Shadows in the White City

by Robert W. Walker

  “According to the city and county people I have fights with every day, Dr. Francis,” Jane Addams began in a calm, motherly tone, “the very people whose job it is to keep track of numbers of indigent and homeless families, nearly two thousand homeless children are currently bounced like rubber balls between the privately run, and publicly run, and the overrun shelters and welfare agencies and the streets. Your concern for one of these two thousand is touching, but I really must be getting back to my duties here. I have several hundred of those two thousand clamoring for another meal, and I have a ward filled with sick ones. So…I wish you luck with finding Audra again and perhaps adopting her.”

  “The chances of me adopting are zero, Jane, and you know it.”

  “Ahhh, yes, a single woman. Another reason why your Gabby is right, and you are wrong about the suffragette movement. Do you know that any single man may adopt a child and turn him or her into his personal slave? Putting boys to work in his fields, putting girls to work in his kitchen, and all too often other rooms in the house?”

  Jane Addams hung up.

  Jane Francis reconsidered all that Alastair had to say on the subject; Gabby tearfully sought out her bedroom, her doll in hand, breaking down.

  Jane went to Gabby with the express purpose of consoling her, but she stopped at her daughter’s door. She realized she could do nothing for her, that her young one must deal with this in her own time. Jane turned and went to find her own privacy and a bit of comfort in a hot cup of tea. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if reading tea leaves could help a mother at such a time as this. She so hoped and prayed for Gabby’s future. Séances, spiritualism, phrenology, magnetic healing but not tea leaves, not yet anyway, she thought. But if I thought it could help Gabby…

  CHAPTER 12

  Dr. Jane Francis had fully recovered and had even managed to help with the cooking tonight. She now looked across the dinner table at her daughter, Gabrielle, whose sullen and somber mood over Audra and the other street children had only deepened. She barely touched her meal, and the mother in Dr. Francis could not help mentally comparing her daughter’s sheltered life to that of the homeless children of the streets, unable to do otherwise.

  She theorized that in many ways the homeless children wore safer shields against evil than those who’d grown up like Gabby, under constant protection. The homeless, as sad as their plight was, were, in effect, more cautious and suspicious of others than those not living on the street, and this perhaps could keep them, at some distance from such predators as Leather Apron. But for how long?

  As curiously logical as this theory was, Jane Francis wondered what this might portend. Was it just that the street kids were alert, more capable of smelling danger before it got hold of them? Perhaps. Again the fleeting thought, But for how long?

  Jane studied the fine, graceful lines of her daughter’s countenance, so angelic, so lovely, so perfect in its French and Irish refinement. Like one of those dolls sold at the World’s Fair. For one so young and so Americanized as Gabby, she carried herself with a haughty self-esteem and an arrogance born of confidence, born of knowing who she was and what strengths she possessed and how intelligent she was and how sure of her future she felt—and most important that she was loved. Perhaps all her strength of character, indeed all her strengths, derived from this sure knowledge of unconditional and unequivocal love, showered on her daily. And yet she could be such a little brooder, as now, and a spoiler as when she was on the picket line with those insufferable suffragettes, shouting for equality for women. Yes, Gabby had been so sure of herself before, but today, the experience with Audra, seeing how other children lived, perhaps the nobler cause was beneath her nose all along and getting the vote seemed somehow less important to doing something for the homeless children in the overcrowded shelters. Then again, if women ever got the vote, would they use it for reform or for the same reasons men did? It was nearing thirty years now since American slaves had been given the right by legislators who saw a quick, dirty, and expedient use for a “black vote” during the Carpet Bagger years after the war. Would women only succeed in getting the vote if one or other of the National Parties deemed their numbers a way to gain the White House?

