Dan Simmons - The Fifth Heart

But there was the double issue of that damned telegram from Holmes—ordering him to meet the detective on Beacon Hill this afternoon, long after his train had departed, Holmes arrogantly moving him around as if he were a chess piece with no mind of his own—and, more importantly, James’s news for Holmes about Professor Moriarty and the astounding meeting of thugs and anarchists that James had risked his life to witness. That was hardly something that James could put in a letter—even if he knew where in damnation Sherlock Holmes was at any given time—much less in a telegram.

Well, he’d have to decide soon. The hansom driver was showing signs of irritation and so was his horse.

Logically, there was only one choice he could make. He had to get out of this nightmare. He had to get to the train station, get on that train to New York, have his luggage and himself transferred to the ship, and settle into his stateroom on the Spree . Every bit of logic and reason screamed to James that it was time to return to his flat at De Vere Gardens and get back to work on the play that was going to make him a fortune.

“Driver,” he called. “To the central railway station. And quickly.”

Holmes ostentatiously checked his watch when the hansom—which had been moving almost at a gallop—came to a stop and a red-faced Henry James stepped out.

“You’re almost eight minutes tardy, James,” said Holmes. “I was about to give up on you and go on about my business.”

James had paid the driver and now his face grew even redder. “Don’t you dare chide me for being late for this rendezvous! First of all, you insult me in a public telegram telling me to come if it’s convenient or even if it is not convenient . That may have been a misfired attempt at humor, Mr. Holmes, but it was not something a gentleman would do when communicating via public telegraphy with another gentleman. And as for the time . . . first of all, you very well remember that I lost my valuable watch when you were dragging me through Rock Creek Cemetery and less speakable places at midnight, so I’ve had to depend upon public timepieces, which are notoriously unreliable in America. And finally, I had to rush to the central Boston railway station to get my luggage and accompany it through heavy traffic to this new North Union Station which isn’t really north at all, but far west of the city center. Then I had to store my luggage at the new station, which is deucedly crowded this time of day, and then fight Bostonians, who are only half a step up on the Darwinian scale from South Seas cannibals when it comes to refusing to learn how to queue, for a hansom cab to bring me back here. And I shan’t bother to tell you what important plans of my own that this has ruined for me since . . .”

James stopped because Holmes was openly smiling at him, which made James all the more angry and red-faced.

“Such as missing the sailing of the Spree tomorrow evening?” said Holmes.

“How do you . . . how could you know . . . where did you . . .” spluttered James.

“Alas,” said Holmes, “even our beloved telegraphy, whether sending communications between gentlemen or just to book a ship’s passage, is not as private as it should be. There remain papers and copies of papers, easily accessible to the dedicated voyeur—especially if that dedicated voyeur enters the telegraph office only a moment after the cable-sender has departed. And it is helpful if one can read words upside down, a small trick which I mastered as a child.”

James folded his arms across his chest above the curve of his significant belly while attempting to hold in the angry words and sentences that flowed into his mind.

The cab hadn’t left and Holmes called to the driver, “Wait here another fifteen minutes or so, my dear man.” He handed up some folded currency; the cabbie nodded, touched the brim of his hat, and pulled the hansom to the curb on the opposite side of the street.

“You think this business here will take only fifteen minutes?” hissed James in low tones so the driver would not hear. “I missed my train and ship to England for something that will take only fifteen minutes? ”

“Of course not,” said Holmes. “As promised, we leave for Chicago in”—he checked his watch again—“a little under ninety minutes. But our immediate problem, as you can see, is that there is no four hundred twenty-six and a half address here . . . the houses on this side of the street go straight from four-twenty-six to four-twenty-eight.”

James sighed, obviously wondering at the denseness of a man whom too many people had called a “genius”.

“The custom here on this part of Beacon Hill is to have a little room on the upper floor of a carriage house,” said James. “Those are the ‘halves’ that the postal service delivers to.”

“Aha!” said Holmes as if he’d been the one to come up with this widely known fact. “There’s a carriage house or garage down this driveway at four-twenty-six,” he said as he started walking down the paved lane.

James caught the tall detective by the sleeve. “The protocol is to approach the carriage-house apartments by walking down the alley. We’ll need to go down this way and turn left to find the alley entrance.”

“What an absurd protocol,” said Holmes, following reluctantly. “The carriage house is visible right there .” He flung out his left arm although they’d already lost sight of the carriage house at the end of the sloping driveway.

As they turned left on another street—all these streets and many of these homes were familiar to James from both his childhood and his visits home to Bolton Street as an adult—the writer grasped Holmes’s upper arm and said, “I have urgent information for you, Holmes. Seriously urgent. Far more important than checking on this address, which shall almost certainly be a dead end. Let me tell you how two days ago I . . .”

Holmes gently removed the author’s hand from his arm and said softly, “I have no doubt that you do have something important to tell me, James. But one thing at a time, old boy. We shall speak to whomever lives at this address and then be on our way to North Station and you may tell me whatever you have to say more at your . . . let’s say . . . leisure.”

James almost turned around and left then. His face grew as red as it had been when he’d arrived and he glared at the side of Holmes’s head. He promised himself that he wouldn’t say a single word about anything until Holmes asked him for it. So what if he, Henry James, knew the details for Professor Moriarty’s plans for multiple assassinations and an anarchist and mob uprising set for May first? If Holmes was going to continue acting this way, Henry James would be damned if he’d share such vital intelligence with the detective.

“Who lives in these one-half numbered carriage-house apartments?” Holmes asked as if that were the most important thing for him to learn that day. “The servants?”

James considered not answering, but his cultivated nature demanded he answer a simple question. “No. Just as in England, if a family can afford servants, they live in the main house, up on the top floor under the eaves usually. These cottages have a tradition of being rented at very low prices to white people—cultivated people—whose jobs or vocations have steeped them in poverty. Local teachers, for instance, or the occasional college student, although the latter is often considered too volatile for these quiet neighborhoods . . . unless vouched for by multiple letters of reference, of course.”

“Of course,” said Holmes. He’d found the stairway up to the room or rooms over the still-active carriage house—active if the strong scent of manure from the barn level was any indicator—and took the steps upward two at a time in his eager anticipation.