The Fifth Heart (32 page)

“But James Paige can be very convincing in person,” suggested Howells.

“Convincing!” cried Clemens loud enough that a few other diners looked toward his table. “Why, every time I arrange it so that Paige’s doomsday moment is nigh, the termination of my investment irrevocable, and my lawsuits against the man shatteringly inevitable, the inventor pitches another bravura performance that would put Edwin Booth to shame—tears, earnest promises, heartfelt assurances, injured dignity, a list of facts and figures that would put a certified accountant into a coma, and all while showing a woeful, profoundly hurt expression that would put a basset hound with hemorrhoids to shame. Why, James Paige could persuade a fish to come out and take a walk with him. No matter how much resolve and determination I stockpile ahead of time for the encounter, whenever I am with Paige I believe him. I can’t help it. Livy says that the man is a mesmerist, not an inventor. I say that he is one of the most daring and majestic liars ever to bilk a hard-earned fortune out of a hard-working author. One ends up giving him another fifteen or twenty or fifty thousand dollars just for the quality of his performance.”

There was an uncomfortable silence broken only by the change of plates by the waiters and then Howells cleared his throat.

Holmes had heard of William Dean Howells, had even read one of his novels, and found little unusual in the writer-editor-critic’s appearance: stolid form, short-cut hair thinning on the front and top to the extent that Howells combed a few curly strands forward, a full mustache turning white, an intelligent gaze, and a soft voice.

“Do you know, for me this is a most important—one might almost say ‘historical’—evening,” said Howells.

“Why is that?” asked Clemens. “Because of the overpriced mediocrity of this somewhat decrepit claret?”

Howells ignored that comment. “Tonight two of my most famous authors, and two of my oldest and dearest of friends, are dining with me. I was beginning to think it would never come about.”

“I’ve read,” said Henry James, “that Mark Twain and I are as opposite, in all things literary, as the North and South Poles.”

“I have never understood that bromide,” said Clemens. “Certainly from what we know of the Arctic and what they are now calling the Antarctic, the poles must be far more alike than different. So saying that we are Howells’s poles would mean that we’re both cold, barren, impossibly distant, impossible to reach, and dangerous to travelers.”

“However that may be,” said James, determined not to be sidetracked by Sam Clemens’s nonsense, “you, Howells, especially during your years at
The Atlantic Monthly
, have managed to make literary successes of both of us.”

“Nonsense,” said Howells, flicking away the tribute with his well-manicured fingers. “You both were destined for literary immortality. It was simply my honor to publish and write essays about your work.”

“You often didn’t sign the critical essays of praise that you printed in your own magazine even while our books were being serialized there, Howells,” laughed Clemens, obviously, in James’s estimate, feeling the wine. “I appreciated it, as I’m sure did Mr. James, but if there were an Editors’ Board of Ethics and Review . . .”

“You know, Mr. Clemens,” interrupted James before the joke could hatch into a full insult, “I actually met you—or at least shook hands with you—once before this.”

“Upon what occasion?” asked Clemens. They were now on the post-dinner wine-and-cigars course and James could see that Mark Twain was enjoying both vices as he worked to focus his eyes a little better on James.

“December fifteen, eighteen seventy-four,” said James. “There was a grand dinner in the Parker House in Boston to celebrate
The Atlantic
’s first year under its new owners. You were there, Mr. Howells . . .” James turned toward his host and nodded.

“And so were many other well-known authors—now published in
The Atlantic
—as well as editors, various dons from Harvard and Princeton, architects, clergymen—although not the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher that evening . . .”

“Ah,” said Clemens. “That was in the early days of the Elizabeth Tilton scandal, was it not? Alas, poor Beecher . . . I knew him, Horatio . . . his sister Harriet was my neighbor at Nook Farm in Hartford. Poor Henry Ward had all those ladies in love with him—or at least with his preaching voice—and then most of the leading suffragettes turned against him like harpies during the scandals: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Victoria Woodhull, even his other sister, Isabella Beecher Hooker. They all wanted his hide.”

“But his other sister, your neighbor in Hartford, Harriet stuck by him, did she not?” said Howells.

