“No, we haven’t seen any evidence of our killer hiding at all, only of our inability to see him. To think that Greene would have looked into the eyes of our demon!”
“Or into those of a thoughtful gentleman struck by the force of Dante,” Longfellow suggested.
“It was remarkable to see how excitedly the soldiers anticipated hearing more Dante,” Lowell admitted. “Dante’s readers become students, his students zealots, and what begins as a taste becomes a religion. The homeless exile finds a home in a thousand grateful hearts.”
A light rapping and a soft voice from the hall interrupted.
Fields shook his head in frustration. “Osgood, please manage it yourself for now!”
A folded paper skated in under the door. “Just a message, if you please, Mr. Fields.”
Fields hesitated before opening the note. “It’s Houghton’s seal. ‘Given your earlier request, I trust you would be interested to know that proofs from Mr. Longfellow’s Dante translation appear to have indeed gone missing. Signed, H. O. H.’ “
As the others fell silent, Rey inquired as to the context.
Fields explained: “When we mistakenly believed that the murders were racing our translation, Officer, I asked my printer, Mr. Houghton, to ensure that nobody had been tampering with Mr. Longfellow’s proof sheets as they were being made and thus somehow anticipating our pattern of translation.”
“Good God, Fields!” Lowell tore Houghton’s note from Fields’s hands. “Just when we thought Greene’s sermons explained everything. This flips the whole thing over like a flapjack!”
Lowell, Fields, and Longfellow found Henry Oscar Houghton busy composing a threatening letter to a defaulting plate maker. A clerk announced them.
“You told me that none of the proofs were missing from the file room, Houghton!” Fields had not even removed his hat before he began to shout.
Houghton dismissed his clerk. “You’re quite right, Mr. Fields. And those still haven’t been disturbed,” he explained. “But, you see, I deposit an extra set of all important plates and proofs in a strong vault downstairs, in precaution against the event of a fire—ever since Sudbury Street burned to the ground. I’ve always thought none of my boys use the vault. They have no call to—there certainly is not much of a market for stolen proof sheets, and my printer’s devils would just as soon strike a game of pool as read a book. Who said, ‘Though an angel shall write, still ‘tis the devils must print?’ I mean to have that engraved on a seal one day.” Houghton covered his dignified chuckle under his hand.
“Thomas Moore,” Lowell could not help answering, all-knowingly.
“Houghton,” said Fields. “Pray show us where these other proofs are kept.”
Houghton led Fields, Lowell, and Longfellow down a flight of narrow stairs and into the basement. At the end of a long corridor, the printer spun an easy combination into a roomy vault he had purchased from a defunct bank. “After I had checked on Mr. Longfellow’s translation proofs in the file room and found them complete, I had a thought to check my security vault. And, lo! Several of Mr. Longfellow’s early proofs for the Inferno portion of the translation have taken flight.”
“When did they go missing?” asked Fields.
Houghton shrugged. “I do not enter these vaults very regularly, you understand. These proofs could have been gone for days—or months—without my noticing.”
Longfellow located the bin labeled with his name and Lowell helped him sort through the Divine Comedy sheets. Several cantos of Inferno were gone.
Lowell whispered, “They seem to have been taken entirely higgledy-piggledy. Parts of Canto Three are gone, but that seems the only one stolen which also has a corresponding murder.”
The printer horned in on the poets’ space and cleared his throat.
“I could gather together everyone who would have access to my combination if you’re so inclined. I’ll get to the bottom of this. If I tell a boy to hang up my overcoat, I expect him to come back and tell me he has done it.”
The printer’s devils were running the presses, restoring foundry type to the cases and scrubbing away the ever-flowing lagoons of black ink when they heard the signal of Houghton’s bell. They herded into the Riverside Press coffee room.
Houghton clapped his hands several times to silence the usual chatter. “Boys. Please, boys. A minor problem has been called to my attention. You surely recognize one of our guests, Mr. Longfellow of Cambridge. His works represent an important commercial and civic portion of our literary printings.”
One of the boys, a red-haired rustic with a pale-yellow face soiled with ink, began squirming and casting nervous glances at Longfellow. Longfellow noticed this and signaled Lowell and Fields.
“It seems some proofs from my basement vault have been… mislaid, shall we say.” Houghton had opened his mouth to continue when he caught the restless expression on the pale-yellow devil. Lowell arched his hand lightly on the agitated devil’s shoulder. At the sensation of Lowell’s touch, the devil toppled a colleague to the floor and darted away. Lowell gave immediate chase and rounded the corner in time to hear footsteps race down the back stairs.
The poet dashed to the front office and down the steep side stairs. He burst outside, cutting off the deserter as he ran along the riverbank. He threw a lusty tackle, but the devil eluded him, sliding down the frosty embankment and tumbling hard into the Charles River, where some boys were spearing eels. He smashed through the river’s wrapper of ice.
Lowell took a spear from a protesting boy and fished out the ice-shocked devil by his water-logged apron, which was tangled in bladderworts and discarded horseshoes.
“Why did you steal those proofs, you blackguard?” cried Lowell.
“What’r’ya jawin’ about? Away with you!” he said through chattering teeth.
“You’ll tell me!” said Lowell, his lips and hands shaking almost as much as his captive’s.
“Go stubble your red rag, ya shit ass!”
Lowell’s cheeks flared. He dunked the boy by the hair into the river, the devil spitting and shouting into the chunks of ice. By this time, Houghton, Longfellow, and Fields—and a half-dozen hollering printer’s devils from ages twelve to twenty-one—had squeezed out the front doors of the press to watch.
Longfellow tried to restrain Lowell.
“I sold the damned proofs, I did!” the devil yelled, gasping for air. Lowell raised him to his feet, holding his arm tight and keeping the spear at his back. The fisher boys had salvaged the captive’s round gray cap and were trying it on for size. Breathing wildly, the devil blinked out painful ice water. “I’m sorry, Mr. Houghton. I never thought they’d be missed by nobody! I knew they were just extras!”
Houghton’s face was tomato-red. “Into the press! Everyone back inside!” he yelled to the disappointed boys who had wandered outside.
Fields approached with patient authority. “Be honest, lad, and this’ll come off better in the end. Tell us straightaway—to whom did you sell those sheets?”
“Some crank. Happy? Stopped me when I was leaving work one night, jawin’ ‘bout how he wanted me to heave out twenty or thirty pages or so of Mr. Longfellow’s new work, any pages I could find, just enough so it wouldn’t be missed. He kept edging me ‘bout how I could put a few extra beans in my wallet.”
“Blast your red whiskers! Who was he?” asked Lowell.
“A real swell—tall hat, dark greatcoat and cape, beard. After I yessed his plan, he palmed me. I never seen the pig-widgeon again.”
“Then how did you get him the proofs?” asked Longfellow.
“They wasn’t for him. He told me to deliver them to an address. I don’t think it was his own house—well, that was just the sense from the way he talked. I don’t remember what the street number was, but it ain’t far from here. He said he’d get the proofs back to me so as I wouldn’t feel no heat from Mr. Houghton, but the jackcove never came back.”