The chamber was so immense that visual signals had to be used to let the chorus know when a speaker had stopped talking and a new song could begin. Microphones did not yet exist, so only a small portion of the audience actually heard any speeches. The rest, with faces contorted from the strain of trying to listen, saw distant men gesturing wildly into the sound-killing miasma of whispers, coughs and creaking shoe leather. Harriet Monroe, the poet who had been John Root’s sister-in-law, was there and watched as two of the nation’s greatest speakers, Colonel Henry Watterson of Kentucky and Chauncey M. Depew of New York, took turns at the podium, “both orators waving their windy words toward a vast, whispering, rustling audience which could not hear.”
This was a big day for Miss Monroe. She had composed a lengthy poem for the event, her “Columbian Ode,” and pestered her many powerful friends into having it placed on the day’s program. She watched with pride as an actress read it to the few thousand people close enough to hear it. Unlike the majority of the audience, Monroe believed the poem to be rather a brilliant work, so much so that she had hired a printer to produce five thousand copies for sale to the public. She sold few and attributed the debacle to America’s fading love of poetry.
That winter she burned the excess copies for fuel.
Prendergast
O
N
N
OVEMBER
28, 1892, Patrick Eugene Joseph Prendergast, the mad Irish immigrant and Harrison supporter, selected one of his postal cards. He was twenty-four years old now and despite his accelerating mental decline was still employed by the
Inter Ocean
as a delivery contractor. The card, like all the others, was four inches wide by five inches long, blank on one face, with postal insignia and a printed one-cent stamp on the other. In this time when writing long letters was everyday practice, men of normal sensibility saw these cards as the most crabbed of media, little better than telegrams, but to Prendergast this square of stiff paper was a vehicle that gave him a voice in the skyscrapers and mansions of the city.
He addressed this particular card to “A. S. Trude, Lawyer.” He sketched the letters of the name in large floral script, as if seeking to dispatch the cumbersome duty of addressing the card as quickly as possible, before advancing to the message itself.
That Prendergast had selected Trude to be one of his correspondents was not surprising. Prendergast read widely and possessed a good grasp of the grip-car wrecks, murders, and City Hall machinations covered so fervently by the city’s newspapers. He knew that Alfred S. Trude was one of Chicago’s best criminal defense attorneys and that from time to time he was hired by the state to serve as prosecutor, a practice customary in particularly important cases.
Prendergast filled the postcard from top margin to bottom, from edge to edge, with little regard for whether the sentences formed level lines or not. He gripped the pen so tightly it impressed channels into the tips of his thumb and forefinger. “My Dear Mr. Trude,” he began. “Were you much hurt?” An accident, reported in the press, had caused Trude minor injuries. “Your humble servant hereby begs leave to tender you his sincere sympathy and trusts that while he does not appear before you in person, you nonetheless will not have any doubts as to his real sympathy for you in your misfortunes—you are wished by him a speedy recovery from the results of the accident which you had the misfortune to meet with.”
He wrote with a tone of familiarity that presumed Trude would consider him a peer. As the note progressed, his handwriting shrank, until it seemed like something extruded rather than written. “I suppose Mr. Trude that you do understand that the greatest authority on the subject of law is Jesus Christ—and that you also know that the fulfillment of the whole law depends upon the observance of these two commands thou shalt Love God most of all & your neighbor as your self—these are the greatest commands if you please sir.”
The note clicked from theme to theme like the wheels of a train crossing a freightyard. “Have you ever saw the picture of the fat man who looked for his dog while his dog was at his feet and still did not have the wit to see what was the matter—have you observed the cat?”
He did not add a closing and did not sign the note. He simply ran out of room, then posted the card.
Trude read the note and at first dismissed it as the work of a crank. The number of troubled men and women seemed to be increasing with each passing year. The jails were full of them, a warden later would testify. Inevitably some became dangerous, like Charles Guiteau, the man who had assassinated President Garfield in Washington.
For no clear reason, Trude kept the card.
