exhibit building?”
“It does, sir.”
Working with the wick, his cane dangling on his forearm, Alastair lit the lantern he’d brought with him. It had a several-hour’s-long wick and reservoir. Immediately on lighting the lamp, the odor of kerosene filled the small space here as light flooded the tunnel ahead of him.
“Nothing like announcing yourself,” he muttered to the museum guard.
“Are you sure you want to make this trek alone, sir?”
“Why?” he asked. “Is there something in there to fear? What do you know of it, man?”
“I’ve not seen anything, no! But I’ve heard noises on occasion, noises I’ve taken for rats.”
“Rats? Why’d it have to be rats. I hate rats, but tell me, how can rats’ve gotten down in here?”
“There are vents, and where there are vents-”