XX

Holmes walked. Though his view of the man had been brief, he knew him at once as Teal, one of the night creatures, as Fields called them, from the Corner: their Lucifer. Now he noticed, looking back, that the man’s neck was as muscular as a prizefighter’s, but his pale green eyes and almost feminine mouth seemed incongruously childlike and his feet, probably a result of hard marches, supported his body with the eager perpendicular posture of an adolescent. Teal—this mere boy—was their enemy and opposite. Dan Teal. Dan Teal! Oh, how could a wordsmith like Oliver Wendell Holmes have missed that brilliant stroke? DANTEAL  .  .  . DANTE AL  .  .  .  ! And, oh, what a hollow sound was the memory of Lowell’s booming voice at the Corner when Holmes had run into the killer in the hallway: “Holmes, you have betrayed the Dante Club!” Teal had been listening in, as he must have done at the Harvard offices too. With all the vengeance stored up by Dante.

If Holmes was slated for final judgment now, he would not bring Longfellow and the others into it. He stopped as the tunnel sloped downhill.

“I’ll go no farther!” he announced, trying to shield himself with an artificially bold voice. “I shall do what you ask of me but will not involve Longfellow!”

Teal responded with a flat, sympathetic silence. “Two of your men must be punished. You must make Longfellow understand, Dr. Holmes.”

Holmes realized that Teal did not want to punish him as a Traitor. Teal had come to the conclusion that the Dante Club was not on his side, that they had abandoned his cause. If Holmes was a traitor to the Dante Club, as Lowell had unwittingly announced to Teal, Holmes was friend to the real Dante Club: the one that Teal had invented in his mind—a silent association dedicated to carrying through Dante’s punishments into Boston.

Holmes took out his handkerchief and brought it to his brow.

At the same moment, Teal latched a strong hand on to Holmes’s elbow.

Holmes, against his own expectations, without forethought or plan, hurled Teal’s hand away with such force that Teal was knocked into the rocky cavern wall. Then the little doctor launched into a flying run, gripping his lantern with both hands.

With laboring breath he scurried through the dark and winding tunnels, glancing behind him and hearing all kinds of noises, but there was no way to determine what came from inside his head and his heaving chest and what existed outside himself. His asthma was a chain attached to a ghost’s leg, dragging him back. When he came upon some sort of underground cavity, he threw himself inside. There, he found an army-issue fur-lined sleeping bag and some scraps of a hard substance. Holmes cracked it with his teeth. Hard bread, the kind the soldiers had been forced to live on during the war: This was Teal’s home. There was a fireplace made from sticks, and plates and a frying pan and a tin cup and a coffee boiler. Holmes was about to run off when he heard a rustle that made him jump. Raising his lantern, Holmes could see that farther back in the chamber, Lowell and Fields sat on the floor, their hands and legs tied, gags in their mouths. Lowell’s beard slumped down into his chest and he was perfectly still.

Holmes tore the gags from his friends’ mouths and tried to unsuccessfully untie their hands.

“Are you hurt?” Holmes said. “Lowell!” He shook Lowell’s shoulders.

“He knocked us cold and brought us here,” Fields replied. “Lowell was cursing and shouting at Teal when he was tying us up here—I told him to shut his blasted mouth!—and Teal knocked him out again. He’s just unconscious,” Fields added prayerfully. “Isn’t he?”

“What did Teal want from you?” Holmes asked.

“Nothing! I don’t know why we’re alive or what he’s doing!”

“That monster has something planned for Longfellow!”

“I hear him coming!” Fields cried. “Hurry, Holmes!”

Holmes’s hands were trembling and dripping in sweat, and the knots were tied tight. He could barely see.

“No, go. You must go now!” Fields said.

“But another second  .  .  .” His fingers slipped again from Fields’s wrist.

“It’ll be too late, Wendell,” Fields said. “He’ll be here. There’s no time to free us, and we wouldn’t be able to get Lowell anywhere like this. Get to Craigie House! Forget us now—you must save Longfellow!”

“I can’t do this alone! Where’s Rey?” Holmes cried.

Fields shook his head. “He never came, and all the patrolmen stationed at the houses are gone! They’ve been taken away! Longfellow’s alone! Go!”