  Jane felt she’d given Gabby all the advantages that a caring single mother could possibly provide in this so-called democracy that repressed the “weaker” sex on all fronts dealing with decision-making in law and government and business and medicine and education. Jane believed she’d done all in her power to shield Gabby from such realities. As a result, Gabby didn’t accept being boxed in by this man’s world. Now Gabby had seen children small, frail, and innocent in hopeless plight. How could Gabrielle Tewes share their pathos and their folklore with her colleagues at Rush Medical College, at Cook County, and on the suffragette front? What could a woman in American society in 1893 do about a damn thing? Then again…if women had the vote and enough trumpeted the cause of the indigent, homeless, and illiterate, perhaps one day women could effect sweeping changes in political priorities. Perhaps 1900 would see the suffragettes win equal rights for every woman. Now, that surely would be a Second Coming, now wouldn’t it, she thought, a sad half smile gracing her features now.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Gabby, who’d smelled the rich tea and joined Jane.

  “You do? Surprise me, regale me with your powers, my sweet.”

  “You’re thinking that you ought to’ve kept me from going with you down into the ghetto today; that you ought to’ve sheltered me from that, but Mother, I’m doing rounds at Cook County now on Dr. Fenger’s surgical staff, and in his morgue. I’ve seen terrible human suffering there. Amputees, TB, bursting hearts, swollen bodies. Why, I’ve even seen two victims of the Vanishings.”

  “My God…what is Christian exposing you to?”

  “Life…well, death…reality…whatever one care’s call it, it’s there at Cook County every day, every hour.”

  “As I am well aware.” Jane drew in a deep breath and pushed her empty teacup aside. “Gabby, just know that I love you so much.”

  Gabby reached a hand across and squeezed her mother’s. “I never realized just how protected and in luxury we are, able to afford the rent on this place, thinking of purchasing now that Dr. Tewes is raking in so much…but I do now. I also appreciate all that you and your Dr. Tewes have done for me, Mother.”

  “Children shouldn’t have to spend a single night with hunger, cold, and discomfort gnawing at them, or have to create mythological underpinnings out of fear, need, and self-preservation, both physical and mental.”

  “I wish there were something we could do for the children.”

  “Perhaps we can start a fund…raise awareness. You could make it an offshoot of what the suffragettes do, maybe?”

  “I will certainly propose it at our next meeting.”

  Jane had long ago given up any opposition to Gabby’s participation in the suffragette cause, accepting her daughter’s wishes and opinions on the matter, rethinking it altogether again after today.

  “Look, dear, we can’t allow a sense of guilt at our own comfort to overtake us either.”

  “As we sit here eating a sumptuous meal in the warm glow of a fire and candle-lit table with music on the phonograph?” asked Gabby. “What have we to feel guilty about? Isn’t it the Chicago way? Every man, woman, and child for himself? And money is our religion?”

  “Please, Gabby, I pray you’ll not become bitter and angry over this.”

  “Frankly, I’d like to see the herd get a little bitter and angry over this.”

  “The herd?”

  “All of us, Mother, including the big shots, the politicians and the merchants, the mayor, the city councilmen. Why are such matters considered unworthy of serious attention by the men running this city?”

  “They are rather busy making money, I am afraid.”

  “It’s the dark underbelly of this place no one wants to take a hard look at, isn’t it?”

 
; “Are you going to start a campaign? If you don’t, Gabby, who will? Jane Addams and other reformers like her need more people, but you have your studies, and now your rounds, and time in at the morgue, and atop that, you’ve taken a civilian job with the Chicago Police Department as some sort of researcher. So…when do you find time to interview with the likes of Jane Addams?”

  “The woman is a saint, and perhaps I am not,” replied Gabby.

  “Oh, but you are, dear, in your own way. You do so much good every day. Christian tells me he is so pleased to have you working with him.”

  This was met by silence from Gabrielle Tewes.

  A single word of mirth from my daughter, a half-smile please, Jane thought.

  Gabby dropped her gaze; still said nothing. Finally, sobbing, she erupted, “It’s so…so sad…so strange but also so sad and…and awful.”

