“What can you know of a man like Henry Longfellow, Bachi?” Lowell demanded. “To judge from your desk, Dante seems to have consumed you of late as well, signore. What exactly are you looking for in here? Dante was searching for peace in his writing. I venture to say you are after something not so noble!” He flipped through the pages roughly.

Bachi swatted the book out of Lowell’s hand.

“Do not touch my Dante! I may be in a tenement, but I need not justify my reading to any man, rich or poor, Professore!”

Lowell flushed in embarrassment. “That is not… if you require a loan, Signor Bachi…”

Bachi cackled. “Oh, you amari cani! Do you think I should take charity from you, a man who stood idly by while Harvard fed me to the wolves?”

Lowell was aghast. “Now see here, Bachi! I fought hand over fist for your job!”

“You sent a note to Harvard requesting they pay me severance. Where were you when I had nowhere to turn? Where was the great Longfellow? You have never fought for anything in your life. You write poems and articles about slavery and the murder of Indians and hope something will change. You fight what does not come near your door, Professore.” He broadened his invective by turning to the flustered Dr. Holmes, as though it were the polite thing to do to include him. “You’ve inherited everything in your lives and do not know what it is to cry for your bread! Well, with what other expectations did I come to this country? What should I complain of? The greatest bard had no home but exile. One day to come, perhaps, I shall walk on my own shores again, once more with true friends, before I leave this earth.”

In another thirty seconds, Bachi drank two full glasses of whiskey and sank into his desk chair, trembling hard.

“It was the intervention of a foreigner, Charles of Valois, that caused Dante’s exile. He is our last property, the last ashes of the soul of Italy. I shall not applaud as you and your worshipped Mr. Longfellow rip Dante from his rightful place and make him an American! Just remember, he shall always return to MS! Dante is too powerful in his spirit of survival to succumb to any man!”

Holmes tried to ask about Bachi’s tutoring. Lowell inquired about the bowler-hatted, checkered-waistcoated man whom he had seen Bachi approach anxiously in Harvard Yard. But they had extracted all they could from Pietro Bachi for now. When they emerged from the cellar apartment, it had grown viciously cold. They ducked under the rickety outer staircase, known by the tenants as Jacob’s Ladder, because it led to the somewhat better appointed Humphrey’s Place tenement above.

A red-faced Bachi thrust his head from his half-window, so he seemed to be growing out from the ground. He wriggled out up to his neck and called out drunkenly.

“You want to talk of Dante, Professori? Keep an eye on your Dante class!”

Lowell shouted back, demanding to know his meaning.

But the sash of the window was immoderately slammed closed by two quivering hands.

X

Mr. Henry Oscar Houghton, a tall and pious man with a Quaker-style half-beard, reviewed his accounts in the orderly congestion of his counting-room desk, which glowed under a dim moderator lamp. Through his tireless devotion to small details, his enterprise, the Riverside Press, located on the Cambridge side of the Charles River, had become the leading printing firm for many prominent publishing companies, including the most prominent, Ticknor & Fields. One of Houghton’s messenger boys knocked on the open door.

Houghton did not budge until he finished inking and blotting a number into his cost book. He was worthy of his hardworking Puritan ancestors.

“Come in, boy,” Houghton finally said, looking up from his work.

The boy delivered a card into Oscar Houghton’s hand. Even before reading it, the printer was impressed by the heavy, inflexible paper. Reading the handwriting under the lamp, Houghton stiffened. His tightly guarded peace was now thoroughly interrupted.

Deputy Chief Savage’s police carriage rolled up and expelled Chief Kurtz. Rey met him on the steps of the Central Station.

“Well?” asked Kurtz.

“I’ve discovered that the leaper’s first name was Grifone, according to another vagrant, who claims to have seen him by the railroad sometimes,” said Rey.

“There’s one step,” said Kurtz. “You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said, Rey. About these murders as forms of punishment.” Rey expected this to be followed by something dismissive, but instead Kurtz let out a sigh. “I’ve been thinking of Chief Justice Healey.”

Rey nodded.

“Well, we all do things we live to regret, Rey. Our own police force battled back mobs with billy clubs during the Sims trial from the courthouse steps. We hunted down Tom Sims like a dog and after the trial transported him to the harbor to be sent back to his slave master. You follow me? This was one of our darkest moments, all from Judge Healey’s decision, or lack thereof, not to declare Congress’s law invalid.”

“Yes, Chief Kurtz.”

Kurtz seemed saddened by his thoughts. “Find the most respectable men in Boston society, Patrolman, and I should say you have a good chance they have not been saints, not in our times. They have wavered, have thrown their weight into the wrong war chest, have let caution overstep courage, and worse.”

Kurtz opened the door to his office, ready to continue. But three men in black greatcoats were standing over his desk.

“What goes on here?” Kurtz called to them, then looked around for his secretary.

The men parted, revealing Frederick Walker Lincoln sitting behind Kurtz’s desk.

Kurtz uncovered his head and bowed forward slightly. “Your Honor.”

Mayor Lincoln was completing a lazy, final stroke on a cigar behind the broad wings of John Kurtz’s mahogany desk. “Hope you don’t mind we made use of your rooms while waiting, Chief.” A cough mangled Lincoln’s words. Next to him sat Alderman Jonas Fitch. A sanctimonious grin seemed to have been carved on his face for some hours, at least. The alderman dismissed two of the greatcoats, members of the bureau of detectives. One remained.

“Stay in the anteroom please, Patrolman Rey,” Kurtz said.

Kurtz cautiously took a seat across from his desk. He waited for the door to close. “What is this about, then? Why have you congregated those scoundrels here?”

The one remaining scoundrel, Detective Henshaw, showed no particular offense.

Mayor Lincoln said, “I’m certain you have other police matters that have been neglected during these times, Chief Kurtz. We’ve decided that these murders shall be turned over to your detectives for resolution.”

“I won’t allow that!” Kurtz said.

“Welcome the detectives to do their jobs, Chief. They are equipped to solve such matters as this with speed and vigor,” Lincoln said.

“Particularly with such rewards on the table,” said Alderman Fitch.

Lincoln frowned at the alderman.

Kurtz squinted. “Rewards? Detectives can’t accept rewards, by your own law. What rewards, Mayor?”

The mayor snubbed out his cigar, pretending to think over Kurtz’s comment. “The aldermanic council of Boston, as we speak, will be passing a resolution authored by Alderman Fitch, eliminating the restriction on receiving rewards for members of the bureau of detectives. There will also be a slight increase in the rewards.”

“An increase of how much?” Kurtz asked.

“Chief Kurtz…” the mayor started.

“How much?”

Kurtz thought he saw Alderman Fitch smile before answering. “The reward will now be set at thirty-five thousand for the arrest of the murderer.”

“God save the mark!” Kurtz cried. “Men would commit murder themselves to get their hands on that! Especially our blasted Bureau of Detectives!”