by Dan Simmons
The “light repast” consisted of a groaning sideboard loaded with a freshly baked turkey, half a Virginia ham, salads, steaming vegetables, and a second buffet gleaming with wines, clarets, whiskeys, waters, and various liqueurs. The long table had been set and lighted by candelabra for three at the far end.
“We are all bachelors tonight,” laughed Hay. “We shall have to feed and fend for ourselves.”
They did this, of course, by pointing and having Hay’s Benson and two under-butlers fill their plates with their choices.
When they were seated in the circle of candlelight and after Hay had toasted their safe arrival in America, they set to. James was astonished to find that despite his nausea during the drive from the huge railway station, he was indeed famished.
“Harry,” said Hay, addressing James, “I’m sorry to tell you that Adams is not yet returned from some southern lark to Cuba with Phillips. He was scheduled to return home last week but somewhere down there he ran into Alexander Agassiz and since then he’s thrown schedules to the wind—quite literally—and has been geologizing on coral reefs with Agassiz. Evidently they drifted north to further relax with the Camerons at the Coffin Point retreat on St. Helena. I must say that Adams is not exactly rushing home to spend time with me or his other friends here.”
“Shall I miss him then?” asked James, shocked to hear some audible sound of relief in his own voice.
“Oh, no, I think not!” cried Hay with a laugh. “I believe that Adams will show up in the first week of April . . . just days away now. You can enjoy the comparative sanity with us until he does arrive.”
Hay turned to Sherlock Holmes. “Is your repast edible after the ardors of your crossing and non-express Colonial Express traveling, Mr. Sigerson?”
“Delicious,” said Holmes, and James noticed that the detective actually had taken a few forkfuls of ham. “Quite perfect, Mr. Hay.”
“Good, good,” boomed John Hay. “And we shall do everything in our modest powers to make all the rest of your stay with us here in Washington equally as pleasant.” Hay turned back to James. “Oh, Harry, another bonus—I’ve just learned today that Clarence King will be arriving in Washington tomorrow, on the way to or from some Mexican gold mine no doubt, but he’s agreed to join us for dinner on Sunday night. That is the night when King Oskar the Second’s diplomatic emissary is dining with us. Clarence will be so delighted to see you after all these years.”
James looked at Holmes and allowed himself a small but secretly wicked smile. “You are in great luck, Sigerson,” he said. “Not only will the ambassador from the King of Sweden and Norway be here on Sunday, but so shall one of the world’s most famous and best-informed explorers. I am sure that each of them will have many questions to put to you.”
Holmes looked up from sipping his wine, smiled thinly, and nodded without comment.
CHAPTER 9
Hay had said that breakfast would be served in the smaller dining room—the one with so many windows looking out into their garden area—at 7:30, so Holmes allowed himself to sleep until 7:00 a.m. He slept well but awoke with joint pains and an incipient sense of panic. Going into the resplendent bathroom that was, amazingly, part of his guest suite, Holmes unfolded a soft leather bag and removed the dark vial and syringe from their leather pockets. After holding the syringe’s needle for a moment in alcohol that had come from a small stone bottle in an adjacent pocket, Holmes filled the syringe to the proper level, tapped it to remove any air bubbles, removed a short length of flexible chemist’s tubing that was folded into the leather travel “sponge bag”, tied it tightly around his upper left arm—increasing the tension by gripping the tubing firmly by his teeth and tugging sharply—and then he injected the morphine into the vein at the crook of his inner arm. There were dark marks and scabs showing many, many earlier injections there.
Holmes sat on the edge of the bathtub until the morphine began to work on his pain and panic. For the first time he noticed that the bathtub-rim and walls surrounding the tub were of a beautiful blue-and-white Delft pattern.
He took his time bathing—marveling at the truly hot water that flowed instantly from the tap after only a slight turn of the silver spigot by Holmes’s amazingly prehensile toes and then shaved with his straight razor while looking down from the mirror frequently to throw suspicious glances at what looked to be a secondary and much smaller Delft bathtub permanently set into the floor near the corner of the wash basin. Holmes’s incredible deductive powers told him that this must be some bizarre American instrument for bathing one’s feet. (At the very least it was far too low to serve as a bidet—a French invention and toilette-related custom that Holmes, for all of his interest in staying clean, had always found disgusting.)
