The Dante Club

by Matthew Pearl

  “Talbot was the ideal hack for them,” said Fields. “A minister respected by all good Christians, an established critic of Catholics, and someone outside the Harvard faculty, so that he could give sugarplums to the College and sharpen his pens against us with the appearance of objectivity.”

  “And I suppose one needn’t be an Ann Street fortune-teller to know the sum Talbot was awarded for his troubles,” Holmes said.

  “One thousand dollars,” Rey said.

  Longfellow nodded, showing them the letter to Talbot in which the amount was specified as payment. “We held it in our hands. One thousand dollars for miscellaneous ‘expenses’ related to the writing and research of the four articles. That money—we can now say it with certainty—cost Elisha Talbot his life.”

  “Then the killer knew the precise amount he wished to take from Talbot’s safe,” said Rey. “He knew the particulars of this arrangement, of this letter.”

  “‘Keep guard over your ill-gotten loot,’” Lowell recited, then added: “One thousand dollars was the bounty on Dante’s head.”

  The first of Manning’s four letters invited Talbot to come to University Hall to discuss the Corporation’s proposal. The second letter outlined the content expected in each paper and forwarded the full payment, which had earlier been negotiated in person. Between the second and third letters, it seemed, Talbot had complained to his correspondent that no English translation of the Divine Comedy could be found at any Boston booksellers—apparently, the minister was trying to locate a British translation by the late Reverend H. F. Cary for the purposes of writing his critique. So Manning’s third letter, which was really more of a note, promised Talbot he would procure an advance sample directly from Longfellow’s translation.

  Augustus Manning knew when he made this promise that the Dante Club would never hand over any proofs to him after the campaign he had already waged to derail them. So, the scholars surmised, the treasurer or one of his agents found a shady printer’s devil, in the person of Colby, and bribed him to smuggle out pages of Longfellow’s work.

  Reason counseled where they would find answers to new questions regarding Manning’s scheme: University Hall. But Lowell could not examine the files of the Harvard Corporation during the day, when the fellows hovered over their territory, and he lacked the means to do so at night. A rash of pranks and tampering had led to a complex system of locks and combinations to seal up the records.

  Penetrating the fortress seemed a hopeless aim until Fields recalled someone who could do it for them. “Teal!”

  “Who, Fields?” asked Holmes.

  “My nighttime shop boy. During that ugly episode we endured with Sam Ticknor, he was the one to save poor Miss Emory. He mentioned that in addition to his several nights a week at the Corner, he is in the daytime employ of the College.”

  Lowell asked if Fields thought the shop boy would be willing to help.

  “He is a loyal Ticknor and Fields man, isn’t he?” Fields answered.

  When the loyal Ticknor & Fields man stepped out of the Corner around eleven that night, he found, to his great surprise, J. T. Fields waiting out front. Within minutes the shop boy was seated in the publisher’s chariot, where he was presented to his fellow passenger—Professor James Russell Lowell! How often had he pictured himself among such sterling men. Teal did not seem to know quite how to react to such rare treatment. He listened closely to their requests.

  Once in Cambridge, he guided them through Harvard Yard, past the disapproving hum of the gas globes. He slowed to look over his shoulder several times, as though worried that his literary platoon might vanish as quickly as it had appeared.

  “Come on. Move along, man. We’re right behind you!” Lowell assured him.

  Lowell twisted the ends of his mustache. He was less nervous about the prospect of someone from the College finding them on campus than about what they might find in the files of the Corporation. He reasoned that as professor, he would have a sensible pretext if caught at such a late hour by one of the busybody resident faculty—he had forgotten some lecture notes, he could explain. Fields’s presence might seem less natural, but it could not be avoided, for he was needed to ensure the participation of the fretful shop boy, who did not seem much over twenty. Dan Teal had clean-shaven boyish cheeks, wide eyes, and a fine, almost feminine, mouth that constantly worked in a gnawing motion.