“She did,” said Clemens. “Until the end. And since it’s been six years this month since Reverend Beecher died of that sudden stroke, I raise a glass to him and to all poor men who are punished so by harridans and harpies for such venial sins.”

All four men solemnly drank their toast to Beecher and his adultery.

The other tables there in the restaurant of the hotel were empty. The waiters were standing, visibly waiting, their gloved hands folded over their crotches. James knew that the evening was over and that he had to speak now or lose the opportunity.

“Mr. Clemens,” he said. “Howells mentioned that you were traveling up to Hartford tomorrow.”

“Yes,” said Clemens. “A necessity. Money, debt, and business. Just for the day though. I’ll be returning to Dr. Rice’s tomorrow evening.”

James knew that Clemens was currently the house guest of Dr. Clarence C. Rice, an ear-and-throat specialist who included amongst his famous clients Miss Lillian Russell, the aging actor—referred to earlier by Clemens—Edwin Booth, and Enrico Caruso.

“We wondered if Mr. Sherlock Holmes and I might travel to Hartford with you,” said James. “And perhaps convince you to stop by your home there on Farmington Avenue.”

Clemens stared as if he’d been asked to swallow a snake.

“Would you happen to know if your typewriter is still at your Hartford house?” Holmes asked quickly.

Clemens turned his head to look at the detective. “My typewriter?”

“We mentioned earlier that certain cards typed on that machine have been coming to Henry Adams, John and Clara Hays, and Clarence King for the years since Clover Adams’s death. It might help me in my investigation if I were to see the actual machine.”

“Your investigation?” repeated Clemens. He leaned closer to Holmes. “I have been polite so far this evening, but I do have to ask . . . are you
really
Sherlock Holmes? The 221 B Baker Street Sherlock Holmes? The ‘Come, Watson, the game’s afoot!’ Sherlock Holmes?”

“I am,” said Holmes.

“Well then you . . . and James, and you, too, Howells, if you’re not doing anything important . . . are welcome to travel up to Hartford with me tomorrow, and perhaps we’ll be able to get into the house if I cable ahead—it’s being leased, you know—but first, Mr. Holmes, you must answer a most pressing question that has been haunting me all through this evening’s fine meal and frivolity.”

“I shall if I am able,” said Holmes.

Clemens leaned even closer to the detective. “The question is simply this, sir . . . are you real, or are you a fictional character?”

“That is one of the things I am attempting to determine in this case of Clover Adams and the Five of Hearts,” said Holmes.

Clemens looked at him and said no more.

Howells gestured for the bill, they paid, and—since James and Holmes were staying overnight at this hotel, the Hotel Glenham on Broadway—the two men walked Clemens and Howells to the cabs waiting at the curb.

“Come, Howells,” said Clemens, “we’ll take this one and I’ll drop you on the way to Dr. Rice’s place.”

“But it is out of the way . . .” protested Howells.

“In the cab, sir,” said Clemens. “It would be unseemly for two gentlemen of our age and station to be arrested for wrestling on the curb at this hour of the night.” He turned his dangerous gaze on James and Holmes. “It’s a fool’s errand you’re on, gentlemen, but this Great Fool always welcomes other fools for company. I’ll meet you all tomorrow at Grand Central Station at nine a.m.”

W
illiam Dean Howells accompanied them to Hartford that Thursday—Holmes was not sure why, since he assumed Howells had a full business day in New York—and the dreary passing countryside was surpassed only by the dreariness of the conversation. In that one railway trip, Sherlock Holmes learned more about the business of writing and publishing than he could ever use.

Clemens and the usually reticent James had been agreeing vocally while Howells mostly listened and Holmes tried to catch a nap.

“Publishing is changing rapidly, and not for the best,” Clemens was saying.

“I agree,” said James.

“The magazines want a new type of story, if they want stories at all,” said Clemens.

“I heartily agree,” said James. “My number of short story sales has dropped off abysmally. A writer of short fiction can no longer make a living.”

“And subscription novels—once my livelihood and the bread and butter of my own publishing house—are disappearing.”

“Too true, Mr. Clemens.”

