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to one of the pair of coffins set up in the kitchen. Her braided hair was so heavy it pulled the scalp away from her skull. Alice’s remains were likewise removed and taken to the deadhouse.
    “By this time,” Geyer wrote, “Toronto was wild with excitement. The news had spread to every part of the city.” Reporters flocked to the house to get photos and possible quotes for their stories. They had assisted and now sought their just reward. “Congratulations, mingled with expressions of horror over the discovery, were heard everywhere.”
    Geyer sent a telegram to Philadelphia about the day’s events and later concluded in his book, “Thus it was proved that little children cannot be murdered in this day and generation, beyond the possibility of discovery.”
    But a definitive identification had yet to be made, and for this they needed Carrie Pitezel. She made the trip to Toronto, heavy of heart but still vaguely hopeful that the detective was wrong. Searchers had found a toy in the house that was listed in Carrie’s inventory of things her children had owned, and this supported the fact that Holmes had been the renter and these bodies were the missing Pitezel children, as did pieces of partially burned clothing from the fireplace. Since the corpses were so badly decomposed, Carrie was allowed only to see the children’s hair, laid on the canvas that covered them, and the teeth, seen through a hole. She recognized them at once and swooned in grief. She now knew that Holmes had lied to her and killed her children. The cause of death was found to be suffocation. It appeared that Nellie’s feet had been removed and were missing, something that remained a mystery. Both girls were buried in Toronto.
    But Geyer knew there was one more child to find: little Howard. Despite all that he had done this far, his trek was not over. He believed Howard was dead, but was determined to deliver the body for proper burial and mourning. He went over all the letters again, relying on logic to determine that Howard had been separated from the girls prior to their arrival in Detroit, so it was time to return to Indianapolis. Although he had struck out here initially, his instincts urged him to go over old ground and look for clues he might have missed.
    He arrived on July 24. As before, he proceeded to gain the assistance of real estate agents from around the city to learn the details of short-term rentals from the previous October. By this time, Geyer’s trek had attracted the attention of the nation. Newspapers reported his every move and readers followed the investigation the way they read a suspenseful piece of fiction. As a result, Geyer received many leads, which he followed, but most of them just wasted his time. “Days came and passed,” he wrote, “but I continued to be as much in the dark as ever.” Geyer feared that “the bold and clever criminal” might have bested him on this one. It seemed increasingly likely that little Howard would never be found.
    Back in Philadelphia, Holmes read the newspapers to keep track of Geyer’s journey. At first he’d felt gleefully empowered, believing that Geyer could never find the children, but with the discovery of the girls’ remains, things looked grim. He had to think up a tale to exonerate himself and blame someone else. Even as he did so, a team of investigators was analyzing the children’s letters and wiring more ideas to Geyer. Some items in the letters, they had found, had been overlooked or misunderstood, and with renewed care, Geyer discovered that the children had been in Indianapolis four days longer than he’d initially realized. He rechecked the house he thought Holmes had rented and narrowed the time frame during which he lost track of their movements to only two days. He believed that Howard had disappeared at some point during those two days. If only he could establish exactly where Holmes had been during this time, he was certain he would learn where Howard’s