  “Don’t worry yourself at all, my dear Mr. Teal,” Fields said, and took his arm as they started up the imposing stone staircase that led to the boardrooms and classrooms in University Hall. “We just need a peek at some papers and then shall be on our way, with nothing changed for the worse. You’re doing a good thing.”

  “That is all I wish,” Teal said sincerely.

  “Good boy.” Fields smiled.

  Teal had to use a ring of keys—they had been entrusted to him—to negotiate the series of bolts and locks. Then, having gained entrance, Lowell and Fields lit candles packed in a case for the occasion and relocated the Corporation’s books from a cabinet to the long table.

  “Hold your peace,” said Lowell to Fields when the publisher started to dismiss Teal. “Look at the number of volumes before us we must go through, Fields. Three would do it more efficiently than two.”

  Although he was nervous, Teal also seemed enthralled by their adventure. “Guess I can help, Mr. Fields. Anything at all,” he offered. He looked on the mess of books in confusion. “That is, if you explain to me what it is you wish to find.”

  Fields began to do just that but, remembering Teal’s wobbly attempt at writing, suspected his reading would be little better. “You’ve done more than your share and should have some sleep,” he said. “But I shall call on you again if we need further assistance. Our united thanks, Mr. Teal. You shall not regret your faith in us.”

  In the uncertain light, Fields and Lowell read through every page of minutes of the Corporation’s biweekly meetings. They came upon the occasional condemnation of Lowell’s Dante class, sprinkled throughout more tedious university business. “No mention of that ghoul Simon Camp. Manning must have hired him on his own,” said Lowell. Some things were too shady even for the Harvard Corporation.

  After sorting through endless reams, Fields found what they were looking for: In October, four of the six members of the Corporation had eagerly sanctioned the idea of engaging the Reverend Elisha Talbot to pen critiques of the upcoming Dante translation, leaving the matter of “appropriate compensation for time and energies” to the discretion of the Treasury Committee—that is, to Augustus Manning.

  Fields began pulling the records of the Harvard Board of Overseers, the twenty-person governing body, annually elected by the state legislature and one step removed from the Corporation. Speeding through the overseers’ books, they found many mentions of Chief Justice Healey, a loyal member of the board of overseers even until his death.

  From time to time, the Harvard Board of Overseers elected what it called advocates in order to thoroughly consider issues of particular importance or controversy. An overseer so anointed would offer a presentation to the full board, using the extent of his abilities of persuasion to argue the case for “conviction,” as it were, while a counterpart overseer presented a contending basis for exoneration. The chosen overseer-advocate did not have to possess a personal belief in line with his side in the argument; indeed, the individual was to present a clear-thinking and fair evaluation to the board without influence of private prejudices.

  In the Corporation’s campaign against the various Dante-related activities by persons prominently affiliated with the university—that is, James Russell Lowell’s Dante class, and the translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow with his purported “Dante Club”—the overseers agreed that advocates should be chosen to present both sides of the issue fairly. The board selected as the advocate for the pro-Dante position Chief Justice Artemus Prescott Healey, a thorough researcher and gifted analyst. Healey had never claimed himself a litterateur and so coul
d evaluate the matter dispassionately.

  It had been several years since the board had asked Healey to advocate a position. The idea of choosing sides in a venue outside the courtroom apparently made Chief Justice Healey uncomfortable, and he declined the board’s request. Taken aback by his refusal, the board let the matter pass and did not follow through that day on the fate of Dante Alighieri.

  The story of Healey’s refusal occupied a mere two lines in the Corporation record books. Having understood its implications, Lowell was the first to speak:

  “Longfellow was right,” he whispered. “Healey wasn’t Pontius Pilate.”

  Fields squinted over gold-framed glasses.

  “The Neutral that Dante calls only the Great Refuser,” Lowell explained. “The only shade Dante chooses to single out while crossing through Hell’s antechamber. I’ve read him as Pontius Pilate, who washed his hands of deciding the fate of Christ—just as Healey washed his hands of Thomas Sims and the other fugitive slaves brought before his court. But Longfellow—nay, Longfellow and Greene!—always believed that the Great Refuser was Celestine, who turned away a position rather than a person. Celestine abdicated the papal throne conferred on him when the Catholic Church needed him most. That led to the rise of Boniface and ultimately to Dante’s exile. Healey surrendered a position of great importance when he refused to argue on behalf of Dante. And now Dante’s exiled again.”

