Dan Simmons - The Fifth Heart

“You must tell no one, my dear,” interrupted Hay, holding one finger up in stern admonition. “Mr. Holmes is here in disguise on what I take to be a very serious mission indeed, and one in which his life may be in danger if the news of his presence in America were to become known. This is a good part of the reason that Harry has asked us to keep his visit with Holmes confidential as well.”

“Oh, yes, of course . . . I understand . . . but after the adventure is over,” said Clara Hay, her steepled fingers moving to her lips as if sealing them for the time being. She was still smiling broadly. “I must bring down the January issue of Harper’s Weekly with the shocking story ‘The Cardboard Box’ in it! Oh, and the February Harper’s with the ‘Yellow Face’ tale in it. We must ask Mr. Holmes’s opinion on Dr. Watson’s chronicling of these adventures!”

Hay took his wife’s hands in his own. “Clara, darling, we must not make our guest feel self-conscious. Mr. Holmes is not the author of these . . . published adventures . . . you must remember. There might be elements of exaggeration or other possibly embarrassing parts to the tales that Mr. Holmes may feel uncomfortable about.”

“Of course, of course,” said Clara. But she was still smiling. And James was sure, as he hurried upstairs to fetch his umbrella so he could leave before Holmes awoke, that the copies of Harper’s Weekly would make their way downstairs and into Holmes’s sphere of attention before the day was out.

When James had told Hay that “I might drop in at the Library of Congress” to browse a bit, Hay had insisted on writing “a little note of introduction”. James hadn’t thought that a note of introduction would be needed to use what he understood was a public library, but he’d tucked the note in his jacket pocket and not thought about it until stopped by some minor librarians just inside the door of the cluttered Library part of the Capitol Building.

Naturally, Hay being Hay, the “note of introduction” was to the Librarian of Congress, a certain Ainsworth Rand Spofford. The lowly librarians at the entrance desk had leaped out of their seats upon reading the note from Hay, fluttered like startled pigeons, and then the chief amongst these lowly workers personally led Henry James up two flights of stairs to the Librarian of Congress’s office.

Spofford himself was a thin, sickly looking old fellow with a scraggly gray beard and long, lank hair that fell away from a part that was more bald pate than part. His face was dominated by a nose that James thought might be up to chiseling stone over at the Library’s new site.

The Librarian came around his huge desk to shake James by the hand, although it was more a limp offering of a dead, white, boneless thing than a handshake. “Welcome, Mr. James, welcome indeed. The Library of Congress is honored to have you visit us. How can we be of service today?”

James was, for the instant, a bit nonplussed. He’d imagined his research here as being anonymous, invisible.

“Looking in on our collection of your own wonderful novels and collections perhaps?” prompted Ainsworth Rand Spofford. He was still standing next to James and seemed to be feeling out of his element when not sitting behind his huge desk.

“Oh, gracious, no, no,” demurred James. “Just a few minutes of . . . research . . . one might generously call it.”

“Of course!” cried Spofford, rubbing his bony hands together as if the two men had just consummated a major business deal. The Librarian touched an elaborate gadget on his desk, and a second later a hidden door in a wall of books to one side opened and a tall, thin lady entered silently.

“This is Miss Miller, my chief librarian assistant,” said Spofford. “Our honored guest today, Miss Miller, the famous American writer Henry James.”

Since Miss Miller had stopped three yards away, too far for even an American gender-egalitarian handshake, the famous American writer Henry James bowed slightly.

Miss Miller, James saw, was a newspaper cartoonist’s caricature of a librarian. Tall, thin to the point of visible boniness, hair done up in an unattractive bun, dressed in an ugly brown cotton shift with what looked to be a man’s shirt buttoned beneath it, tiny Benjamin Franklin bifocals perched on the end of her long nose, and with a name tag on the slight bump of what could be her left breast under the burlap-looking fabric of her shift. D. MILLER.

D. Miller , thought James. Please, God, no .

“Miss Miller’s first name is Daisy, so the two of you should be well-acquainted,” said Librarian Ainsworth Rand Spofford with a graveled bark that must have been some form of laughter.

Miss Miller blushed mightily. James looked down at his shoes, which had picked up some unsightly dust during his walk from the construction site.

“Mr. James would like to conduct some research, Miss Miller,” Spofford was saying. “If you need any additional help, Mr. James, please call upon me at once . . .” And the limp hand was offered again.

James touched the relic and followed Miss Miller out through the door in the bookcase.

The mere librarian . . . no capital “L” with her . . . led him through a warren of book-cluttered small offices and then out into a narrow, three-story-high corridor which James, with a sense of shock, realized was the Library of Congress itself. Or part of it. Books not only filled every available shelf but were stacked on the main floor, behind the iron railings on each mezzanine, and on each available table, desk, and surface.

Miss Miller caught his shocked gaze.

“When Librarian Spofford assumed his post in eighteen sixty-four, appointed by President Lincoln himself,” she said in a surprisingly sensual voice, “the Library of Congress had fewer than sixty thousand volumes, much of the collection based upon Thomas Jefferson’s original gift of his private library. Now we have almost four hundred thousand . . . passing the Boston Public Library as the richest library-source in America . . . and Librarian Spofford fully intends for the Library to have one million volumes by the time we move to the new Thomas Jefferson Building in three years.”

“Commendable,” James heard himself murmur as they moved down the crowded corridor, dodging piles of books. “Most commendable. Wonderful.”

They paused at a junction of corridors. More heaps of books visible everywhere below the narrow, vaulted corridor ceiling three stories above.

“How may I help you, Mr. James?”

“Ah . . . I was thinking . . .” stammered the famous author. “That is, I wondered if you might have a copy of a rather obscure book of physics or mathematics titled The Dynamics of an Asteroid ?”

Miss Miller laughed softly and her laugh was as pleasant and melodious as her superior’s had been grating. “Professor Moriarty’s book! Of course, we have it, though you are right, Mr. James . . . it is very rare. But Librarian Spofford has continued the Library’s original goal of advancing its collection of science and mathematical references.”

James put both hands on his umbrella handle and nodded, trying to hide how startled he’d been by her quick recognition of the volume’s author.

“It’s good you asked for assistance, sir,” said Miss Miller. “For we’ve had to put The Dynamics of an Asteroid on a restricted viewing basis.”

“Really? For such an obscure and technical title? Why is that, Miss Miller?”

“Why, after the Reuters News Agency story two years ago—as well as the story The New York Times reprinted from the London Times —of Professor James Moriarty’s disappearance at Reichenbach Falls with the English detective Sherlock Holmes, we’ve had far too many requests by common visitors to the Library to see this valuable book. We were afraid that without supervision, someone would pilfer it for novelty value if nothing else.”