“So where in blazes are we to find our wages?” demanded Clemens between puffs on his Havana cigar. “Even serialized novels are disappearing from the magazines.”

“Very difficult to place, very difficult,” murmured James.

“Henry,” said Howells, his tired eyes coming alive. “Do you remember about nine years ago—I
think
it was early in ’eighty-four—when my
The Rise of Silas Lapham
was being serialized in the
Century
at the same time as your
The Bostonians
?”

“I was deeply honored that my modest early effort was sharing space with your masterpiece,” said James. William Dean Howells nodded his appreciation for the compliment.

Holmes noticed a very subtle, quite hidden, but still—to him—noticeable expression come over Henry James’s face. The look, gone before it could be seen for a certainty, reminded Holmes of a proper little girl who was going to say or do something mischievous.

“Mr. Clemens,” said James, “did you by any chance ever happen to read
The Bostonians
?”

A strange, embarrassed look came over the confident Clemens. “Ah . . . no, sir . . . Mr. James, I’ve not yet had that pleasure.”

“I ask,” said James very softly, with more than a hint of a smile, “because an English friend mentioned to me that he’d been at a banquet in Boston around that time—eighteen eighty-four, I believe—during which you said from the podium, and I think I am quoting you properly, ‘I would rather be damned to John Bunyan’s heaven than to read
The Bostonians
.’ ”

Holmes was astounded at Henry James’s bold frontal attack on Clemens. Holmes had only known James for a short time, but everything he had observed in the writer’s demeanor—
everything
—suggested that James would avoid controversy at almost any price, and if forced to react would do so by the most subtle suggestion and most shaded ironical nuance. Yet here he was coming at Clemens like Admiral Nelson at the French or Spanish fleets—straight at ’em.

Also astounded, it was obvious, was Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain. The other writer’s face, so animated by dramatic scowls or controlled expressions of exaggerated surprise or joy in every other exchange Holmes had seen, now bore a look as blank and open and pathetically embarrassed as any 11-year-old boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“I . . . he . . . I . . .” stammered Clemens, his cheeks and nose looking as though they might burst any second from exploding capillaries, “it doesn’t . . . I certainly did not mean . . .
podiums
. . .
banquets!
” The last two words were launched in a tone of disgust emphasized by Clemens waving his hand as if wafting away a noxious odor. Clemens worked to light a new cigar, bending to focus all his energy on the business, even though he had two-thirds of one still burning in the ashtray.

Holmes could see by William Dean Howells’s paled and absolutely frozen face that he had been the one to carry original word of the insult to James almost a decade ago.

James let a few more delicious seconds of this heavily weighted silence pass before he said, “But, sir, many readers—including this one after sufficient time had passed—fully agreed with you on the faults of
The Bostonians
. And I fully and heartily agree with you, sir, that it would be the worst sort of Hell to be damned to John Bunyan’s heaven.”

* * *

For a while the silence ruled. Clemens held his cigar, James and Howells smoked their cigarettes, and Holmes puffed away at his pipe. The four men peered at each other through a strained but collegial blue haze.

“Henry,” said Howells after clearing his throat, “you have diversified, as the businessmen say, into the theater, have you not?”

James nodded modestly. “Three years ago, at Mr. Edward Compton’s request, I adapted my novel
The American
into a play. The novel was not entirely suited to dramatization, but writing and revising the play gave me much needed theatrical experience.”

“Did it reach the stage?” asked Clemens.

“Yes,” said James. “And with some success. Both in the provinces and eventually in London. The next drama I write will be done exclusively for the theater and will not be an adaptation. In some ways, to be candid, I feel that I have finally found my true form. I find dramatical writing, with its emphasis
on the scene
, much more interesting than the novel or short fiction, do you not?”

Clemens grunted. “I adapted my book
The Gilded Age
into a play, known by most folks as
Colonel Sellers
because of the strength of the main character, played by John T. Raymond. Do you know Raymond, Mr. James?”

“I’ve not met him or seen any of his plays,” said James.

“He was a perfect Colonel Sellers,” said Clemens. “This was during the Grant presidency, and President Grant attended one of the New York performances and friends of mine told me that one could hear the president laughing all the way to the rear balcony rows.”