Bathed and shaved, Holmes touched up his Sigerson-hair with a darkening agent, made the darkened hair wilder and more vertical with some patented hair crème and attacks from two hairbrushes, ran a mustache comb under Sigerson’s nose, and dressed in a bit-too-wooly-thick green tweed suit for his day in the city.
Then Holmes found his way down the huge stairway where a servant immediately led him to the breakfast room.
* * *
Wait a minute.
The reader needs to pardon this interruption as the narrator makes a comment here.
Perhaps it slipped your notice, although I doubt it (since it is dangerous for a narrator ever to underestimate the intelligence and observation powers of readers), but at this point we have shifted point-of-view in the narrative. Up until now I have kept our perceptions focused on what writers and professors call either “a limited third-person point-of-view”, the third person in this instance being Mr. Henry James, or at most I have indulged in a very limited “limited omniscient point-of-view”. In truth, there has been a distinct lack of omniscience throughout this manuscript.
As the narrator in question, I may further alienate you from your suspension of disbelief vis-à-vis the current narration by telling you that I dislike shifting points-of-view in a tale. I find a narrator’s presumed ability to hop from mind-to-mind both presumptuous and unrealistic. Worse than that, it is so often simply inelegant.
As literature has descended into mere entertainment via a deliberate vandalism and diminishment of our once-proud language, authors also have begun leaping around between and into their characters’ minds for no other reason than that they can.
Regarding my shift to Sherlock Holmes’s point-of-view, I could give a dozen convincing explanations as to why I make this shift at this time: i.e., Henry James later learned this information and I, as narrator, am somehow receiving the intelligence from him retroactively in time. Neither will Dr. John Watson, M.D., ever hear the details of this 1893 American adventure, so I would be lying to claim the overused doctor as my source of information.
Or perhaps this narrator could say that he has, through the usual arcane means involving opened bank vaults or misplaced trunks found in attics, come across a long-lost manuscript (discovered, perhaps, alongside Holmes’s equally lost volumes titled The Whole Art of Detection?) which conveniently included encrypted notes from these days in question, notes which somehow allow us to perceive things from the detective’s point-of-view for this part of the tale. Surely more apparently miraculous things have happened in real life than this “discovery” of long-lost notes by the beekeeping retired gentleman who lived out the last years of his life in “a small farm upon the [Sussex] downs five miles from Eastbourne.”
Alas, no. No encrypted notes from the beekeeper. No discovery of Holmes’s promised-but-never-found The Whole Art of Detection. To be specific, none of my information comes directly from James or Holmes, nor even from Dr. Watson or his literary agent, Arthur Conan Doyle. At some point I may—or may not—discuss the source of my information about this period and these men, but for now the simple truth and short version are that I know more about most of Holmes’s and James’s three-month stay in America in 1893 from Sherlock Holmes’s point-of-view than James�
�s. I don’t know all of his thoughts—I do not have that power over or insight into either character, either man—but I do have more information on Holmes’s actions during these weeks than I know of anyone else’s in this narrative, and, from that, any competent narrator should be able to guess or intuit or deduce or simply imagine many of his thoughts.
But if the reader is not already overly estranged by this temporary shift in our focus, your narrator will do his best to keep the number of points-of-view to two while working diligently to keep those two viewpoints from hopping back and forth like the proverbial grasshopper in the very real skillet.
