Dan Simmons - The Fifth Heart

Holmes’s first stop as Mr. Jan Sigerson was at the Clarkson Scientific Apparatus and Photographic Materials shop only some ten blocks from the Hays’ front door.

As he entered the dimly lit interior, Holmes could not but speculate that this was almost certainly the very shop in which Clover Adams not only had bought her own photographic supplies before her death in 1885, but whoever had supplied her with the poisonous potassium cyanide fixing-solution as a gift might well have also purchased it here.

“May I help you?” asked a pleasant-looking man with sharp-boned but ruddy cheeks and the tiniest-diameter spectacles Holmes had ever seen.

“I am looking for a magic-lantern projector,” said Holmes in his slight Norwegian accent.

“Very good, sir. For in-home purposes or larger commercial presentations—say in a music- or science-hall or general auditorium space?”

“To be put to relatively modest in-home use for now,” said Holmes, looking around admiringly at the rows of carefully lighted cameras, enlargers, glass-plate slide projectors, developing devices, and rack after rack of chemicals. The place had the quiet aura of a wizard’s shop. “Perhaps later,” added Holmes, “I will require a more elaborate projection apparatus.”

“To purchase today or to rent, sir?”

“To rent,” said Holmes. The irony was that he had no fewer than three specialized photographic-plate slide projectors back at 221 B Baker Street. He had used them for years for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which was to project and compare fingerprints or microscopically enlarged shard-ends of tobacco or cloth. But obviously he hadn’t taken the bulky and delicate projectors—or any of his hundreds of carefully labeled glass photographic plates—with him when he’d arranged to “die” along with the mythical Napoleon of Crime at Reichenbach Falls two years earlier.

The clerk, who announced that his name was Charles Macready—youngest brother of the late English actor William Charles Macready—and that it was his shop and a pleasure to wait on the Norwegian gentleman, led Holmes into a curtained alcove near the rear of the store where a cluster of black-metal and gleaming mahogany-and-brass projectors sat on carefully lighted shelves.

Mr. Macready touched a black-metal device. “This is the newest thing—the lamp is electric so no illuminant fuel is required. A seven-foot electrical cord. No smell of paraffin or fear of tipping over or overheating. The mirror above the electrical bulb focuses the light, you see.”

Holmes had noted that the Hay house was electrified, but he thought it would be undignified to ask that cords be hung from chandelier sockets. “I won’t require electric.”

Macready nodded and moved to a more compact black-metal-and-brass device. “Here is a Woodbury and Marcy Sciopticon. It uses a double flat-wick illuminant, fueled by kerosene, and you can control the height of the wicks for maximum light intensity on the images.”

“I think not,” said Holmes, stroking his chin. “What is that smaller one?”

“A very bright and sturdy little projector manufactured by Ernst Plank at Fabrik Optischer und Mechanischer Waren in Nuremberg,” said Mr. Macready. “But it takes small glass plates. What is the size of the slides you wish to show, sir?”

“Three and a half by five inches,” said Holmes. “Reduced by half from original plate size.”

Macready nodded. “Then I’m afraid the little Ernst Plank model will not suit your needs. It’s wonderful for small science-class presentations or home magic-lantern shows, but your presentation sounds more serious, more . . . panoramic.”

“Yes,” said Holmes.

“We have double- and triple-lensed projectors for special effects, especially when shown in a larger hall,” said the proprietor. “You may know that it allows the projection operator to fade from one image to the next, to overlay two or three images, and thus to give the illusion of movement if the slide images are consecutive in motion. They really act as a sort of motion-picture projector.”

Holmes shook his head. “I require only a good, solid, safe magic-lantern projector. What is this one?” Holmes touched the larger model with its boxes of mahogany-and-brass lenses and a rather beautiful red-leather bellows lens extender. The detective knew its worth because he owned one almost identical.

“Ah, yes, a very fine unit, sir,” said Macready, setting his blunt hands on the larger machine. “Made by Archer and Sons in Liverpool. It is illuminated using a limelight burner, so one must take special care—it burns very hot. But the images are spectacular . . . in small rooms or large halls. You see that each side has a square-hinged door opening into the illumination chamber as well as a blue-glass circular viewing door with a swivel glass cover. The Japanned metal top cover attaches the tall chimney-cowl here . . .”

Macready gently touched an oval aperture. “I have the cowl and chimney in the back, Mr. . . .”

“Sigerson,” said Holmes.

“You see, Mr. Sigerson, how easily the illumination unit slides right out with one easy pull of this brass knob.”

“I shall take it,” said Holmes.

“How many nights’ rental, sir?”

“Just two nights. I shall return it on Monday.”

“That works well since the shop is closed on Sundays, sir. So we shall charge for only one night’s rental. We would be delighted to have the projectors returned before noon on the workday they are due, if that is convenient for you, Mr. Sigerson.”

“Perfectly convenient,” said Holmes. He didn’t comment on the price when Macready quoted it but counted the dollars out from a rather absurdly thick wad of American bills he carried in his pocket. Holmes pulled the shopkeeper’s small pad closer, clicked open his mechanical pencil, wrote, and said, “Can you have it delivered to this address?”

Macready glanced at Holmes’s handwriting and said with a tone of even deeper respect, “Colonel Hay’s home. Absolutely, sir. It shall be delivered before five p.m. today.”

“Oh, and I’ll need fuel for it,” said Holmes.

“Included in the price, sir. The carrying bottles are foolproof and fireproof and set into their own wooden carrying tray. And may I compliment you on your choice, sir. Archer and Sons is a superb optical manufacturer and this unit works with such brilliance that the viewers almost think they are actually there within the frames of the photographic slide. This projector will serve you well whether you’re presenting your slides to a packed house of scientists at the Smithsonian Institution or in the Executive Mansion itself.”

Holmes smiled. “Those venues may have to come somewhat later in my schedule, Mr. Macready.”

Now Holmes was seeking out the worst slums in Washington, D.C.

He walked west through the southern reaches of one of these slums—Foggy Bottom—a low-lying industrial area hosting the city’s gas works, some still-working glass plants amidst the stone and brick remains of their closed brethren, and a diminishing number of odiferous breweries. The air here was thick enough and foul enough to justify the slum’s name, some of the industrial miasma clearly visible as a sort of swirling green fog. As with all of Washington, D.C.’s, worst slums, the inhabitants here built their shelters along the long, unpaved alleys. Many of the residents of Foggy Bottom were—or had been at one time—employed in these abandoned breweries and tumbledown manufacturing ruins, but the alleys were still lined with tin shacks and wooden hovels, many of them abandoned but others still housing families (or solitary, sullen men) too poor to move elsewhere. Along with the miasma that hung over Foggy Bottom, there seemed to hover a second fog of vain hopes that industry and living wages would once again return to the disintegrating neighborhoods.