  “It is sad and awful.”

  They sat in silence, pouring more tea, sipping.

  “How do you think things are going between you and Inspector Ransom?” Gabby asked, surprising Jane with such a departure.

  “How indeed is that your business?” Jane smilingly replied.

  “Well, it is conceivable, is it not, that one day I may be calling him Dah…or Daddy…or Father.”

  “Wait up now! I might have something to say in all this, and I for one am not contemplating a holy union with the notorious Inspector Ransom.”

  Gabby laughed. “Then some juicy unholy union is in mind?”

  “Stop that this minute, young woman!”

  The laughter spilling from the Tewes dining room wafted gently out over the evening breeze. In the gaslight glow below a streetlamp, young Audra stared at the Tewes home for only a moment longer before she turned and started away. Opposite side of the street, coming in her direction was none other than Bloody Mary. Audra darted ratlike from sight down a narrow passageway and through an alley. She located the deepest black recess and hid in shadow. Slinking to the ground, Audra grabbed some rosary beads given her by Danielle and she chanted, as in a mantra, one name. “Blue Lady, Blue Lady, Blue Lady keep me safe.”

  Once finished relating to Philo Keane what Danielle, Robin, Audra, and the other children had imparted, Ransom downed the brandy that Philo had poured for him. Philo explained that the brandy manufacturer had hired him to do some photography for their advertisements of the product, and as partial payment, he had been given a case of the stuff—a suspect brew from another overnight company, this one calling itself Gray Jack Distillery, makers of fine sour mash whiskey right here in Chicago. Philo had been attracted by the terrible labeling job and advertising.

  “What is it, like two days old?” asked Ransom after choking. “I predict it’ll win zero ribbons at the fair.”

  “I’m unsure how long they’ve aged it, but it’s a modern miracle—mass produced to keep the price down for quick sale.”

  “I’m sure, and violating between six and ten laws.”

  Philo added, “I don’t expect them to remain in business long.”

  “There oughta be a law against vile-tasting liquor,” Ransom said, wincing as he drank up. “So what do you think of my story of the children?”

  “Dreadful…disgraceful…. As I recall, it tore William Stead up to see the little beggars about the streets when he was here writing his book.”

  “‘Buggars,’ he called ’em. Any news on when that exposé of his will be published, if at all?”

  “Who has the guts to publish a work so explosive? The very title itself—If Christ Came to Chicago is—”

  “Intended to raise awareness,” finished Ransom. “And he was toying with a subtitle…”

  “Really?”

  “A Cold Day in Hell.” Alastair laughed. “Said Chicago was colder’n Russian Siberia so far as social consciousness was concerned.”

  “I just know he spent a lot of time on the homeless and indigent problems we ‘natives’ ignored here for too long.”

  “Still, you’ve skirted my question.”

  “Which was?” asked Philo.

  Alastair shifted in his seat. “In all of the discussion with the homeless children, what’ve I to show for my case?”

  The two men were surrounded by leather, wood, and books, Philo’s phonograph softly playing a Viennese waltz. “I’ve a good mind to make you take me among these street urchins.”

  “You?”

  “Yes, to photograph them in their natural habitat.”

  “Photograph them? What possible good could come of it? Certainly no one I know would pay you for—”

  “You miss the point. It’d be for art not money, and maybe…perhaps, if I could get a showing at a gallery downtown, who knows…perhaps we can get Thom Carmichael to cover the gallery showing. Shed light on the problem.”

  “I doubt it could happen. Not here.”

  “You doubt everything, Rance. Even your own feelings about Jane Francis.”

  “Look, now that you’ve heard it, tell me what you think. Do you think there could possibly be a connection between the street myths and the killer?”

  Philo shook his head. “That’s right—change the subject.”

  “You, sir, changed the subject! Now, back on track, please.”

  “I couldn’t say for a certainty either way.”

