What happens in Part Four of The Devil in the White City?
Part Four begins with the investigation into H. H. Holmes gaining traction after the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Detective Frank Geyer, an experienced investigator from Philadelphia, takes on the grim responsibility of uncovering the fates of Holmes's victims—especially the Pitezel children, whom Holmes had separated from their mother under the guise of a family reunion. Geyer journeys from city to city across the Midwest and Canada, tracing Holmes's path through hotel records, landlord accounts, and the unsettling memories of neighbors. His diligent searching ultimately brings him to Toronto, where he uncovers the buried remains of two of the Pitezel children in a rented cottage. The chapter intertwines Geyer's relentless fieldwork with the growing horror of Holmes's actions—the chilling, bureaucratic precision of his cruelty. At the same time, Holmes, already in custody on insurance fraud charges, continues to charm jailers and journalists, projecting an image of injured innocence. Larson alternates between Geyer's grim findings and Holmes's facade of normalcy, creating a tension that highlights how long evil can disguise itself as the ordinary.
Analysis
Larson's skill in this chapter is deeply architectural: he builds parallel timelines—Geyer's excavation of the past and Holmes's theatrical present—and allows the space between them to evoke emotion. The key motif is the hotel register, a bureaucratic artifact that acts as an anti-memoir, recording Holmes's movements with the same cold accuracy he used in murder. Larson refrains from commentary; he relies on the accumulation of mundane details—room numbers, landlords' names, children's descriptions—to create dread much more effectively than any overt criticism could.
The tone shifts subtly yet decisively when Geyer arrives in Toronto. The prose slows down, sentences become shorter, and the act of digging is depicted with a stillness that feels almost sacred. This is Larson at his most controlled: the horror isn't announced but revealed, reflecting Geyer's own journey. The detective's inner thoughts are conveyed sparingly, making his rare expressions of emotion—a pause, a word to a colleague—carry significant weight.
Holmes's ongoing performance of innocence serves as a dark contrast to Geyer's authenticity. Larson taps into the Exposition's central irony—beauty masking decay—and integrates it into the investigation itself. The White City has shut down, but its underlying logic remains: facades still deceive, charm still disarms, and the machinery of civilization (hotels, courts, newspapers) continues to treat evil as if it were just another routine matter. The chapter quietly suggests that detection is a form of mourning.
Key quotes from Part Four
“Geyer was a patient man, and patience, he had learned, was the one trait a detective could not fake.”
Larson characterizes Geyer early in the chapter, establishing him as Holmes's moral and methodological opposite.
“The cottage was ordinary in every way that mattered, which was the most terrible thing about it.”
Larson's narration upon Geyer's arrival at the Toronto property where the Pitezel children's remains are later found, crystallizing the book's central irony of evil housed in the banal.
“Holmes smiled at the reporters and said he had never felt more confident of his ultimate vindication.”
Holmes speaks to the press while in custody, his performance of innocence rendered all the more chilling by Geyer's simultaneous discoveries.
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Create an accountSign inVocabulary in Part Four
- inquest
- A formal legal inquiry, typically conducted by a coroner or jury, to determine the cause of a suspicious or unexplained death.
- dissembler
- A person who hides their true character, intentions, or feelings behind a false front; a skilled and habitual deceiver.