Holmes dived out of the chamber, running through the tunnels faster than he had ever run, until ahead he saw a distant spark of silver light. Then Fields’s command grew in his mind: GO GO GO.

A detective unhurriedly descended the dank stairs to the basement of the Central Station. Groans and harsh curses could be heard through the bricked-up halls.

Nicholas Rey jumped up from the hard floor of the cell. “You can’t do this! Innocent people are in danger, for God’s sake!”

The detective shrugged. “You really do believe everything you dream up, don’t you, moke?”

“Keep me in here if you like. But put those patrolmen back at those houses, please. I beg you. There is someone out there who will kill again. You know Burndy didn’t murder Healey and the others! The murderer’s still out there, and he’s waiting to do it again! You can stop him!”

The detective looked interested in letting Rey try to persuade him. He tipped his head in thought. “I know Willard Burndy’s a thief and a liar, that’s what I know.”

“Listen to me, please.”

The detective gripped two bars and glared at Rey. “Peaslee warned us to keep an eye on you, that you wouldn’t mind your business, that you wouldn’t stay out of the way. I bet you hate being locked up with no way to do anything, nobody to help.”

The detective took out his ring of keys and waved it with a smile. “Well, this day’ll be a lesson to you. Won’t it, moke?”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow emitted a series of short, barely audible sighs as he stood at his writing desk in his study.

Annie Allegra had suggested any number of games they could play. But the only thing he could do was to stand at his desk with some Dante cantos and translate and translate, to lay down his burden and cross through that cathedral door. In there, the noises of the world retreated and became an indistinguishable roar and the words lived in eternal vitality. There, in the long aisles, the translator saw his Poet in the stretch of gloom and he strove to keep pace. The Poet’s step is quiet and solemn. He is clothed in a long, flowing garment, and upon his head he wears a cap; on his feet are sandals. Through congregations of the dead, through hovering echoes flying from tomb to tomb, through lamentations below, Longfellow could hear the voice of the one who drove the Poet onward. She stood before them both, in the unapproachable, coaxing distance, an image, a projection with snow-white veil, garments as scarlet as any fire, and Longfellow felt the ice on the Poet’s heart melt as the snow does on mountain heights: the Poet, who seeks the perfect pardon of perfect peace.

Annie Allegra looked all about the study for a lost paper box she needed to properly celebrate the birthday of one of her dolls. She came upon a newly opened letter from Mary Frere, of Auburn, New York. She asked whom it was from.

“Oh, Miss Frere,” Annie said. “That’s lovely! Will she be summering near us in Nahant this year? It is always so lovely to have her near, Father.”

“I don’t believe she will.” Longfellow tried to offer a smile.

Annie was disappointed. “Perhaps the box is in the parlor closet,” she said abruptly, and left to recruit her governess for help.

A knock struck the front door with an urgency that froze Longfellow. Then it came even harder, with demand. “Holmes.” He heard himself exhale.

Annie Allegra, bored Annie Allegra, left her governess and cried out her claim to the door. She ran to the door and pulled it open. The chill from outside was enormous and embracing.

Annie started to say something, but Longfellow could sense from the study that she was frightened. He heard a mumbling voice that did not belong to any friend. He stepped into the hall and turned to face a soldier’s full regalia.

“Send her away, Mr. Longfellow,” Teal requested quietly.

Longfellow pulled Annie into the hall and knelt down. “Panzie, why not finish that part of your piece we talked about for The Secret.”

“Papa, the part? The interview—?”

“Yes, why not finish that part right away, Panzie, while I am engaged with this gentleman.”

He tried to make her understand, his widened expression signaling “Go!” into her eyes, same as her mother’s. She nodded slowly and hurried to the back of the house.

“You are needed, Mr. Longfellow. You are needed now.” Teal chewed furiously, loudly spat out two scraps of paper onto Longfellow’s rug, and then chewed some more. The supply of bits of paper in his mouth seemed inexhaustible.

Longfellow clumsily turned to look at him, and he understood at once the power that came from inhabiting violence.