  “I need input on this damned Vanishings thing.” Again, if Dr. Fenger were not one of the conspirators, he’d have told Philo in a heartbeat about Kohler and Senator Chapman’s deal.

  Philo finally settled into a chair opposite Ransom. His eyes narrowed, his face pinched, he took a long moment to respond, his hands opening and closing.

  Alastair laughed. “Damn it, man, if I were interrogating you, I’d have to assume you are hiding something or guilty over some matter. Why so uncomfortable?”

  “I find this so…so strangely coincidental.”

  “How so, my friend?”

  “A group of us artists in the city have recently discussed this very phenomena. Allandale Wolfson, in fact, has gathered some numbers.”

  “The painter?”

  “Yes, and as a result, I have formed some opinions, and these street religions you speak of are no surprise to me. Wolfson calls it polygenesis.”

  “Poly-genesis as in many a Genesis?” Alastair asked.

  “Precisely. Those few people in little cubby-holes inside colleges and universities who study folklore use the term for the simultaneous appearance of vivid, similar tales in far-flung locales.”

  Alastair chewed on his lower lip and asked, “Are you referring, Professor Philo, to the similar themes running through all these homeless shelter stories?”

  “Professor! That’s funny, Rance. However, it’s not similar but rather identical themes; and, yes, you’re correct.”

  “Hmmm…” Ransom scratched at his chin. “The same overarching themes.”

  “Each linking the myths of thirty-five homeless children in Cook County facilities alone; facilities operated by the Salvation Army. And we suspect other U.S. and Canadian city shelters also spawn like religions.”

  “I’m impressed, professor.”

  “These children…they range in age from six to twelve, and when asked what stories, if any, they believe about heaven and God, it’s nothing they’ve learned in formal religion or in any church.”

  “So you are chronicling the folklore?”

  “Most of these kids don’t write or don’t know how to write, so they are asked to draw pictures for their stories with chalk and slate.”

  “I noticed they used the term spirit a lot.”

  “It’s a biblical term for revenants, and they seldom to rarely use ‘ghost.’”

  “Why is that?”

  “Ghosts are for little kids, babies, not tough guys. Ghosts are not real to them. Not like spirits. Spirits are real and dangerous.”

  “I see,” replied Alastair, digesting all of this.

  “In their lexicon, they always use demon to denote wicked spirits.”

  Al
astair took a long moment to sip his refill of bad brandy, and to allow these facts to sink in. “Their folklore appears to cast them as comrades-in-arms, regardless of ethnicity.”

  Philo stared long into Ransom’s Irish green eyes. “You are a quick student, Inspector, and I am amazed that you somehow made these skittish street kids comfortable enough to share their most guarded, secret stories with you. That is in itself no small feat, remarkable in fact.”

  “Thank you, but it was Gabby and Jane who accomplished it.”

  “Most people can get nothing from them without a significant bribe.”

  “Sure…this is Chicago, and kids learn from adults.”

  “For these kids, the secret stories do more than explain the mystifying universe.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you? They impose meaning upon the world in the telling and retelling of the stories.”

  “Story has power, always has,” Ransom mused. “And this gives purpose to their lives.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “I do?”

  “As you’ve learned, this unusual belief system is cherished by white, black, Ukrainian, Polish, Portuguese, and Latin children, for the homeless youngsters see themselves as outgunned allies of the valiant angels in their battle against shared spiritual adversaries.”

  “Not too terribly different from African-American folklore and songs, created right through the horrors of slavery, heh?” suggested Alastair.

  “Now you catch on.”

  “Bravo to the student.”

  Philo grew serious again. “Folktales are the only work of beauty a displaced people can keep,” he explained. “And their power transcends class and race lines, because they address emotional questions.”

  “What kind of questions?” asked Ransom.

  “Questions like…well…like, why side with good—or even God—when evil—or this Zoroaster, that is, Satan—is winning—”

  “—or willing to reward you immediately—this moment?”

  “Preeecisely, Detective.”