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The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America Part IV, Chapter 5 Summary

"All the Weary Days"

  • Geyer's instincts tell him that Holmes killed Howard in Indianapolis. Alice wrote in one of her letters around their time in Indianapolis that she missed him.
  • Meanwhile, back in Chicago, police enter Holmes' castle. What they find is shocking. You might want to grab your lucky stuffed animal again.
  • They find: airtight bedrooms with no windows, a walk-in vault, gas jets that pumped gas into rooms, a furnace with human bones, surgical tools, and a blood-stained dissection table. And more bones.
  • There's even an unmistakable imprint on the vault door: a woman’s bare foot.
  • The body of a child is found, identified not to be Howard but that of Pearl Conner.
  • Shortly thereafter, Holmes' castle goes up in flames. Arson is suspected. "His own dark dreamland, burned to the ground" (4.5.19).
  • Geyer learns that Holmes had a large woodstove installed in one of his Illinois residences. It's there that he finds the bones of a child. Howard.
  • And even more shocking is what they find alongside the remains: a tin man on a spinning top—Howard's favorite possession, his father's gift from the Chicago exhibition.