Teal spoke again: “Mr. Lowell and Mr. Fields—they have betrayed you, they have betrayed Dante. You were there, too. You were there when Manning was to die, and you did nothing to help me. You are to punish them.”

Teal put an army revolver into Longfellow’s hands and the cold steel stung the soft hand of the poet, whose palms still had traces of a wound from years earlier. Longfellow had not held a gun since he was a child and had come home with tears in his eyes after his brother taught him how to shoot a robin.

Fanny had despised guns and war, and Longfellow thanked God that at least she did not see their son Charley run away to battle and return with a bullet having passed through his shoulder blade. For men, all that makes a soldier is the gay dress, she used to say, forgetting the weapons of murder that the dress conceals.

“Yes sir, you’re going finally to learn to sit quiet and act like you’re meant to, contraband.” The detective had a laughing glimmer in his eyes.

“Why are you still here then?” Rey had his back facing the bars now.

The detective was embarrassed by the question. “To make sure you learn my lesson good, or I’ll knock your teeth out, you hear?”

Rey turned slowly. “Remind me of that lesson.”

The detective’s face was red, and he leaned against the bars with a scowl. “To sit quietly for once in your life, moke, and let life to those who know best!”

Rey’s gold-flecked eyes were sadly downcast. Then without allowing the rest of his body to betray his intentions, he shot out his arm and clamped his fingers around the detective’s neck, smashing the man’s forehead into the bars. With his other hand, he pried open the detective’s hand for the ring of keys. Then he released the man, who now grasped at his throat to restore his breath. Rey opened the cell door, then searched the detective’s coat and drew out a gun. Prisoners in surrounding cells cheered.

Rey ran up the stairs into the lobby.

“Rey, you’re here?” Sergeant Stoneweather said. “Now, what’s happening? I was stationed, just as you like and the detectives came around and told me you were ordering everyone off their posts! Where you been?”

“They locked me in the Tombs, Stoneweather! I need to get to Cambridge at once!” Rey said. Then he saw a little girl with her governess on the other side of the lobby. He rushed over and opened the iron gate separating the entrance area from the police offices.

“Please,” Annie Allegra Longfellow was repeating as her governess tried to explain something to a confused policeman. “Please.”

“Miss Longfellow,” Rey said, crouching down next to her. “What is it?”

“Father needs your help, Officer Rey!” she cried.

A herd of detectives tore through the lobby. “There!” one shouted. He took Rey by the arm and threw him against a wall.

“Hold, you son of a bloody bitch!” Sergeant Stoneweather said, and cracked his billy club against the detective’s back.

Stoneweather called out and several other uniformed officers ran in, but three detectives overpowered Nicholas Rey and caught both his arms, pulling him away as he struggled.

“No! Father needs you, Officer Rey!” Annie cried.

“Rey!” Stoneweather called out, but a chair came flying at him and a fist landed in his side.

Chief John Kurtz stormed in, his usual mustard coloring flushed purple. A porter carried three of his valises. “Worst damned train ride  .  .  .” he began. “What in God’s name!” he screamed to the whole lobby of policemen and detectives after he had assessed the situation. “Stoneweather?”

“They locked Rey up in the Tombs, Chief!” Stoneweather protested, blood streaming from his thick nose.

Rey said, “Chief, I need to get to Cambridge without delay!”

“Patrolman Rey  .  .  .” Chief Kurtz said. “You’re supposed to be involved in my . . .”

“Now, Chief! I must go!”

“Let him free!” Kurtz bellowed to the detectives, who withdrew from Rey. “Every damned one of you scoundrels in my office! This moment!”

Oliver Wendell Holmes constantly checked behind him for Teal. The way was clear. He had not been followed from the underground tunnels. “Longfellow  .  .  .  Longfellow,” he repeated to himself as he passed through Cambridge.

Then in front of him he saw Teal leading Longfellow along the sidewalk. The poet was walking cautiously on the thinning snow.

Holmes was so afraid at that moment that there was only one thing he could do to stop himself from falling faint. He had to act with no hesitation. So he yelled at the top of his lungs: “Teal!” It was a shriek that could bring out the whole neighborhood.

Teal turned, completely alert.

