These were the last thoughts Alastair Ransom had before the pounding at the door came. A most demanding pounding. Raehall, no doubt, with backup, come to haul him in. He had half expected it and fully imagined it. Reahall and his thugs in uniform breaking in and placing him in irons, hauling him to the Belfast jail where he’d await extradition to America and Chicago. The place from which he had indeed fled in order to escape a sure hanging as a disgraced Chicago Police Inspector. While innocent of the crime, he had cultivated so many enemies in the system and in the city that a bandwagon load of them saw his being jailed on the charges as their chance for revenge. They had all pounced at once.
Dr. Jane Tewes and her daughter, Gabby, along with a handful of friends had saved him but for what—this life in Belfast? It had not been easy all these years since 1893. In fact, he had pretty much lived at a subsistence level. He’d lost Jane and Gabby along with any chance of having a home and family; the family he’d once thought was his for the asking. All of it gone now. Gone along with Ransom’s city—his Chicago. All of it and its people going on without him in pleasant ease, his absence causing no pain… as if he’d never existed, he supposed, that the likes of Inspector Alastair Ransom was gone from their midst was, in the end, a good thing indeed.
After all, he had cultivated a reputation as the most dangerous man in a city known as the slaughter house to the nation—the city of big shoulders.
He took his time going to the door and pulling it open on the dingy little Belfast apartment that was home, his hands held out for the irons, tired of running all over Europe, only to find standing before him not Reahall and his burly cops but the two interns, Thomas and Declan. “Lads… what the devil time is it?
“We’ve slipped from the dormitory, detective,” said Declan as he and Thomas rushed past Ransom and into the small billet—aptly named as he must pay a weekly bill for the use of the apartment. “We need your help,” added Thomas, “to break into the lab.”
“We need you as a witness,” explained Declan, trying to soften Thomas’ remarks.
“Break in? Your first thought was me?” Ransom tried to shake off sleep. He groggily added, “What sort of witness?”
“We’ve three bodies now at the morgue.”
“Three? Three bodies in the same condition, you mean?”
“Reahall and his men scoured the ship, even used dogs,” said Declan.
“The coppers ran some dogs into Titanic’s hull; they found my uncle’s remains along with O’Toole’s—” added Thomas. “All three suffered from the same devastation.”
“It has to be chemical in nature—if not biological.”
“If not both,” finished Thomas.
“What of Dr. Bellingham? What does Enoch have to say about it all?”
“He’s frightened. So’s the dean. Hell… so’s everyone.”
“The entire surgical faculty is terrified,” added Thomas.
“As they should be,” said Ransom, placing on a shirt to cover his hefty body.
“Sir, they are cowards! They want to burn the bodies at the steel mill as soon as it opens in the morning.”
“Cremation may be the best avenue,” he cautioned.
“All of them—the constable, the dean, Dr. B, in all their combined intellect, they are acting out of fear,” continued Declan.
Ransom held a hand up to the young intern. “To contain any possibility of contagion is a normal response to any outbreak of disease, quite typical.”
“B-But damn it, man, there needs be some analytical examination of the condition of these men.” Declan paced the small room, bumping his head on an overhead beam that evoked a cry from him.
“You live, sir, rather poorly don’t you?” Thomas observed, taking in the flat,” I-I mean for a man with such a reputation, Detective Wyland, this place looks like an artist’s billet.”
“Thomas, have ye no manners?” shouted Declan.
“Oh come now, Declan? It’s just a question.”
“Not a lot of call for a private detective in Belfast, son—especially one who’s caught the eye of the local officials.”
“Constable Reahall thinks you a menace, eh?” asked Thomas.
“I fear, he thinks me some sort of problem, yes.”
“What sort of problem?”
“He has me confused with some… some murderer.”
“Murderer?” gasped Thomas, shaken by the word.
“Damn fool copper has me confused with someone else, I fear. Irritating is what it amounts to.”
“But a murderer?” Declan’s repeating of the word hung in the air, and now both young interns cautiously eyed Ransom. “Of course, Constable Reahall’s dead wrong about Mr. Wyland, Thomas,” insisted Declan, who then spoke to Ransom. “I’ve come to respect you, Mr. Wyland. So now, sir, will you help us or not?”
“Help you do precisely what?”
“Why break into the morgue,” Thomas replied.
“At Mater Infirmorum? Are you mad?”
“It’s off from the hospital, a separate surgery and morgue for us university students.”
“Separate you say?”
“On the grounds but yes, separate from the main hospital.”
“And there is where the bodies lie in state?”
“If you can call it that—yes,” Declan added with a shrug. “We can take you straight to the corpses.”
“To what end?” he asked the young men.
“We are surgeons!” shouted Thomas.
The passion recalled Jane Tewes to Ransom’s mind—how passionate she was about being a surgeon, and the extreme lengths she’d gone to just for that reason, as fat, white-haired old men stood in her way. Now Ransom saw the same thing was happening here to these lads.
Declan came close and near whispered, “We need to know what’s the root cause of the condition of those bodies. And you know as well as we, there is only one sure way to determine actual cause of death, and it isn’t by cremating the evidence.”
“Is that what they want to do? Burn it? Outta sight, outta mind, is it?”
“That’s about it, yes, sir.”
“But you boys… you want to conduct an unauthorized inquest instead?”
“We want to autopsy the dead,” Thomas continued for Declan, going to the window, peeking out. “You aren’t expecting anyone are you, Mr. Wyland, sir?”
“Why? What do you see out there?”
“One of those nasty steam-powered police wagons—a paddy. Coming this way it is.”
Ransom heard the noisy wake-the-dead clatter of this thing racing toward them. In fact, it was growing deafening with each turn of the wheels. “It’s Reahall come for me now! You boys picked a helluva time to pinch me for a job.”
“I thought Reahall respectful of your opinion,” Declan said, looking over his shoulder at the approaching police wagon.
“Oh yeah…” added Thomas. “He likely just wants to confer with you, Mr. Wyland—on the case.”
“Confer with me behind bars. Look here, lads, if we’re to have a proper autopsy, we need to be out the back—now! Hurry!” He ushered them to the rear room, past his untidy bedroom, out the back door, and into a smelly dank alleyway. Earlier a light rain had futilely tried to wipe Belfast clean but had only succeeded in making the cobblestones glisten like rocks in a stream—and just as slick. As Ransom rushed the boys, Thomas slipped and turned an ankle and moaned like a cat in heat.
“Shhhhh… .you’ll give us away!” shouted Declan, completely on board with Ransom’s plan. They heard the wagon pull up to the front door, heard men leaping from the wagon, heard shouting to circle around back. “Is that Reahall’s voice?” asked Declan as Ransom helped Thomas to his feet. With Thomas leaning on Ransom and Declan taking Thomas’ other arm, they rushed off.