* * *
The buffet in the sunny breakfast room was smaller than last night’s long mahogany sideboard in the dining room, but its groaning nature was comparable. Artfully arranged on delicate china and in silver chafing dishes were the makings for full English breakfasts, light French breakfasts, astounding American breakfasts, and, of course, presumably because Jan Sigerson was supposed to be Norwegian, smoked salmon and slivers of whitefish, a salmon-omelette, pickled herring, and English cucumbers—supposedly a London favorite of visiting Norwegians—mixed in with red and green peppers. John Hay—or, to be more precise, John Hay’s cook—had somehow provided Syltetøy, a Norwegian sweet jelly, to go with the morning breads. With the French, Swiss, and American cheeses were Jarlsberg, gouda, Norwegia, Nøkkelost, Pultost, and grunost, a very sweet Norwegian cheese made from goat’s milk. (Holmes had tried grunost once and that, he’d decided at once, had been more than enough experience with the cloying goo.)
Sherlock Holmes filled his plate with bits of English, American, and Norwegian breakfasts—although a French croissant and Turkish-strong coffee were his usual breakfast when he was at 221 B Baker Street—and enjoyed his morning conversation with John and Clara Hay.
The 44-year-old Mrs. Hay, Holmes saw at once, had long since passed Henry James’s somewhat unkind description of “solid”, had—probably in her mid- to late-30s—passed through and beyond the category of “matronly” and was now set firmly in a thickset, multiple-chinned sort of upper-class glory that would probably stay with her until her last years. It did not seem to diminish John Hay’s delight in her (Holmes remembered James saying that she was “solid” when Hay fell in love with her and seemed to revel in it) and, in truth, Holmes still saw Clara Hay’s beauty in the perfection of her clothing, the gleam of a perfect but modest jewel on one soft finger of her pudgy hand, the coruscations of her perfectly set hair, her near-flawless complexion, and a lustrous quality to her wide, bright eyes that no amount of “tucking into her victuals” would probably ever erase.
Also, Clara Hay was a pleasant, caring person and a wonderful hostess. Holmes—especially in his strange, wild-haired, fiercely mustached Sigerson persona—could tell that almost at once. Her voice was a pleasant contralto and, when Clara Hay was in a position where listening was called for (such as after asking Mr. Sigerson a question), she actually listened. Holmes knew how rare this gift was of being patient enough actually to listen and immediately saw why Mrs. John Hay, “Clara” to so many hundreds of her close friends (in that bold American way where people in society actually used each other’s Christian names without that English fear that they would be mistaken for a servant), would be the indispensable hostess for a capital city such as Washington.
When Holmes complimented Clara Hay on the beautiful blue-and-green gown she was wearing—and it was beautiful, in a dignified and understated way—his hostess did not blush or act like a falsely modest maiden but said, “Yes, it is nice, isn’t it, Mr. Sigerson, even if designed only for everyday wear. I appreciate your appreciation of it—a sign of your good taste, I believe. The design is by the Parisian couturier Charles Worth . . . who was referred to me by our late friend Mrs. Clover Adams.” Clara Hay glanced at her husband as if to ask if she could tell more, but if there were some signal sent from the colonel to his lady, Holmes missed it.
“Clover used to say,” continued Clara Hay, “that a Worth gown not only filled her soul with happiness but . . . what was her exact phrase, John.”
“Not only filled her soul with happiness but sealed it hermetically,” said Hay.
“Ah, yes,” said Holmes’s hostess, smiling as he did. “Monsieur Worth won Clover Adams’s undying loyalty one day in Paris in eighteen eighty-one when the couturier continued to stay with Clover and make last-minute alterations to her gown when both Mrs. Vanderbilt and Mrs. Astor were waiting in the outer room. That was enough recommendation for me, you see, and I have never regretted turning to Monsieur Worth first when we are shopping in Paris.”
“It is a truly stunning dress,” said Holmes. “Knowing as little as I do about such things as I am a bachelor, I would still venture to say that Monsieur Worth’s particular genius has more than repaid your allegiance.” He set down his empty coffee cup and shook his head slightly when the under-butler moved to refill it.
“So what would you like to do today, Mr. Sigerson?” asked John Hay. The more Holmes saw of the diplomat’s long, white fingers, the more he was sure that Hay could have been a fine violinist if his musical tastes had turned that way, as Holmes’s had, at a young age.