Holmes took the musket from his coat and pointed it with trembling hands.

Teal did not seem to take note of the gun at all. His mouth stirred and he released a soaked orphan of the alphabet as he spat into the white blanket at his feet: F. “Mr. Longfellow, Dr. Holmes shall be your first,” he said. “He shall be your first to punish for what you’ve done. He’ll be our example to the world.”

Teal lifted Longfellow’s hand, in which he held the army revolver, and directed it at Holmes.

Holmes moved closer, his musket pointed at Teal. “Don’t you move any further, Teal! I’ll do this! I’ll shoot you! Let Longfellow free and you can take me.”

“This is punishment, Dr. Holmes. All of you who have abandoned God’s justice must now meet your final sentence. Mr. Longfellow, on my command. Ready  .  .  .  aim  .  .  .”

Holmes stepped forward solidly and raised his gun to the level of Teal’s neck. There wasn’t an ounce of fear in the man’s face. He was a permanent soldier; there was no one left beneath. There were no choices left in him—only the incorrigible zeal to do right that had passed like a current through all humanity at one time or another, usually fizzling rapidly. Holmes shivered. He did not know whether he had sufficient reserves of that same zeal to stop Dan Teal from the destiny he had caught himself in.

“Fire, Mr. Longfellow,” Teal said. “You’ll fire now!” He put his hand on Longfellow’s and wrapped his fingers around the poet’s.

Swallowing hard, Holmes moved his musket away from Teal and pointed it directly at Longfellow.

Longfellow shook his head. Teal took a confused backward step, pulling his captive with him.

Holmes nodded firmly. “I’ll shoot him down, Teal,” he said.

“No.” Teal moved his head in rapid motions.

“Yes I will, Teal! Then he’ll not have had his punishment! He’ll be dead—he’ll be ashes!” Holmes yelled, aiming the musket higher, at Longfellow’s head.

“No, you can’t! He must take the others with him! This is not done!”

Holmes steadied the gun at Longfellow, whose eyes were tightly shut in horror. Teal shook his head rapidly and for a moment seemed about to scream. Then he turned as though someone were waiting behind him and then turned to his left and then his right, and finally ran, ran with fury away from the scene. Before he was too far down the street, a shot rang out, and then another ringing burst hung in the air, mixed with a dying cry.

Longfellow and Holmes could not help looking at the guns in their own hands. They followed the last sound. There on a bed of snow was Teal. Hot blood, cutting a rivulet through untouched white and unwilling snow, floated down from him. Two red spots gurgled in the man’s army blouse. Holmes knelt down and his brilliant hands went to work, feeling for life.

Longfellow inched closer. “Holmes?”

Holmes’s hands stopped.

Over Teal’s body stood a crazy-eyed Augustus Manning, his body trembling, his teeth chattering and fingers shaking. Manning dropped his rifle into the snow at his feet. He motioned with his stiff beard back at his house and pointed.

He tried to string his thoughts together. It was several minutes before anything coherent emerged. “The patrolman guarding my house left a few hours ago! Then just now I heard shouting and saw him through my window,” he said. “I saw him, his uniform  .  .  .  it all came to me, everything. He stripped my clothes, Mr. Longfellow, and, and  .  .  .  he tied me  .  .  .  took me without clothes  .  .  .”

Longfellow offered a consoling hand, and Manning sobbed into the poet’s shoulder as his wife came running outside.

A police carriage halted behind the small circle they formed around the body. Nicholas Rey had his revolver out as he rushed over. Another carriage followed, carrying Sergeant Stoneweather and two more policemen.

Longfellow took Rey’s arm, his eyes bright and questioning.

“She’s fine,” Rey said before the poet could ask. “I have a patrolman watching her and her governess.”

Longfellow nodded his gratitude. Holmes had grabbed a fence railing in front of Manning’s house to catch his breath.

“Holmes, how wondrous! Perhaps you need to lie down inside,” Longfellow said with giddiness and fear. “Why, you’ve done it! But how  .  .  .”

“My dear Longfellow, I believe daylight will clear up all that lamplight has left doubtful,” Holmes said. He led the policemen through town to the church and the underground tunnels to rescue Lowell and Fields.