“But you once said to me that Dante’s introduction to America would be one of the most significant achievements of our century!” Holmes insisted.
“Yes.” Emerson considered this. He liked to take all sides of an issue whenever possible. “And that also is true. Still, you know, Wendell, I prefer the society of one faithful person to an association of rapid talkers, who more than anything else seek admiration from one another.”
“But what would literature be without associations?” Holmes smiled. He had the integrity of the Dante Club under his guard. “Who can tell what we owe to the mutual admiration society of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson with Beaumont and Fletcher? Or to that where Johnson and Goldsmith and Burke and Reynolds and Beauclerc and Boswell, most admiring of all admirers, met by the fireside of a parlor?”
Emerson straightened the papers he had brought to Fields in order to show that the purpose of his visit was completed. “Remember that only when past genius is transmitted into a present power shall we meet the first truly American poet. And somewhere, born to the streets rather than the athenaeum, we will come upon the first true reader. The spirit of the American is suspected to be timid, imitative, tame—the scholar decent, indolent, complaisant. The mind of our country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. Without action, the scholar is not yet man. Ideas must work through the bones and arms of good men or they are no better than dreams. When I read Longfellow, I feel utterly at ease—I am safe. This shall not yield us our future.”
When Emerson left, Holmes felt he had been entrusted with a sphinx’s riddle to which only he could provide an answer. He felt decidedly possessive about the conversation; he did not want to share it with the others when they arrived.
“Is it really possible?” Fields asked his friends after they had discussed Bachi. “Could this beggar Lonza have been so overcome that he would see the poem strung over all life?”
“It would not be the first or last time that literature mastered a weakened mind. Think of John Wilkes Booth,” Holmes said. “As he shot Lincoln, he cried out in Latin, ‘Thus always to tyrants.’ That’s what Brutus says while murdering Julius Caesar. Lincoln was the Roman emperor in Booth’s mind. Booth, recall, was a Shakespearean. Just as our Lucifer is a master Dantean. The reading, the comprehending, the analyzing that we do every day did what we secretly hope for in ourselves—worked through the bones and muscles of this man.”
Longfellow raised his eyebrows at this. “Only, it seemed to have done so involuntarily with Booth and Lonza.”
“Bachi must be hiding something he knows about Lonza!” Lowell said with frustration. “You saw how reluctant he was, Holmes. What do you say?”
“It was like stroking a hedgehog,” Holmes admitted. “After a man begins to attack Boston, when he gets bitter about the Frog Pond or the State House, you may be sure there is not much left of him. Poor Edgar Poe died in the hospital soon after he got into this way of talking, so sure as you find a fellow reduced to this, you had better stop lending him money—for he is on his last legs.”
“The jingle man,” Lowell muttered at the mention of Poe.
“There was always a dark spot in Bachi,” Longfellow said. “Poor Bachi. The loss of his job only made him more wretched, and no doubt he views our part in his desperation unkindly.”
Lowell did not meet Longfellow’s eyes. He had deliberately not related the specifics of Bachi’s tirade against Longfellow. “I think good gratitude a scarcer thing in this world than good verses, Longfellow. Bachi has no more feelings than a horseradish. It could be that Lonza was so afraid at the police station because he knew who killed Healey. He knew Bachi was the culprit—or perhaps he even helped Bachi kill Healey.”
“The mention of Longfellow’s work on Dante did touch him off like a lucifer match,” Holmes said, but he was skeptical. “The murderer must be a man of great strength to have carried Healey from the bedroom to the yard. Bachi can barely stumble straight with his regiment of liquors. Besides, we have come across no connection between Bachi and either of the victims.”
“We have no need of one!” Lowell said. “Remember, Dante places plenty of people in Hell whom he never met. Ser Bachi has two ingredients stronger than a personal connection with Healey or Talbot. First: a sterling knowledge of Dante. He is the only one outside our club, besides I suppose old Ticknor, with a level of understanding that rivals our own.”
“Granted,” said Holmes.
“Secondly, motivation,” Lowell continued. “He’s as poor as a rat. He finds himself abandoned by our city and finds solace only in drink. His occasional jobs as private tutor are all that keep him afloat. He resents us because he believes Longfellow and I sat on our hands when he was fired. And Bachi would rather see Dante ruined than rescued by treacherous Americans.”
“Why, my dear Lowell, would Bachi choose Healey and Talbot?” Fields asked.
“He could have chosen anyone he pleases, so long as they fit the sins he decides to punish and Dante could eventually be exposed as the source. So he could ruin the name of Dante in America before the poetry takes hold.”
“Could Bachi be our Lucifer?” Fields asked.
“Must he be our Lucifer?” Lowell said, wincing as he grabbed his ankle. Longfellow said, “Lowell?” He looked down at Lowell’s leg.
“Oh, no worries, I thank you. I might have smashed myself against an iron stand the other day at Wide Oaks, now that I remember it.”
Dr. Holmes leaned forward, motioning for Lowell to roll up his trouser leg. “Has this grown in size, Lowell?” The red abrasion had gone from the size of a penny to the size of a dollar coin.
“How should I know?” He never took his own injuries seriously.
“Perhaps you should pay as much attention to yourself as to Bachi,” Holmes scolded. “It doesn’t look like it’s a healing wound. Quite the contrary. You simply banged it, you say? It does not seem infected. Has it been bothering you at all, Lowell?”
Suddenly, his ankle felt much worse. “Now and again.” Then he thought of something. “It is possible that while I was at Healey’s, one of those blowflies made its way into my pants leg. Could that be it?”
Holmes said, “Not that I could imagine. I’ve never heard of a blowfly of that kind being able to sting. Perhaps it was some other kind of insect?”
“No, I should know. I flattened it like an oyster out of season.” Lowell grinned. “It was one of those I brought you, Holmes.”
Holmes considered this. “Longfellow, has Professor Agassiz returned from Brazil?”
Longfellow said, “Just this week, I believe.”
“I suggest that we send the insect samples you recovered to Agassiz’s museum,” Holmes said to Lowell. “There is nothing he doesn’t know about nature’s beasts.”
Lowell had had more than enough on the topic of his own well-being. “If you must. Now, I propose to follow Bachi for a few days—assuming he hasn’t already dropped dead from drinking. See if he leads us somewhere revealing. Two of us shall wait outside his apartment with a carriage while the others wait here. If there are no objections, I shall lead the team to watch Bachi. Who shall come with me?”
Nobody volunteered. Fields nonchalantly pulled out his watch chain.
“Oh, come now!” Lowell said. He clapped his publisher on the shoulder. “Fields, you’ll come.”
“I’m sorry, Lowell. I had to promise Oscar Houghton an afternoon dinner with Longfellow and myself for today. He received a note from Augustus Manning last evening warning him to cease printing Longfellow’s translation or risk the loss of Harvard’s business. We must do something quickly or Houghton shall bend.”
“And I have a speaking engagement at the Odeon on the latest developments in homeopathy and allopathy that could not be canceled without severe financial loss to the organizers,” Dr. Holmes said preemptively. “All are welcome to come, of course!”