“I Want You at Once”
I
N LATE
N
OVEMBER THE
young Pittsburgh engineer once again put his proposal for out-Eiffeling Eiffel before the Ways and Means Committee. This time in addition to drawings and specifications he included a list of investors, the names of the prominent men on his board, and proof that he had raised enough money to finance the project to completion. On December 16, 1892, the committee granted him a concession to build his structure in the Midway Plaisance. This time the decision held.
He needed an engineer willing to go to Chicago and supervise the construction effort and thought he knew just the man: Luther V. Rice, assistant engineer of the Union Depot & Tunnel Company, St. Louis. His letter to Rice began, “I have on hand a great project for the World’s Fair in Chicago. I am going to build a vertically revolving wheel 250' in dia.”
Nowhere in this letter, however, did he reveal the true dimension of his vision: that this wheel would carry thirty-six cars, each about the size of a Pullman, each holding sixty people and equipped with its own lunch counter, and how when filled to capacity the wheel would propel 2,160 people at a time three hundred feet into the sky over Jackson Park, a bit higher than the crown of the now six-year-old Statue of Liberty.
He told Rice, “I want you at once if you can come.” He signed the letter: George Washington Gale Ferris.
Chappell Redux
O
NE DAY IN THE FIRST
week of December 1892 Emeline Cigrand set out for Holmes’s building in Englewood bearing a small neatly wrapped parcel. Initially her mood was bright, for the parcel contained an early Christmas present she planned to give to her friends the Lawrences, but as she neared the corner of Sixty-third and Wallace, her spirits dimmed. Where once the building had seemed almost a palace—not for its architectural nobility but for what it promised—now it looked drab and worn. She climbed the stairs to the second floor and went directly to the Lawrences’ apartment. The warmth and welcome resurrected her good spirits. She handed the parcel to Mrs. Lawrence, who opened it immediately and pulled from the wrapping a tin plate upon which Emeline had painted a lovely forest.
The gift delighted Mrs. Lawrence but also perplexed her. Christmas was only three weeks off, she said kindly: Why hadn’t Emeline simply waited and given the plate then, when Mrs. Lawrence could have offered a gift in return?
Her face brightening, Emeline explained that she was going home to Indiana to spend Christmas with her family.
“She seemed delighted with the anticipation of a visit to them,” Mrs. Lawrence said. “She spoke in most affectionate terms of them and seemed as happy as a child.” But Mrs. Lawrence also sensed a note of finality in Emeline’s voice that suggested Emeline’s journey might have another purpose. She said, “You are not going away from us?”
“Well,” Emeline said. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Mrs. Lawrence laughed. “Why, Mr. Holmes could never get along without you.”
Emeline’s expression changed. “He could if he had to.”
The remark confirmed something for the Lawrences. “It had seemed to me for some time that Miss Cigrand was changing in her feelings toward Holmes,” said Dr. Lawrence. “In the light of what has happened since, I believe now that she had found out to a certain extent the real character of Holmes and determined to leave him.”
She may have begun to believe the stories she heard in the neighborhood of Holmes’s penchant for acquiring things on credit and then not paying for them—stories she had heard all along, for they were rife, but that she at first had dismissed as the gossip of envious hearts. Later there was speculation that Emeline herself had trusted Holmes with her $800 savings, only to have it disappear in a fog of promises of lavish future returns. Ned Conner’s warning echoed in her mind. Lately she had begun talking of returning one day to Dwight to resume her work for Dr. Keeley.
Emeline never told the Lawrences good-bye. Her visits simply stopped. That she would leave without a parting word struck Mrs. Lawrence as being very much out of character. She wasn’t sure whether to feel wounded or worried. She asked Holmes what he knew about Emeline’s absence.
Ordinarily Holmes looked at Mrs. Lawrence with a directness that was unsettling, but now he avoided her gaze. “Oh, she’s gone away to get married,” Holmes said, as if nothing could have interested him less.
The news shocked Mrs. Lawrence. “I don’t see why she didn’t mention something to me about getting married.”
It was a secret, Holmes explained: Emeline and her betrothed had revealed their wedding plans only to him.
But for Mrs. Lawrence this explanation only raised more questions. Why would the couple want such privacy? Why had Emeline said nothing to Mrs. Lawrence, when together they had shared so many other confidences?
