The Dante Club

There was a collective sense of accomplishment rising in the room, and everyone waited for Longfellow’s nod, which came with a quiet smile.

“Three cheers for Holmes!” Lowell cried out.

“Why don’t you give me three times three?” Holmes asked with a whimsical pose. “I can stand it!”

Augustus Ma

Ma

Ma

The secretary did not respond, but then, seeing it was expected, assented anxiously.

Ma

The secretary found the answer in a sheaf of papers. “Edward Sheldon and Pliny Mead, exactly right.”

“Pliny Mead. A high scholar,” Ma

“Well, he was, sir. But he has had a fall in the last rankings.”

Ma

“Yes, he has dropped some twenty spots in the class,” the secretary explained, finding documentation and proudly proving the fact. “Oh yes, dropped quite precipitously, Dr. Ma

Ma

Late evening in Boston, J. T. Fields called on the law offices of John Codman Ropes, a hunchbacked lawyer who had made the war of the rebellion an area of expertise after his brother perished in battle. It was said he knew more about the battles than the generals who fought them. As befitted a genuine expert, he unostentatiously answered Fields’s questions. Ropes listed many soldiers’-aid homes—charitable organizations that had been established, some at churches, others in abandoned buildings and warehouses, to feed and clothe veterans who were poor or struggling to return to civilian life. If one sought troubled soldiers, these homes would be the place to look.

“There’s nothing like a directory of their names, of course, and I’d say these poor souls ca

Fields walked briskly up Tremont Street toward the Corner. He had for weeks devoted only the fraction of his usual time to business, and worried that his ship would run aground if he were absent much longer from its tiller.

“Mr. Fields.”

“Who’s that?” Fields stopped and retraced his steps to an alleyway. “Addressing me, sir?”

He could not see the speaker in the dimming light. Fields advanced slowly between the buildings, into the smell of sewage.

“That’s right, Mr. Fields.” The tall man stepped out of the shadows and removed his hat from his gaunt head. Simon Camp, Pinkerton detective, gri

“Camp! What gall you have. I’ve paid you more than I should have to go away—now, shoo.”

“You did pay me, didn’t you. To tell you the truth, I had looked at this case as an a

“A man like you would never understand what literary men prize, I’m afraid,” Fields said nervously. “This is our business.”

“Oh, but I do understand. Now I understand. I remembered something about that pismire Dr. Ma

Fields tried not to show his panic. “I have appointments to attend to, Mr. Camp.”

Camp smiled blissfully. “Then I thought of that Pliny Mead boy, spilling everything on his tongue’s end about the uncivilized, gruesome punishments against humanity in that Dante poem. It started coming together for me. I called on your Mr. Mead again and asked him some specific questions. Mr. Fields,” he said, leaning forward with relish. “I know your secret.”

“Stuff and nonsense. I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, Camp,” Fields cried.

“I know the secret of the Dante Club, Fields. I know you know the truth about these murders, and that’s why you paid me to vamoose.”

“That is wanton and malevolent libel!” Fields started out of the alley.

“Then I shall just go to the police,” Camp said coolly. “And then to the newspapermen. And on my way, I will stop in to see Dr. Ma

Fields turned back and gave Camp a hardened stare. “If you know what you say you know, then what makes you certain we’re not the ones doing the killing, and will kill you too, Camp?”

Camp smiled. “You’re a good bluff, Fields. But you’re bookmen, and that’s all you’ll be till they change the natural order of the world.”

Fields stopped and swallowed. He looked around to make certain there were no witnesses. “What will make you leave us alone, Camp?”

“Three thousand dollars, to start—in exactly a fortnight,” Camp said.

“Never!”

“The real rewards offered for information are much larger, Mr. Fields. Maybe Burndy had nothing to do with all this. I don’t know who killed those men, and I don’t care to know. But how guilty you will look when a jury discovers you already paid me to go away when I came to ask about Dante and lured me in to pull a gun on me!”

Fields realized all at once that Camp was doing this to avenge his cowardice in the face of Lowell’s rifle. “You are a small and unclean insect,” Fields could not help saying.

Camp didn’t seem to mind. “But a trustworthy one, as long as you abide by our bargain. Even insects have debts to meet, Mr. Fields.”

Fields agreed to rendezvous with Camp at the same location in two weeks’ time.

He told the news to his friends. After their initial shock, the Dante Club members decided they were helpless to influence the outcome of Camp’s scheme.

“What’s the use?” said Holmes. “You already gave him ten gold coins, and that did no good. He’ll just keep coming with his hand out for more.”

“What Fields gave him was an appetite,” Lowell said: They could not trust that any amount of money would secure their secret. Besides, Longfellow would not hear of handing out bribes to protect Dante or themselves. Dante could have paid his way out of exile and had refused, in a letter that was still fierce after all these centuries. They promised to forget about Camp. They had to continue to vigorously pursue their military exposition of the case. That night, they pored over records from the army pension office that Rey had borrowed, and visited several soldiers’-aid homes.

Fields did not return home until nearly one in the morning, much to A