  “I’m sorry, Lowell, but I shan’t compare refusing the papacy to turning down a boardroom defense of Dante,” Fields replied dismissively.

  “But don’t you see, Fields? We don’t have to. Our murderer has.”

  They could hear cracking noises in the thick crust of ice outside University Hall. The sounds came closer.

  Lowell ran to the window. “Hang it, a blasted tutor!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well no, I can’t make out who it is . . . there’s two of them . . .”

  “Have they seen our light, Jamey?”

  “I can’t say—I can’t say—clear out!”

  Horatio Jennison’s high-pitched, melodious voice rose above the sounds of his piano.

  “‘Fear no more the frown o’ the great!

  Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke!

  Care no more to clothe and eat!

  To thee thy reed is as the oak!’”

  It was one of his finer renditions of Shakespeare’s song, but then his bell rang, a most unexpected interruption, for his four invited guests were already sitting around the parlor, enjoying his performance so thoroughly that they seemed on the verge of complete entrancement. Horatio Jennison had sent a note to James Russell Lowell two days ago, asking him to consider editing Phineas Jennison’s journals and letters in memoriam—for Horatio had been named literary executor, and he would settle for nothing short of the best: Lowell was the founding editor of The Atlantic Monthly and now editor of The North American Review, and, along with all this, had been his uncle’s close friend. But Horatio had not expected Lowell to simply appear at his door unceremoniously, and at a terribly late evening hour.

  Horatio Jennison knew immediately that the idea presented in his note must have impressed Lowell, for the poet urgently requested, or rather demanded, Jennison’s most recent journal volumes, and had even brought along James T. Fields to suggest his seriousness about publication.

  “Mr. Lowell? Mr. Fields?” Horatio Jennison sprang to his front step when the two callers conveyed the journals, without further exchange, out the door and into their waiting carriage. “We will arrange the proper royalties from the publication, I trust?”

  In those hours time became immaterial. Back at Craigie House, the scholars waded through the almost indecipherable scrawl of Phineas Jennison’s most recent journal volumes. After the revelations surrounding Healey and Talbot, it was no surprise for the Danteans, intellectually speaking, that the “sins” of Jennison punished by Lucifer would revolve around Dante. But James Russell Lowell could not believe it—could not believe such a thing of his friend of so many years—until the evidence drowned his doubts.

  Throughout the many volumes of his journal, Phineas Jennison expressed his burning desire to secure a spot on the board of the Harvard Corporation. There, mused the businessman, he would finally achieve the respect that had passed him by for not having attended Harvard, for not having come from a Boston family. To be a fellow meant to be welcomed into a world that had been locked away from him his whole life. And what otherwordly power Jennison seemed to find in the notion of holding sway over Boston’s finest minds, just as he had over its commerce!

  Some friendships would be strained—or sacrificed.

  In the last months, on his many visits to University Hall—for he was a considerable financial patron of the College and often had business there—Jennison would privately entreat the fellows to prevent the teaching of such rubbish as was being advanced by Professor James Russell Lowell and that would soon be disseminated to the masses by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Jennison promised key members of the board of overseers his full financial support for a campaign to reorganize the Department of Living Languages. At the same time, Lowell recalled bitterly as he read the journals, Jennison had been urging Lowell to fight the escalating efforts of the Corporation to smother his activities.

  Jennison’s journals revealed that for over a year, he had toyed with plans to empty a seat on one of the university’s governing boards. Building a controversy among the College’s administrators would create casualties and resignations that would have to be filled. He was smoldering mad, after Judge Healey’s death, when a businessman with half his worth and a quarter of his savvy was elected to the empty overseer seat—only because this other man was a Brahmin aristocrat by heritage, and an inconsequential Choate, of all things. Phineas Jennison knew the unspoken policy had been enforced by one person above all others: Dr. Augustus Manning.