Mrs. Lawrence missed Emeline and the way her effervescence and physical brightness—her prettiness and sunflower hair—lit the sullen halls of Holmes’s building. She remained perplexed and a few days later again asked Holmes about Emeline.
He pulled a square envelope from his pocket. “This will tell you,” he said.
The envelope contained a wedding announcement. Not engraved, as was customary, merely typeset. This too surprised Mrs. Lawrence. Emeline never would have accepted so mundane a means of communicating news of such magnitude.
The announcement read:
Mr. Robert E. Phelps.
Miss Emeline G. Cigrand.
Married
Wednesday, December 7th
1892
CHICAGO
Holmes told Mrs. Lawrence he had received his copy from Emeline herself. “Some days after going away she returned for her mail,” he explained in his memoir, “and at this time gave me one of her wedding cards, and also two or three others for tenants in the building who were not then in their rooms; and in response to inquiries lately made I have learned that at least five persons in and about Lafayette, Ind., received such cards, the post mark and her handwriting upon the envelope in which they were enclosed showing that she must have sent them herself after leaving my employ.”
Emeline’s family and friends did receive copies of the announcement through the mail, and indeed these appeared to have been addressed by Emeline herself. Most likely Holmes forged the envelopes or else duped Emeline into preparing them by persuading her they would be used for a legitimate purpose, perhaps for Christmas cards.
For Mrs. Lawrence the announcement explained nothing. Emeline had never mentioned a Robert Phelps. And if Emeline had come to the building bearing marriage announcements, she surely would have presented one in person.
The next day Mrs. Lawrence stopped Holmes yet again, and this time asked what he knew about Phelps. In the same dismissive manner Holmes said, “Oh, he is a fellow Miss Cigrand met somewhere. I do not know anything about him except that he is a traveling man.”
News of Emeline’s marriage reached her hometown newspaper, which reported it on December 8, 1892, in a small chatty bulletin. The item called Emeline a “lady of refinement” who “possesses a character that is strong and pure. Her many friends feel that she has exercised good judgment in selecting a husband and will heartily congratulate her.” The item offered a few biographical details, among them the fact that Emeline once had been employed as a stenographer in the county recorder’s office. “From there,” the item continued, “she went to Dwight, and from there to Chicago, where she met her fate.”
“Fate” being the writer’s coy allusion to marriage.
In the days that followed Mrs. Lawrence asked Holmes additional questions about Emeline, but he responded only in monosyllables. She began to think of Emeline’s departure as a disappearance and recalled that soon after Emeline’s last visit a curious change in routine had occurred within Holmes’s building.
“The day after Miss Cigrand disappeared, or the day we last saw her, the door of Holmes’ office was kept locked and nobody went into it except Holmes and Patrick Quinlan,” Mrs. Lawrence said. “About 7 o’clock in the evening Holmes came out of his office and asked two men who were living in the building if they would not help him carry a trunk downstairs.” The trunk was new and large, about four feet long. Its contents clearly were heavy and made the big trunk difficult to manage. Holmes repeatedly cautioned his helpers to be careful with it. An express wagon arrived and took it away.
Mrs. Lawrence later claimed that at this point she became convinced Holmes had killed Emeline. Yet she and her husband made no effort to move from the building, nor did they go to the police. No one did. Not Mrs. Lawrence, not Mr. and Mrs. Peter Cigrand, not Ned Conner, and not Julia’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Smythe. It was as if no one expected the police would be interested in yet another disappearance or, if they were, that they would be competent enough to conduct an effective investigation.
Soon afterward Emeline’s own trunk, filled with her belongings and all the clothing she had brought with her when she left home in 1891 to work for Keeley, arrived at a freight depot near her hometown. Her parents at first believed—hoped—she had sent the trunk home because now that she was marrying a wealthy man, she no longer needed such old and worn things. The Cigrands received no further mail from Emeline, not even at Christmas. “This,” said Dr. B. J. Cigrand, Emeline’s second cousin, the North Side dentist, “in spite of the fact that she was in the habit of writing to her parents two or three times a week.”