Dan Simmons - The Fifth Heart

Holmes nodded as if he were taking mental notes on these most elementary of facts about a shy but world-famous man. “And Mr. John Hay?”

“A very old and rather close friend of mine,” said James. “I met Hay through William Howells—a famous editor and also an old friend—years ago and have enjoyed seeing him and his wife Clara many times in England, on the Continent, and in the United States. He is an extraordinary man.”

“So far all of these Five of Hearts sound extraordinary,” said Holmes. “At least by American standards.”

Before James could protest, Holmes went on, “I’ve read of Hay being referred to as Colonel Hay. Has he a military history?”

James chuckled. “When Hay was only twenty-two years old, he became an assistant to John Nicolay, who was personal secretary to President Abraham Lincoln.”

Holmes waited impassively. James waited for some flicker, some sign, of the detective being impressed—or even interested —but none came.

“In truth,” James continued, “Hay served as co-secretary to Lincoln during the darkest years of the Civil War. But, you see, there was no appropriation for a second secretary. Nor even for an assistant to Mr. Nicolay as secretary. So his friend Nicolay arranged it that he, young John Hay, would receive a salary as an employee of the Department of the Interior, assigned to the White House. When that was challenged by some appropriations committee in eighteen sixty-four, the War Department commissioned Hay as a major—‘assistant adjutant general of volunteers’, I believe was his full title. A year later he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and, shortly after that, received the rank of full colonel.”

“Without ever seeing a battlefield,” said Holmes.

“Only the ones he toured with President Lincoln.”

“I assume Mr. Hay has shown certain accomplishments—besides accruing wealth and a wife—since then,” said Holmes.

James did not especially like the detective’s tone. It seemed very . . . common . . . to the writer. But he decided not to make an issue of it at that moment. The waiters were standing by the walls at the opposite end of the dining carriage, hands solemnly folded across their crotches, waiting for Holmes and him to depart.

“Even by the time John Hay married Clara Stone in eighteen seventy-four—when Hay was thirty-five—he’d held important diplomatic posts in three countries.” James didn’t add that Hay had groused and complained of manners, language, culture, and government in all three of those important European countries in which he’d served. “Also by eighteen seventy-four,” added James, “John had become well known as a poet, then as a distinguished journalist. He was famous for his coverage of the Chicago Fire and of the assassination of President Garfield in eighteen eighty-one and of the trial of the anarchist-assassin Charles Guiteau.”

“Interesting,” said Holmes. “I confess that I wasn’t aware that President Garfield had been assassinated, much less by an anarchist.”

James simply did not believe this statement. He chose to say nothing.

“Is Mr. Hay still a journalist?” asked Holmes. The detective had lit his pipe and showed absolutely no concern about the impatient waiters.

“He became editor of Mr. Greeley’s famous paper—the Tribune —but then returned to government service,” said Henry James. “In eighteen eighty, poor President Garfield had asked John to move from the State Department to the White House, to become the president’s personal secretary. But Hay declined. He left public service before Garfield was shot. Amongst his other pastimes—or perhaps I should say amusements —was writing fiction anonymously. At one time, his friend Henry Adams wrote and anonymously published a novel called Democracy . Since then there has been infinite speculation about the author’s identity; Clover Adams and Clarence King were both suspects of the literati’ s fevered detecting at one point, but it was John Hay whom most of the experts were sure was the actual author. One rather suspects that the Five of Hearts enjoyed leading the literary world on their round robin chase.”

“Democracy,” muttered Holmes around his pipe. “Did not that book sell rather well in England some years back?”

“Amazingly well,” said James. “In England. In America. In France. In Germany. In Timbuktu, for all I know.” He was dismayed to hear an undertone of bitterness in his remarks.

“And Clara Hay?” said Holmes. He removed his watch from his waistcoat and glanced at it.

“A lady’s lady,” said James. “A delightful hostess. A helpmate to her husband. A generous soul. One of the most important loci in the Washington social whirl.”

“How would you describe her . . . physically?” asked Holmes.

James raised an eyebrow at the impertinent question. “A pretty face. An impeccable dresser. Lovely hair. Exquisite complexion. Physically . . . a bit on the pleasantly solid side.”

“Stout?”

“Solid,” repeated James. “She looked thus when John Hay fell in love with her and married her almost twenty years ago, and time and children have added their solidity.”

And eating , thought James with a slight pang of betrayal. He remembered a letter from Hay only a year ago in which his dear friend said that the couple and their son were visiting Chicago where he, Hay, had been very active indeed but where Clara, according to Hay, had stayed at the hotel and . . . “tucked enthusiastically into every victual the dining room offered.” Privately, Henry James thought Clara Hay to be matronly, not terribly intelligent—although she was well-read and wise enough to admire James’s novels—sanctimonious in a backwoods American Baptist-minister’s-daughter’s sort of way (although this was not at all her background, although she did come from Ohio), and altogether an unworthy member of the extraordinary Five of Hearts.

He would never tell Sherlock Holmes this.

“Tell me about Clarence King,” said Holmes, “and we shall return to our carriage and let these good people tidy up their dining car for the dinner service.”

“There is no dinner service on the Colonial Express ,” said James, inwardly pleased to have caught the famous detective out on an error. “We are scheduled to arrive in Washington before the dinner hour.”

“Ahhh,” said Holmes, blowing a column of smoke from the oversized pipe. “Then you can describe Clarence King at leisure. Oh, I should say that I remember reading about Mr. King’s exposure of that western diamond-mine hoax in the late eighteen seventies. Somewhere in Colorado, was it not?”

“It was supposed to be,” agreed James. “Clarence King—all five foot six of him—is a truly extraordinary man: geologist, mountain climber, explorer, surveyor, government servant, aficionado of fine food and fine wine and fine art. Henry Adams and John Hay always believed—sincerely, one thinks—that of all of the Five of Hearts, Clarence King was the one whose future was least limited . . . most probable for fame, glory, and high position.”

“Did Clover Adams believe that?”

James hesitated for only the briefest of heartbeats. “She thought Clarence something of a rogue. But she loved him more for that, if anything. It was Clarence King who sent the Adamses and the other Hearts both fine Five of Hearts stationery for all of their use and a beautiful Five of Hearts tea set.”

“Describe it, please,” said Holmes, removing the pipe stem from his mouth.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Please describe the tea set.”

Henry James looked out the window at the increasingly summer-like forests and fields flashing by as if he could gain strength from the gaze. It was evening. The last rays of a late-March sunset tinged the trees and telegraph poles.