“We can wait for Harry and take a carriage excursion through the city,” continued Hay. “Show you the historical sites and monuments, drive through Rock Creek Park, perhaps peek in on Congress in session and have some bean soup there for lunch.” Hay laughed easily. “Harry hates sight-seeing of any organized sort, but we shall simply outvote him. That’s what democracies are for, after all . . . the tyranny of the less-cultured majority such as myself!”
“Thank you,” said Holmes. “But if you and Mrs. Hay do not mind, I would like to spend this first day in Washington as I tend to spend all first days in new cities or locales . . . exploring on foot.”
“Very good,” Hay said with real enthusiasm. “Would you like us to give you some directions for the major sights?”
Holmes smiled under his Sigerson mustache. “Getting lost is my preferred first step in each of my explorations.”
Hay laughed at this.
“If you leave before Harry comes down we shall tell him that you will be back by . . . when?” said Clara Hay. “Shall we plan on you for luncheon, tea, or dinner?”
“Tea, I think,” said Holmes. “Do you have it at five p.m.?”
“That is the hour,” said John Hay, dabbing at his lips beneath the billowing white mustache with a pure-white linen napkin. “Although there may be other options than tea for us men if you’ve had an adventurous day exploring.”
Fifteen minutes later, James having still not made an appearance, Holmes left the house in his green tweed suit, a walking stick with a silver head in the shape of a barking dog, and a full briefcase clutched in his left hand. He was striding briskly under low gray clouds. The day was rather muggy, much warmer than either Paris or New York had been, and Holmes’s/Sigerson’s wool suit was too warm for such a spring day, but this did not stop him from walking at a very brisk pace with the effortless, long-legged strides of the indefatigable explorer he was supposed to be.
The briefcase contained a strange change of clothes. In the upper inside pocket of his tweed jacket he carried photographs of three men, one much younger than the other two. In his right trouser pocket, Holmes carried a French-made, spring-opening knife with a 6-inch blade that had a cutting edge so sharp that one could remove all the hairs on one’s arm with it without feeling the slightest touch of contact.
* * *
Holmes had two objectives for his day of “exploring” in Washington: the first was a mere local errand that might end up a tad expensive; the second was a longer voyage by foot into areas that would almost certainly be dangerous. He looked forward to the second task.
Now as he ambled along, seemingly oblivious to the threatening weather or even the city around him, he took in—as was his training and habit—almost everything around him.
Holmes saw that no one was following hi
m.
Holmes noticed that while the homes were rather nice here near Lafayette Square and the Executive Mansion—what Americans would come to call the White House—they were mostly of the flat-fronted, old Federalist design with their modest stoops opening directly onto the sidewalks. The exception to this traditional flavor had been the Hays’ and Adamses’ towering twin piles of red brick in the Richardsonian design. Even as he’d walked away, Holmes had noticed that the bricks of Hay’s mansion facing Sixteenth Street had been architect-unique: longer, wider, and deeper than any standard building brick. He hadn’t yet taken time to study the front of Henry Adams’s house next door on H Street, but he hoped to see that home soon enough.
The trees in bloom along the not-very-wide sidewalks were relatively young and short. Only in the parks had some of the chestnut and elm trees reached their mature height. Washington, D.C., although almost a hundred years old and despite its gleaming-white Roman civic architecture and few great monuments, had the feel of a new and rather sleepy city.
The boulevards were broad but not very busy even in late morning; by London or Paris standards, they were all but empty. On the busier cross-streets, Holmes caught glimpses of small, hooded gigs—what the Americans called “buggies”—as well as fashionable cabriolets and chaises, commercial coaches and canvas-sided “floats” filled with milk churns or stacked marble, the occasional stylish four-in-hand dashing through traffic, some dog carts (usually with young people at the reins), quite a few gleaming black broughams of the quality Hay had sent to the rail station the night before, a plodding assortment of wagons, wagonettes, and vans hauling goods, a few men on horseback, and even a very few gleaming and belching brass and red-leather horseless carriages being guided by men in dusters and goggles at the tillers.