  At what exact point Jennison heard about Dr. Manning’s consuming determination to emancipate the university from its connection to the Dante projects was unclear, but at that moment he found his opportunity to finally secure a seat in University Hall.

  “There was never a jar between us,” Lowell said sadly.

  “Jennison spurred you on to fight the Corporation and spurred the Corporation to fight you. A battle would wear Manning down. Whatever the final outcome, seats would be emptied, and Jennison would look like a hero for having lent his support to the cause of the College. It was his objective all along,” said Longfellow, trying to assure Lowell he had done nothing to lose Jennison’s friendship.

  “I cannot get it through my skull, Longfellow,” Lowell said.

  “He helped split you and the College, Lowell, and was split apart in return,” Holmes said. “That was his contrapasso.”

  Holmes had appropriated Nicholas Rey’s preoccupation with the scraps of paper found near Talbot’s and Jennison’s bodies, and they had sat together for hours sharing possible combinations. Holmes was now composing words or partial words with hand copies of Rey’s letters. No doubt others had been left with the body of Chief Justice Healey as well but were taken away by the river breeze in the intervening days between the murder and discovery. Those missing letters would have completed whatever message the murderer wanted them to read, Holmes was certain. Without them, it was but a broken mosaic. We cant die without it as im upon . . .

  Longfellow turned to a fresh page in their investigative journal. He drenched his pen in ink but sat staring ahead so long that the tip dried. He could not write down the necessary conclusion of all this: Lucifer had meted out his punishments for their sake—for the sake of the Dante Club.

  The gated entrance to the Boston State House stood high on Beacon Hill; higher still was the copper dome capping it, with its short, sharp tower watching over the Boston Common like a lighthouse. Towering elms, stripped naked and whitened by the December frost, guarded the state’s municipal center.

  Governor John Andrew, his black curls coiling out
from under a black silk hat, stood with all the dignity his pear shape would allow as he greeted politicians, local dignitaries, and uniformed soldiers with the same inattentive politician’s smile. The governor’s small, solid gold–framed spectacles were his only sign of material indulgence.

  “Governor.” Mayor Lincoln bowed slightly as he escorted Mrs. Lincoln up the steps to the entrance. “It looks to be the finest soldiers’ gathering yet.”

  “Thank you, Mayor Lincoln. Mrs. Lincoln, welcome—please.” Governor Andrew motioned them inside. “The company is more prestigious than ever.”

  “They’re saying even Longfellow has been added to the list of attendees,” Mayor Lincoln said, and passed a complimentary pat on the shoulder to Governor Andrew.

  “It is a fine thing you do for these men, Governor, and we—the city, I mean—applaud you.” Mrs. Lincoln held up her dress with a slight rustle as she took a queenly step into the foyer. Once inside, a low-hung mirror provided her and the other ladies a view of the nether regions of their dresses, in the event that the garment had repositioned itself inappropriately along the way to the reception; a husband was wholly useless for such purposes.

  Mingling in the massive parlor of the mansion were seventy to eighty soldiers from five different companies, garbed splendidly in their full-dress uniforms and capes, alongside twenty or thirty guests. Many of the most active regiments being honored had only a small number of survivors. Although Governor Andrew’s counselors had urged that only the most upstanding representatives of the soldierly core be included at the gatherings—some soldiers, they remarked, had grown troubled since the war—Andrew had insisted that the soldiers should be feted for their service, not their level of society.

  Governor Andrew walked through the center of the long parlor with a staccato march, enjoying a surge of self-importance as he surveyed the faces and felt the ringing of the names of those with whom it had been his good fortune to become familiar during the war years. More than once during those wrenching times, the Saturday Club had sent a cab to the State House and forcibly removed Andrew from his office for an evening of gaiety in Parker’s hot rooms. All time had been separated into two epochs: before the war and after the war. In Boston, Andrew thought as he melted seamlessly into the white cravats and silk hats, the tinsel and gold lace of the officers, the conversations and compliments of old friends, we have survived.