Dan Simmons - The Fifth Heart

“Mornin’ to you, gennelmen,” said Wiggins.

“Greetings, Moth,” said Holmes. “You appear to have found employment.”

The boy grinned widely. “I ’ave at that, Mr. ’olmes. And at full workman’s wages. The supervisor, ’e says—‘Moth ’ere, ’e’s just a runt’—but Mr. Ferris, who was ’ere supervising the supervisor as it were, says ‘I saw ’im climb, Baines. ’E’s more monkey than runt and stronger than most of your men. Give ’im a job on both the framing and steel work. We need more monkeys,’ ’e says. And so ’e did. Oh, and I ain’t called Moth no more—they call me Monk now, short for ‘monkey’.”

“Do you mind that name?” asked James, leaning forward on his umbrella to see and speak beyond Holmes to his left.

The boy grinned again. “I love it, Mr. Jimes. You see, the tough blokes on London’s streets they called me ‘Moth’ the old English way, what rhymes with ‘mote’, don’t you see. And I was always bein’ a mote in some fellow’s eye and I didn’t like that feelin’. Although I admit that I did like the way my Mote spoke, although maybe Monk shall speak the same.”

“How did you speak when you were Mote?” asked James.

Again the gap-toothed grin. “So me supervisor, Mr. ’iggens, asks the lot of us at lunch—‘How do I woo this Italian lady what lives in the tenement wi’ me and never seems to notice me none?’ And nobody speaks a word ’cause Mr. ’iggens has an ’orrible temper, he does, but I says to ’im, I says—‘My complete master, Mr. ’iggens sir, you must jig off a tune at the tongue’s end, canary to it with your feet, ’umor it with turning up your eyelids like, sigh a note and then sing a note, something through the throat, you see, as if you swallowed love with singing love, as it were, then sometime through the nose as if you snuffed up love by smelling love, all the time with your ’at penthouse-like all tilted o’er the shop of your eyes and with your arms crossed on your thin-belly paisley waistcoat like a rabbit on a spit, or mebbe your ’ands in your pockets, such as that French geezer in the old painting, and . . . this is important, sir . . . keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away. These are compliments, y’see, these are humors as it were, these betray nice wenches nicely—mostly them what would be betrayed without these tricks, I fully admit—but doing as I say makes you a man of note— do you note, sir?—men that are most affected by these do these. And that concludes my penny of observation,’ I says to ’im.”

Holmes threw back his head and laughed that sharp, barking laugh of his. James could only stare.

“You’ll go far Moth . . . I mean Monk,” said Holmes and handed the boy a ten-dollar bill.

“Thankee, sir,” said the boy, putting the bill in his cap, “and I ’ope it doesn’t inconvenience you none that I h’ain’t going back to England but will seek to find me fortune here by becomin’ an American.”

“Not at all,” laughed Holmes. “You were a pleasure to work with when you were Wiggins Two of Baker Street but now is the time for you to show your true worth to the world.”

“Mr. Ferris says this might not be the last Wheel ’e builds,” said the boy. “Although the others most likely would be smaller, like. If I do well on the ’igh steel ’ere—I might travel with ’is workers to other states, even other countries.”

“May it be so, Monk,” said Holmes and told the coachman to drive on. He turned back to shout at the boy, “If you ever need anything—anything at all, Wiggins—you know where to find me.”

The boy grinned and nodded. “I do,” he said. “I will. And God bless you, Mr. Sherlock ’olmes.”

When they’d traveled further, past what Holmes described as the Algerian Village where robed ladies watched them through their veils as they passed by, then an empty street that Holmes said would be bustling Cairo in a week, complete with real Egyptians, James said, “The lines from Love’s Labor’s Lost . Where on earth did Wiggins pick those up?”

“I take my favorite and most promising lads to the theater,” said Holmes. “I’d say that if they were born into better circumstances many would have grown up to be MP’s, but in truth most are too smart and too honest for Parliament.”

James thought about that as they passed a gigantic zoo, complete with gigantic zoo smells. The author heard a lion roar and perhaps a hippopotamus making hippopotamus noises. He did not look up. Far to the west there came a roar of a happy crowd from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, which had been open for weeks and getting huge crowds.

Their carriage turned right into a dazzling array of gigantic buildings interspersed with canals, lagoons, bridges, and ponds. The largest lake was to their left—James could see the well-planned Wooded Island in its center—and the row of Great Buildings lined up to their right reminded James of the cliffs of Dover.

“We’re officially in the White City now,” said Holmes. “That’s the Woman’s Building we’re just passing.”

James could say nothing—he was surprised to find that he was physically stunned by the beauty, size, and layout of the White City, this “mere fairgrounds” as he’d thought of it in Washington. It felt to him like stepping into a clean, white, safe, sane future.

“It’s a little less than a mile to the Administration Building outside of which your President Cleveland will be speaking,” Holmes said softly so the driver could not hear. “Everything from this point forward is a potential assassin’s roost.”

Leaning on his umbrella, James turned to look at the man next to him. Holmes’s eyes were bright with excitement.

“And I need your help, James, to find where Lucan Adler plans to do his deadly deed on the first of May.”

The Administration Building where their voyage ended was essentially an 84-foot square supporting an oversized ribbed and octagonal dome. But it was beautifully made and held pride of place in the entire White City, centered as it was halfway between the main western entrance where the trains would dislodge their passengers and the eastern Peristyle entrance where those coming by boat would enter. There was an acre or more of paved open space around the Administration Building, but to the east was the Grand Basin that ran all the way to the Peristyle, to the north were the large Mines and Electricity buildings with glimpses of the Lagoon and Wooded Island down the narrow streets between them. To the southeast of it was a solid high wall of façades—the Annex, the Machinery Hall, and the Agriculture Building, broached only by the South Canal with its graceful bridges and lighted walkways.

Two men met them when Holmes and James alighted outside the east entrance to the Administration Building.

“Mr. Henry James,” said Holmes, “may I have the honor of introducing you to Colonel Edmund Rice, Commandant of the Columbian Guard and chief of security at the Exposition.”

James shook hands. Holmes had told him on the ride in that Edmund Rice had been awarded the Medal of Honor for the day at Gettysburg thirty years earlier when he’d not only helped stop the Confederate General Pickett’s charge, but was gravely wounded in the counterattack. Rice was a short, stocky man, balding, with a magnificent mustache. His natural expression seemed to be that of a scowl but James soon understood that was somewhat misleading. Colonel Rice was an intensely serious man who could, on occasion, be wittily humorous.

The other man, tall, thin, and immaculately tailored and turned out, was Mr. Andrew L. Drummond, head of the Secret Service.