The Dante Club

Holmes cut him off nervously. “Mr. Je

“I know, Doctor.” Je

“Dante happenings?” Fields echoed in a broken voice.

Je

“The accursed Corporation and their hopes to rid themselves of that Dante course of Lowell’s. And their attempt to stop your translation, my dear gentlemen! Lowell told me all about it, though he’s too proud to ask for help.”

Three muffled sighs escaped from under the respective waistcoats at Je

“Now, as surely you know, Lowell has temporarily canceled his class,” Je

“What do you wish us to do, my dear Mr. Je

“Urge him to screw up his courage.” Je

Before anyone could reply, the door to the Authors’ Room burst open. Lowell stood before them with a bleak look on his face.

“Why, Lowell, what’s wrong?” Fields asked.

Lowell began to speak but then saw him. “Phi

Je

“I hope nothing’s wrong, Lowell. I shall call on you soon, my friend!”

Fields found Teal, the evening shop boy, down the hall and asked for Je

Lowell poured a drink at the counter. “Oh, you won’t believe the luck, my friends. I almost twisted my head off looking for Bachi at Half Moon Place, and wouldn’t you know I come up with as little as I started! He was nowhere to be seen and nobody around knew where he could be found—I don’t think the local Dubliners would talk to an Italian if put in a sinking raft next to one and the Italian had a plug. I might as well have been off at leisure like all of you this afternoon.”

Fields, Holmes, and Longfellow were silent.

“What? What is it?” Lowell asked.

Longfellow suggested that they have supper at Craigie House, and on the way they explained to Lowell what had happened with Bachi. Over the meal, Fields told him how he had returned to the harbormaster and persuaded him, with the help of an American eagle gold piece, to check the register for information on Bachi’s trip. The entry for Bachi indicated that he had purchased a discounted round-trip ticket that would not allow a return prior to January 1867.

Back in Longfellow’s parlor, Lowell flopped into a chair, stu

“Then we should celebrate,” Holmes said with a laugh. “Don’t you see what this means, if you were right? Come, you have the small end of your opera glass pointed toward everything that looks encouraging.”

Fields leaned in. “Jamey, if Bachi was the murderer…”

Holmes completed the thought with a bright smile: “Then we are safe. And the city’s safe. And Dante! If we have driven him out by our knowledge, then we have defeated him, Lowell.”

Fields stood up, beaming. “Oh, gentlemen, I shall throw a Dante supper to put the Saturday Club to shame. May the mutton be as tender as Longfellow’s verse! And may the Moet sparkle like Holmes’s wit, and the carving knives be as sharp as Lowell’s satire!”

Three cheers were given to Fields.

All of this eased Lowell somewhat, as did the news of a Dante-translation session—the start of normal times again, a return to a pure enjoyment of their scholarship. He hoped they had not forfeited this pleasure by applying their knowledge of Dante to such repugnant affairs.

Longfellow seemed to know what troubled Lowell. “In Washington’s day,” he said, “they melted the pipes of the church organs for bullets, my dear Lowell. They hadn’t any choice. Now, Lowell, Holmes, would you accompany me down to the wine cellar while Fields sees how work goes along in the kitchen?” he asked as he lifted a candle from the table.

“Ah, the true foundation of any house!” Lowell jumped from the armchair. “Do you have a good vintage, Longfellow?”

“You know my rule of thumb, Mr. Lowell:

The company let out a collective peal of laughter, inflated by a consciousness of relief.

“But we have four thirsts to quench!” Holmes objected.

“Then let us not expect much, my dear doctor,” advised Longfellow. Holmes and Lowell followed him down to the basement by the light of the taper’s silver gleam. Lowell used the laughter and conversation to divert himself from the shooting pain radiating in his leg, pounding and traveling upward from the red disk covering his ankle.

Phineas Je

From the other side of the street he was watched, watched step after step from the moment he left behind his mansion. The next shade needing punishment. Look how he walks and whistles and laughs, as though he knows no wrong and has known none. Step after step. The shame of a city that could no longer direct the course of the future. A city that had lost its soul. He who sacrified the one who could reunify them all. The watcher called out.

Je

No reply.

Je

Je

“Take my money, sir, take it all! Please! You can have it and be on your way! How much do you want? Name it! What say you?”

“Through me the way is among the people lost. Through me.”

The last thing J. T. Fields expected to find when he set off the next morning in his carriage was a dead body.