The Dante Club

Fate had spoken loud as ca

Teal knew that the Dante Club thrilled at the defeat of its enemies, for suddenly Reverend Greene offered a flurry of ecstatic sermons: Dante came upon a frozen lake of si

But then came Lowell and Fields, and Holmes and Longfellow—and not to reward him! Lowell had fired his gun at Teal, and Mr. Fields had cried out for Lowell to shoot. Teal’s heart ached. Teal had assumed that Longfellow, whom Harriet Galvin adored, and the other protectors who gathered at the Corner embraced the purpose of Dante. Now he understood that they did not know the true work needed from the Dante Club. There was so much to complete, so many circles to open in order to make Boston good. Teal thought of the scene at the Corner when Dr. Holmes fell into him—Lowell had followed from the Authors’ Room, yelling, “You have betrayed the Dante Club, you’ve betrayed the Dante Club.”

“Doctor,” Teal said to him when they met in the slave tu

Holmes turned so his back was facing the uniformed soldier. The muted blaze from the doctor’s lantern shakily lit the long cha

“I guess your finding me is Fate,” added Teal, and then ordered the doctor forward.

“Dear God, man,” Holmes wheezed. “Where are we going?”

“To Longfellow.”

XX

Holmes walked. Though his view of the man had been brief, he knew him at once as Teal, one of the night creatures, as Fields called them, from the Corner: their Lucifer. Now he noticed, looking back, that the man’s neck was as muscular as a prizefighter’s, but his pale green eyes and almost feminine mouth seemed incongruously childlike and his feet, probably a result of hard marches, supported his body with the eager perpendicular posture of an adolescent. Teal—this mere boy—was their enemy and opposite. Dan Teal. Dan Teal! Oh, how could a wordsmith like Oliver Wendell Holmes have missed that brilliant stroke? DANTEAL…DANTE AL…! And, oh, what a hollow sound was the memory of Lowell’s booming voice at the Corner when Holmes had run into the killer in the hallway: “Holmes, you have betrayed the Dante Club!” Teal had been listening in, as he must have done at the Harvard offices too. With all the vengeance stored up by Dante.

If Holmes was slated for final judgment now, he would not bring Longfellow and the others into it. He stopped as the tu

“I’ll go no farther!” he a

Teal responded with a flat, sympathetic silence. “Two of your men must be punished. You must make Longfellow understand, Dr. Holmes.”

Holmes realized that Teal did not want to punish him as a Traitor. Teal had come to the conclusion that the Dante Club was not on his side, that they had abandoned his cause. If Holmes was a traitor to the Dante Club, as Lowell had unwittingly a

Holmes took out his handkerchief and brought it to his brow.

At the same moment, Teal latched a strong hand on to Holmes’s elbow.

Holmes, against his own expectations, without forethought or plan, hurled Teal’s hand away with such force that Teal was knocked into the rocky cavern wall. Then the little doctor launched into a flying run, gripping his lantern with both hands.

With laboring breath he scurried through the dark and winding tu

Holmes tore the gags from his friends’ mouths and tried to unsuccessfully untie their hands.

“Are you hurt?” Holmes said. “Lowell!” He shook Lowell’s shoulders.

“He knocked us cold and brought us here,” Fields replied. “Lowell was cursing and shouting at Teal when he was tying us up here—I told him to shut his blasted mouth!—and Teal knocked him out again. He’s just unconscious,” Fields added prayerfully. “Isn’t he?”

“What did Teal want from you?” Holmes asked.

“Nothing! I don’t know why we’re alive or what he’s doing!”

“That monster has something pla

“I hear him coming!” Fields cried. “Hurry, Holmes!”

Holmes’s hands were trembling and dripping in sweat, and the knots were tied tight. He could barely see.

“No, go. You must go now!” Fields said.

“But another second…” His fingers slipped again from Fields’s wrist.

“It’ll be too late, Wendell,” Fields said. “He’ll be here. There’s no time to free us, and we wouldn’t be able to get Lowell anywhere like this. Get to Craigie House! Forget us now—you must save Longfellow!”

“I can’t do this alone! Where’s Rey?” Holmes cried.

Fields shook his head. “He never came, and all the patrolmen stationed at the houses are gone! They’ve been taken away! Longfellow’s alone! Go!”

Holmes dived out of the chamber, ru

A detective unhurriedly descended the dank stairs to the basement of the Central Station. Groans and harsh curses could be heard through the bricked-up halls.