Dan Simmons - The Fifth Heart

“The tea set is quite charming, actually,” he said at last. “Five cups and saucers, of course. All heart-shaped and a bit undersized.”

“All five of the Hearts are—were—small people,” said Holmes.

“Why . . . yes,” said James, a bit nonplussed by the observation. Had he supplied that information? He only remembered mentioning Clarence King’s height.

“What else can you tell me about the tea set?” asked Holmes.

The man is mad , thought Henry James. He said, “The tea tray is beautifully enameled and inset with designs that look like small fruit on branches but are actually each a cluster of five hearts. The sugar and cream bowls also follow the hearts theme. On the teapot, and just below the upper appendage of the tray—which, if I remember correctly, is set off by a large and quite fragile capital ‘T’—are painted clocks showing the hour of five o’clock, exactly.”

“The hour the Five of Hearts met each day of the work week,” said Holmes. “Usually in front of the Adamses’ hearth in chairs designed specifically for their diminutive size. Adams and his wife Clover seated opposite one another in tiny—and matching—red-leather chairs.”

“Yes,” said James, having no idea where Holmes had dredged up that last fact, although it was accurate enough.

Holmes nodded as if satisfied. “Let us return to our rather public first-class carriage,” he said.

Problems with the track somewhere south of Baltimore set the Colonial Express far behind schedule. For hours Holmes and James sat in the relatively uncomfortable so-called “first-class” section with nothing to look at out the windows—night had fallen hours earlier—no dinner, and little relief from the tedium save for their reading and an occasional cup of coffee brought by an apologetic steward. Holmes asked no more questions—a rather pathetic show for a detective, James thought—and they sat in silence for the long, humid hours.

At long last the “Express” got back under way, but they arrived in the nation’s capital many hours late—long after civilized Washingtonians had dined and after many had turned in for the night.

But the Hays’ brougham was waiting for them at the station, along with Hay’s first footman, Severs, and their trunks and valises were soon loaded outside, and covered with a tarpaulin (a light rain had begun to fall), as James and Holmes climbed into the compartment of the gleaming black Kinross Brougham that Hay had sent for them.

Street lamps were surrounded by soft halos that reminded James of the night some eleven days earlier when he and Holmes had met on the bank of the Seine. With those thoughts came a dire sense of something very much like terror. What was he doing introducing this strange and almost certainly deranged man into the inner circle of some of his closest private friends? Holmes’s pathetic disguise of “Mr. Jan Sigerson, Norwegian explorer” would be found out, if not on Sunday evening when the Norwegian ambassador was dining at the Hays’, then even earlier than that. What would his old friends John and Clara Hay—much less Henry Adams, who never spoke to anyone of his late wife or her suicide out of the long resonances of his terrible grief—think of him for deceiving them in this way, for introducing this madman to them?

Henry James was actively sick to his stomach as the brougham rolled through the brick and cobblestoned streets of this least-businesslike of all major American cities. The few shops, restaurants, and public places they passed along the way were closed and dark. Even in the finer neighborhoods here near the Executive Mansion, only a few interior gas or electric lights still burned. The trees in this southern city were fully leafed out and it felt to James as if they were being carried deeper and deeper into a dark tunnel of his own foolish construction.

“I believe the Americans have a saying—‘They roll the sidewalks up after dark’,” Holmes said at one point and the sound of the tall shadow’s voice gave James a start but did not bring him fully back from his broodings. “It certainly seems true of Washington, D.C.,” added the detective.

James said nothing.

Then they were next to Lafayette Square—a darkened Executive Mansion was visible through the trees—and turning at the intersection of Sixteenth Street onto H Street. St. John’s Church rose whitely on one side of the street and the Hay residence loomed in wet red brick on the other. John Hay was standing in the strange Richardsonian arched-tunnel of an entranceway to greet them.

“Harry, Harry, we’re so delighted you came back,” boomed Hay, a compact, thin, elegant man with receding hair parted neatly in the middle, dark brows, and a full but triune-shaped mustache-chin-beard that was going white before the rest of his hair. Hay’s eyes were alight with intelligence and his voice echoed in the tunnel of an entrance with a sincere welcome.

And then they were in the house proper, coats and hats were smoothly removed by servants while other footmen bustled past and then up a staircase beyond the huge foyer with their bags and trunks, and James had made the treacherous introduction of “Sigerson” without faltering, although his heart pounded at his own deception and his mouth was unnaturally dry.

“Ah, Mr. Sigerson,” cried John Hay. “I read about your Tibetan adventures last year in both the English and American papers. It is such a pleasure having you as our guest.”

James could see Holmes looking around at the house . . . the mansion. The foyer was huge and paneled with South American mahogany so perfectly polished that one could almost see one’s reflection in the dark wood. Above the mahogany wainscoting the walls were a rich terra-cotta red that matched the red in so many of the Persian carpets and runners set about on the gleaming floors. High above them—St. John’s Cathedral–high—the spaces above the gleaming chandeliers were crisscrossed with massive mahogany rafters. Ahead of them, the grand stairway was wide enough to accommodate a marching band walking ten-abreast if the occasion ever arose.

“Clara sends her deepest regrets for not staying up to greet you,” said Hay. “I’m afraid she had to take to her bed early tonight due to one of those rare fierce headaches that have plagued her for so long. She looks forward to meeting both of you at breakfast—unless you prefer to breakfast in your rooms, of course. I know that you enjoy taking your breakfast in your room, Harry.”

“Alas, a bachelor’s old habits,” said James. “Especially on the first morning after a somewhat arduous week and a half of constant travel.”

“Clara and I shall see you later in the morning then,” laughed Hay. “Mr. Sigerson? Would you also like to receive your breakfast in your room?”

“I sincerely look forward to coming down and meeting Mrs. Hay at breakfast,” said Holmes in what James now heard as an exaggerated—an obviously false—Scandinavian accent.

“Wonderful!” cried Hay. “Clara and I will press you on all the current gossip surrounding Harry.” He smiled toward James to show he was jesting.

“But speaking of dining, gentlemen, I know how late the train was in arriving and also know that the accursed Colonial Express offers no dinners during its approach to Washington. You must be starved.”

“We lunched rather late . . .” began Henry James, blushing slightly not at the thought of putting his host out but at the sheer awfulness of what he was doing.

“Nonsense, nonsense,” said Hay. “You must be famished. I’ve had Cook and Benson set out a light repast for you.” He put a well-manicured hand on each of their shoulders and led them through the cavernous—but strangely warm—space and into the dining room.