But Trap was not barking at the philosophy of Longfellow’s translation. The terrier shot into the front hall. A thundering knock sounded at Longfellow’s door.

“Ah, the police,” Lowell said, impressed with the speed of their arrival. He wrung out his soggy mustache.

Longfellow opened his front door. “Well, this is a surprise,” he said in the most hospitable voice he could find at the moment.

“How so?” J. T. Fields, standing on the wide threshold, angled his eyebrows together and removed his hat. “I received a message in the middle of our whist game—on a hand where I had Bartlett beat, too!” He smiled briefly as he hung his hat. “It said to come here at once. Is everything all right, my dear Longfellow?”

“I sent no such message, Fields,” Longfellow apologized. “Wasn’t Holmes with you?”

“No, and we waited a half-hour for him before dealing.”

A rustle of dried leaves advanced toward them. In a moment, the small figure of Oliver Wendell Holmes, his elevated boots crunching leaves by the half-dozen underfoot, swerved up Longfellow’s brick footpath in a double-quick march. Fields stepped aside and Holmes sprinted past him into the hall, wheezing.

“Holmes?” Longfellow said.

The frantic doctor noticed with horror that Longfellow was cradling a sheaf of Dante cantos.

“Dear God, Longfellow,” Dr. Holmes cried. “Put those away!”

VI

After ensuring the door was tightly shut, Holmes explained in rapid-fire speech how it had flashed over him while coming home from the market and how he had rushed back to the medical college, where he found—thank heavens!—that the police had left for the Cambridge station house. Holmes dispatched a message to his brother’s whist table to fetch Fields to Craigie House at once.

The doctor grabbed Lowell’s hand and shook it urgently, more thankful he was there than he would have admitted. “I was about to send to Elmwood for you, my dear Lowell,” Holmes said.

“Holmes, did you say something of police?” Longfellow asked.

“Longfellow, everyone, please—into the study. You must promise to lock away all I am about to tell you in the strictest of confidence.”

Nobody objected. It was unusual to see the little doctor so serious; his role of aristocratic jester had long been crystallized—much to Boston’s joy and to Amelia Holmes’s chagrin. “There was a murder discovered today,” Holmes announced in a tenuous whisper, as if to test the house for eavesdroppers or to shield his dreadful story from the crowded shelves of folios. He turned away from the fire, genuinely afraid the talk could go up through the chimney. “I was at the medical college,” he finally began, “making headway on some work, when the police arrived to commission one of our rooms for an inquest. The body they brought in was covered with dirt, you understand?”

Holmes paused, not for rhetorical effect but to catch his breath. In the commotion, he had neglected the whirring signs of his asthma.

“Holmes, what has this to do with us? Why did you have me rush over from John’s game?” Fields asked.

“Hold,” Holmes said with a sharp wave of his hand. He put aside Amelia’s loaf and fished out his handkerchief. “The body, the dead man, his feet… God help us!”

Longfellow’s eyes lit up bright blue. He had not said much but had paid the closest attention to Holmes’s demeanor. “A drink, Holmes?” he asked gently.

“Yes. Thank you,” Holmes agreed, wiping his watery brow. “My apologies. I hastened here with the speed of an arrow, too restless to ride in a hackney cab, too impatient and fearful of encountering anyone in the horsecars!”

Longfellow walked serenely to the kitchen. Holmes waited for his drink. The other two men waited for Holmes. Lowell shook his head with grave piety at his friend’s jumpiness. Their host reappeared with a glass of brandy choked by ice, which was how Holmes preferred it. Holmes grabbed for it. It coated his throat.

“Though a woman tempted man to eat, my dear Longfellow,” said Holmes, “you never hear of Eve having to do with his drinking, for he took to that of his own notion.”

“Come on, then, Wendell,” Lowell urged.

“Very well. I saw it. You understand? I saw the corpse close, as close as I am to Jamey right now.” Dr. Holmes closed in on Lowell’s chair. “That body had been buried alive, upside down, his feet straight up into the air. And the soles of both feet, gentlemen, were horribly burned. They were toasted to a crisp that I shan’t ever… well, I shall remember it till nature has tucked me up well under the yearly violets!”

“My dear Holmes,” Longfellow said, but Holmes would not pause yet, not even for Longfellow.

“His clothes were off. I don’t know if the police had removed the clothes—no, I believe he was found that way by some things they said. I saw his face, you see.” Holmes reached for another dose of his drink but found only a trace left. He clamped his teeth onto a piece of ice.

“He was a minister,” said Longfellow.

Holmes turned with an incredulous stare and cracked the ice on his back teeth. “Yes. Exactly.”

“Longfellow, how did you know about this?” Fields turned, suddenly very confused at a story he still felt had nothing to do with him. “This couldn’t have been in any papers yet if Wendell just witnessed…” But then Fields realized how Longfellow had known. Lowell realized, too.

Lowell stormed up to Holmes as if to strike him. “How could you know the body had been left upside down, Holmes? Did the police tell you?”

“Well, not exactly.”

“You have been searching out a reason for us to stop the translation so that you don’t have to worry about Harvard bringing down trouble. It’s all conjecture.”

“Nobody need tell me what I saw,” Dr. Holmes snapped back. “Medicine is a subject none of you have studied. I have devoted the best part of my life in Europe and America to the study of my profession. Now, if you or Longfellow should begin to talk about Cervantes, I should feel my ignorance—well, no, I am respectfully informed about Cervantes, but I should listen to you because you have given your time to the study of it!”

Fields saw how truly nervous Holmes was. “We understand, Wendell. Please.”

If Holmes had not stopped for a breath, he would have fainted. “That corpse had been put on his head, Lowell. I saw the streaks of the tears and sweat that had rolled up his forehead—hear me: up his forehead. The blood was locked in his face. It was when I saw the horror fixed upon the face that I recognized the Reverend Elisha Talbot.”

The name surprised them all. The old tyrant of Cambridge mounted on his head, imprisoned, blinded by dirt, helpless to move at all except perhaps to kick his flaming feet in despair, just like one of Dante’s Simoniacs, the clerics who accepted money to misuse their titles…

“There’s more if you need it.” Holmes was chewing his ice with great celerity now. “A policeman at the inquest said he was found at the Second Unitarian Church burial ground—that’s Talbot’s church! The body was covered in dirt, from the waist up. But there was not a speck below the waist. He was buried naked, upside down, with his feet sticking up in the air!”

“When did they find him? Who was there?” Lowell demanded.

“For God’s sake,” Holmes cried. “How could I know such particulars!”

Longfellow watched the thick hand of his leisurely ticking clock slouch for eleven. “Widow Healey announced a reward in the evening paper. Judge Healey did not die a natural death. She believes it was a murder as well.”

“But Talbot’s isn’t just a murder, Longfellow! Must I spell out what is as plain as print? It’s Dante! Someone has used Dante to kill Talbot!” Holmes cried out, frustration painting his cheeks red.

“You’ve read the late edition, my dear Holmes?” Longfellow asked patiently.