Holmes’s father had lost the church during a split in his congregation with members who wished to have Unitarian ministers as occasional guest preachers at their pulpit. The reverend had refused, and the small number of his remaining faithful moved with him to a new meetinghouse. The Unitarian chapels were all the fashion in those days, for there was shelter under the “new religion” from the doctrines of inborn sin and human helplessness propounded by Reverend Holmes and his more fire-eating brethren. It was in one of those churches that Dr. Holmes, too, had left behind his father’s beliefs and found yet another kind of shelter, in reasoned religion rather than fear of God.
There was also shelter beneath the floorboards, thought Holmes, when the abolitionists were mixed in—at least, that was what Holmes had heard: Under many Unitarian chapels they dug tunnels to hide runaway Negroes when Chief Justice Healey’s court upheld the Fugitive Slave Act and forced escaped Negroes into hiding. What would the Reverend Abiel Holmes have thought of that…
Holmes had returned to his father’s old meetinghouse every summer for the Harvard commencement, where the ceremony was held. Wendell Junior, in the year of his college graduation, as class poet. Mrs. Holmes had cautioned Dr. Holmes not to add to the pressure on Junior by advising him or critiquing his poem. As Junior took his place, Dr. Holmes sat in the meetinghouse, the chapel that had been stripped away from his father, an unsteady smile fixed on his face. All eyes were on him, to see his reaction to his son’s poem, written by Junior while he was drilling for the war his company would soon join. Cedat armis toga, thought Holmes—let the scholar’s gown give way to the soldier’s arms. Oliver Wendell Holmes, wheezing with nervousness as he watched Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior, wished that he might dive down into those fairy-tale tunnels supposedly running under the churches, for what use were those rabbit holes now that the Secesh traitors would be shown what to do with their slavery laws with bayonet and Enfield?
Holmes shot to attention in the empty pew. Why, the tunnels! That was how Lucifer had eluded all detection, even when the police had been out in full force! That was why the prostitute saw Teal disappear in the fog near a church! That was why the jittery sexton of Talbot’s church had not seen the killer enter or leave! A chorus of hallelujahs lit up Dr. Holmes’s soul. Lucifer does not walk or ride the cars while dragging Boston into Hell, Holmes cried to himself. He burrows!
Lowell anxiously departed Elmwood for their Craigie House rendezvous and was the first to greet Longfellow. Lowell did not notice, on the way, that the police guards in front of Elmwood and Craigie House were nowhere to be seen. Longfellow was just finishing reading a story to Annie Allegra. He excused her to the nursery.
Fields arrived soon after.
But twenty minutes passed without word of Oliver Wendell Holmes or Nicholas Rey.
“We shouldn’t have left Rey’s side,” Lowell muttered into his mustache.
“I can’t understand why Wendell wouldn’t have come by now,” said Fields nervously. “I stopped at his house on my way, and Mrs. Holmes said he had already departed.”
“It hasn’t been very long,” said Longfellow, but his eyes did not move from his clock.
Lowell dropped his face into his hands. When he peered out between them, another ten minutes were gone. When he closed himself in again, he was suddenly hit by a chilling thought. He rushed to the window. “We must find Wendell at once!”
“What’s wrong?” asked Fields, alarmed at the look of horror on Lowell’s face.
“It’s Wendell,” Lowell said, “I called him a traitor at the Corner!”
Fields smiled gently. “That is long forgotten, my dear Lowell.”
Lowell grabbed his publisher’s coat sleeve for balance. “Don’t you see? I had my row with Wendell at the Corner the day Jennison was found shredded, the night Holmes walked out from our project. Teal, or rather Galvin, was just coming down the hall. He must have been listening in on us the whole time, just as he would have done at Harvard’s board meetings! I chased Holmes into the hall from the Authors’ Room to yell after him—don’t you remember what I said? Can’t you hear the words still? I told Holmes he was betraying the Dante Club. I said he was a traitor!”
“Brace yourself, please,” said Fields.
“Greene preached to Teal, and Teal followed up with murders. I condemned Wendell as a traitor: Teal was the vigilant audience for my little sermon!” cried Lowell. “Oh, my dear friend, I’ve done him in. I’ve murdered Wendell!”
Lowell rushed into the front hall for his coat.
“He’ll be here any moment, I’m sure,” said Longfellow. “Please, Lowell, let us wait for Officer Rey at least.”
“No, I’m going to find Wendell right now!”
“But where do you mean to find him? And you can’t go alone,” said Longfellow. “We’ll come.”
“I’ll go with Lowell,” Fields said, gathering up the police rattle left by Rey and shaking it to show that it worked well. “I’m sure everything’s fine. Longfellow, will you wait here for Wendell? We’ll send the patrol officer to fetch Rey at once.”
Longfellow nodded.
“Come then, Fields! Now!” roared Lowell, on the verge of crying.
Fields tried to keep up with Lowell as he ran down the front walkway to Brattle Street. There was no sign of anyone.
“Now, where in the deuce is that patrolman?” Fields asked. “The street looks entirely empty…”
A rustling noise sounded in the trees behind Longfellow’s high fence. Lowell put a finger to his lips to signal Fields for quiet and crept closer to the sound, where he waited frozen in suspense.
A cat sprang into view at their feet and then raced off, dissolving into the darkness. Lowell let out a sigh of relief, but just then a man came hurtling down over the fence and struck a crashing blow to Lowell’s head. Lowell collapsed all at once, like a sail whose mast had cracked in two; the poet’s face was so inconceivably motionless on the ground as to be almost unrecognizable to Fields.
The publisher backed away, then looked up and met the gaze of Dan Teal. They moved in tandem, Fields backward and Teal forward in a curiously gentle dance.
“Mr. Teal, please.” Fields’s knees bent inward.
Teal stared impassively.
The publisher tripped over a fallen branch, then turned and launched into a clumsy run. He puffed his way down Brattle, faltering as he went, trying to call out, to scream, but only producing a rough, hoarse caw lost in the frigid winds shrieking in his ears. He looked back, then he drew the police rattle from his pocket. There was no longer any sign of his pursuer. As Fields turned to look over his other shoulder, he felt his arm being grabbed, and he was flung hard through the air. His body went tumbling to the street, the rattle slipping into the bushes with a soft jingle, soft as a bird’s chirp.
Fields stretched his neck toward Craigie House with excruciating stiffness. A warm gaslight glow escaped Longfellow’s study windows, and Fields seemed instantly to know the whole purpose of his assassin.
“Only, don’t hurt Longfellow, Teal. He’s left Massachusetts today—you’ll see. I vow to you on my honor,” Fields blubbered like a child.
“Have I not always done my duty?” The soldier raised his bludgeon high over his head and struck.
Reverend Elisha Talbot’s successor had completed some meetings with deacons at the Second Unitarian Church of Cambridge several hours before Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, armed with his ancient musket and a kerosene lantern he had secured from a pawnshop, stepped into the church and sneaked into the underground vault. Holmes had debated with himself whether to share his theory with the others, but decided to confirm it first for himself. If Talbot’s underground vault was indeed connected to an abandoned fugitive-slave tunnel, this could lead the police right to the killer. It would also explain how Lucifer had entered the burial vault in advance, murdered Talbot, and fled without witnesses. Dr. Holmes’s intuition had launched the Dante Club into its murder inquiries, although it required the urging of Lowell to follow through; why shouldn’t he be the one to point them to an end?