If that dingbat Henry hadn’t confirmed what she saw, Pin could almost have convinced herself that she hadn’t actually glimpsed the girl from Essanay enter Hell Gate. Or that she might have seen a different girl, and misremembered what she looked like, and the man with her. Thousands of girls crowded Riverview every day, most with their families or girlfriends. They didn’t roam freely the way that boys did. A girl on her own was likely a lost girl, one who could fall prey to the mashers who lurked around the park, especially in the late afternoon.

Yet the girl in yellow hadn’t been on her own. That man didn’t appear old enough to be her father, but he could have been her brother. Maybe she’d left the studio and come to the park to meet him.

Had she then gotten lost in the dark ride? But a lost kid would be brought to the park’s police station and kept there until her parents came to claim her. A brass bell outside the building was rung only when a child was lost, or found. In the hours since she’d seen the girl enter Hell Gate, Pin hadn’t once heard the bell.

She wondered if Clyde might have been working Hell Gate that afternoon—he often filled in as Satan. With four kids and an adult son attending Wilberforce University, he needed the extra cash.

She followed the Pike toward the Ten-in-One and saw Bernie the watermelon man. He had no customers, so she sidled up to him and asked, “Hey Bernie, you hear of anyone looking for a lost kid?”

“People’s always looking for a lost kid.” Bernie turned to yell at a middle-aged woman and her husband, “Good evening, madam! Sir! Ice-cold watermelon, right here!”

In the distance, the giant cuckoo clock began to chime. Seven o’clock. It had been around four when the girl and man entered the dark ride. Clyde’s first performance was always at eight sharp—unlike Max, Clyde never missed a show due to drink or anything else.

The clock’s last chime faded. From somewhere far away came the strains of a barrel organ, “After the Ball.” Pin’s mouth went dry. She fought a wave of nausea and hurried toward the building that housed the Ten-in-One shows.

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

IT WAS DARK when he arrived back at the Workingmen’s House. He trudged upstairs to the third floor, then down the long corridor to his room. His nostrils burned as he inhaled the scent of the same lye cleanser he used to mop the hospital floors. For the last few years, he’d lived here. Before that, save for a few stints at the Cook County Insane Asylum, he’d spent much of his life at the Illinois Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children in Lincoln.