Holmes flipped through the proof sheets and read for an hour. He craved the second canto of Inferno, where Virgil convinces Dante to commence his pilgrimage, but Dante’s fears for his own safety resurface. Supreme moment of courage: to face the torment of the death of others and think with clarity how each one would feel. But Holmes had already burned Longfellow’s proof sheet for that canto. He found his Italian edition of the Commedia and read: “Lo giorno se n’andava”–”Day was departing…” Dante slows his deliberation as he prepares to enter the infernal realms for the first time: “… e io sol uno”–”and only I alone…”—how lonely he felt! He has to say it three times! io, sol, uno… “m’apparecchiava a sostener la guerra, sì del cammino e si de la pietate.” Holmes couldn’t remember how Longfellow had translated this verse, so leaning on his mantelpiece, he did it himself, hearing the deliberative commentary of Lowell, Greene, Fields, and Longfellow in the humming fire. Encouraging him.
“And I alone, only me”—Holmes found that he had to speak aloud to translate—”made myself ready to sustain the battle…” No, guerra. “… to sustain the war… both of the way and likewise of the pity.”
Holmes shot up from his easy chair and raced upstairs to the third floor. “I alone, only me,” he repeated as he climbed.
Wendell Junior was debating the usefulness of metaphysics with William James, John Gray, and Minny Temple over gin toddies and cigars. It was while listening to one of James’s meandering discourses that Junior heard, faintly at first, the clip-clop of his father struggling up the stairs. Junior cringed. Father had actually seemed preoccupied with something other than himself these days—potentially something serious. James Lowell had not been around the Law School much, probably, Junior had thought, because he was involved with whatever distracted Father. At first, Junior imagined Father had ordered Lowell to keep clear of Junior, but Junior knew Lowell would not listen to his father. Nor would Father have the fire in his belly to order Lowell.
Junior shouldn’t have told Father anything of his companionship with Lowell. Of course, he had kept to himself the sudden and disruptive praise Lowell would often break into about Dr. Holmes. “He not only named the Atlantic, Junior,” Lowell said, relating the time Father suggested the name of the Atlantic Monthly, “he made it with the Autocrat.” Father’s gift for christening was not surprising—he was expert at categorizing the surface of things. How many times had Junior been compelled to listen in the presence of guests to the story of how Father had named anesthesia for the dentist who invented it? Despite all this, Junior wondered why Dr. Holmes could not have done better than Wendell Junior’s own name.
Dr. Holmes knocked as a formality, then threw himself inside with a wild glow in his eyes.
“Father. We’re a bit occupied.”
Junior remained plain-faced at the too respectful greetings of his friends.
Holmes cried, “Wendy, I must know something at once! I must know whether you understand anything of maggots.” He spoke so fast that he sounded like a buzzing bee.
Junior puffed on his cigar. Would he never grow used to his father? After thinking about it, Junior laughed loudly and his friends joined in. “Did you say maggots, Father?”
“What if it is our Lucifer sitting in that cell, playing dumb?” Fields asked anxiously.
“He didn’t understand the Italian—I saw that in his eyes,” assured Nicholas Rey. “And it infuriated him.” They were gathered in the Craigie House study. Greene, who had assisted with translating all afternoon, had been returned to his daughter’s home in Boston for the evening.
The short message on the note Rey had passed along to Willard Burndy—”a te convien tenere altro viaggio se vuo’ campar d’esto loco selvag-gio”–could be translated as “it behooves you to go by another way, if you want to escape from this savage place.” They were Virgil’s words to Dante, who was lost and threatened by beasts in the dark wilderness.
“The message was merely a last precaution. His history chimes with nothing we had come upon in our profile of the killer,” said Lowell, tapping his cigar out Longfellow’s window. “Burndy had no education. And we’ve found no other connections in any of our inquiries to any of the victims.”
“The papers made it sound like they are amassing evidence,” said Fields.
Rey nodded. “They have witnesses who saw Burndy lurking around Reverend Talbot’s house the night before he was killed, the night Talbot’s safe was robbed of the thousand dollars. These witnesses were interviewed by good patrolmen. Burndy wouldn’t talk to me very much. But this fits the detectives’ practice: They find a circumstantial fact to build their false case around. I have no doubt Langdon Peaslee is leading them by their beaks. He rids himself of his prime rival for Boston’s safes, and the detectives slip him a large part of the reward money. He tried to suggest such an arrangement with me when rewards were announced.”
“But what if we are missing something?” Fields lamented.
“Do you believe this Mr. Burndy could be responsible for the murders?” Longfellow inquired.
Fields pushed out his handsome lips and shook his head. “I suppose I only want some answers so we may return to our lives.”
Longfellow’s servant announced a Mr. Edward Sheldon of Cambridge at the door, looking for Professor Lowell.
Lowell scrambled into the front hall and led Sheldon into Longfellow’s library.
Sheldon had his hat pulled tight over his head. “I beg your pardon for bothering you here, Professor. But your note sounded urgent and at Elmwood they said you might be found here. Tell me, are we ready to start the Dante class again?” he asked with an artless smile.
“I sent that note almost a week ago now!” Lowell shouted.
“Ah well, you see… I did not get your note until today.” He looked to the floor.
“Very likely! And you’ll take off your hat when you’re in a gentleman’s house, Sheldon!” Lowell knocked away Sheldon’s hat. A purple swelling could be seen around one of his eyes, and he had a puffed jaw.
Lowell was immediately repentant. “Why, Sheldon. What has happened to you?”
“A frightful heap, sir. I was about to explain that my father sent me to recuperate with near relations in Salem. Perhaps a punishment, too, to think well of my actions,” Sheldon said with a demure smile. “That is why I did not receive your note.” Sheldon stepped into the light to collect his hat, then noticed the horror-struck look on Lowell’s face. “Oh, it’s gone down very much, Professor. My eye hardly hurts in the least.”
Lowell sat. “Tell me how this came to be, Sheldon.”
Sheldon looked down to the floor. “I couldn’t help it! You must know of this horrid fellow Simon Camp roaming around. If not, I shall tell you. He stopped me in the street. Said he was doing a survey on behalf of the Harvard faculty on whether your Dante course might produce negative repercussions on the character of its students. I almost punched him in the face, don’t you know, for such an insinuation.”
“Did Camp do this to you?” Lowell asked with a fierce tremor of paternalism.
“No, no, he slithered away as fits his type. You see, the next morning I happened upon Pliny Mead. A traitor if I’ve ever known one!”
“How so?”
“He said with pleasure how he sat down with Camp and told him of the ‘horrors’ of Dante’s spleen. I worry, Professor Lowell, that any hint of scandal would be perilous for your class. Clearly enough, the Corporation has not relented in its fight. I told Mead he’d best call on Camp and take back his awful comments, but he refused and shouted a bloody oath at me, and, well, he cursed your name, Professor, and wasn’t I mad! So we had a row right there on the old burial yard.”