Authors: Dan Simmons
J
ames and Howells were trailing behind Clemens and Holmes and on the second-story landing, Howells touched James’s sleeve to bring him to a stop.
“That was Sam and Livy’s bedroom,” whispered Howells, pointing to a door at the far end of the hall as Clemens and Holmes climbed out of sight to the third floor. “In Italy they’d bought this amazingly large bed with such an intricately carved headboard that Sam and Livy always put their pillows at the footboard end so, Sam would say, that staggeringly expensive headboard would be the last thing they’d see at night and the first thing they’d see in the morning. John and Alice Day provided their own bed, so Sam and Livy’s carved wonder is still in storage.”
James nodded, but Howells’s soft grip on his forearm continued.
Using his free hand to point to another door far down the hallway, Howells whispered, “That was always my room when I visited. Many’s the time that I would awake to some stealthy sound at one, two, even three o’clock in the morning only to peer out and see Sam in his nightshirt carrying a billiards cue . . . walking the halls in search of a playmate as it were.”
“Did you accommodate him?” whispered James.
“Almost always,” said Howells with a soft chuckle. “Almost always.”
Clemens’s voice suddenly roared down the stairway—“Are you two coming up, or are you busy ransacking through drawers down there in search of treasure? I need someone to play billiards with. The World’s Foremost Consulting Detective doesn’t know how to play the game and refuses to be taught!”
* * *
Henry James made mental notes of the American writer’s billiards room. The inward-sloping walls—this room was at the top of the tallest tower rising from the home—had been painted a light red that bordered on pink. The room was dominated by the five-foot-by-ten-foot billiards table, and James noticed that it was one of the more recently designed pocket-billiards tables with the six holes and external pockets of gold cloth and tassels at each corner and halfway down each long side. The billiards pockets gave a sense of Christmas-stocking celebration to the room, and the sloping ceilings made it feel like what it was—a playroom in a high attic.
The floor was completely carpeted over with a Persian rug that boasted patches of more (and brighter) red amongst its intricate designs. A brick fireplace on the far wall was offset from the center of the table and room and James could imagine how cozy this small, high room could be in the winter or on a chilly and stormy summer night. Next to the fireplace was a rough-hewn and open-faced storage cabinet rising about five feet high. There were still a few stacks of papers and books in it.
A few feet beyond the far end of the billiards table was a table with an oil lamp on it, but actual lighting at night would be provided by the four large, upward-opening gas lamps suspended low over the table on a four-spoke brass chandelier. Beyond both the billiards table and writing table was a door opening out to one of the balconies; sunlight poured in through the fan light over that door, through the tall lights on either side of it, and through smaller square windows low to the floor.
There was no door on the wall to James’s left as he entered, but the tall, fan-light-topped windows there were of stained glass with its central design showing crossed pool cues, a smoldering cigar between the cues, and a foam-topped glass mug of beer above the center of the crossed cues.
“My family crest,” said Clemens, who had already lighted a fresh cigar and was pacing back and forth between the fireplace and the billiards table, a cue stick in his hand. “Shakespeare’s family crest boasted only a sort of sickly looking pen against what Ben Jonson called a mustardy background. Mine is better, I think.”
James noticed that the theme of crossed cue sticks was also repeated on the painted ceiling. In the far left corner, in front of one of the low, square windows, was a smaller table with the typewriter and what looked to be some lead typesetting slugs on it. Holmes was already there.
“May I put this machine on that table and try it out?” asked Holmes.
Clemens just flicked a fast glance to his left. “By all means.” He removed the cigar and stared at Howells and James. “Now, Mr. James, would you join me in a fast game of pocket billiards to decide who is the Anglo-American Literary Billiards Champion of the World?”
“Alas,” demurred James, “I do not play. Have never played. I would never risk vandalizing that perfect field of green baize by attempting to learn to play today.”
“No?” said Clemens, audibly disappointed. “Are you sure, sir? In all of its many versions, billiards is most amusing and satisfactory you see, and when I play badly and lose my temper it shall almost certainly amuse you. Unless, of course, you are one of those blue-light Methodist preacher sorts who find oaths, epithets, blasphemies, and inventive obscenities objectionable.”
James held his hand up, palm out, and seemed to underline his rejection by taking a step backward. He noticed the mismatched furniture in the room: a few more small tables, wicker chairs, rocking chairs, and a couple of what he thought of as Wild West Saloon Chairs. He chose one of the few upholstered chairs to his left and sat.
“Very well,” exhaled Clemens with a cloud of smoke. “Howells, old foe, dear friend, fine foil, it is just you and me . . . again.”
Howells went around to choose a cue stick from where they were propped against the wall to the left of the fireplace.
“Please observe,” said Sherlock Holmes, “that the blank, white card I am placing in the typewriter is identical in size, texture, and cotton content to the one received by Henry Adams, the Hays, and Clarence King every December on the anniversary of Clover Adams’s death. Ned Hooper also received one each year before his untimely death this last December.”
“How do you know it’s the same cotton content and all that?” asked Clemens.
“I took the liberty of analyzing the card under my microscope and with some portable chemical apparatus I’d brought to Washington with me,” said the detective.
Holmes centered the card and typed a few words. For a moment, everyone gathered behind him.
She was murdered.
The detective had set out six of the cards received by the Hays and one on loan from Clarence King and now he set the new card flush below each of the old ones.
“You see,” said Holmes, “this chip in the ‘a’, this tendency in each card for the ‘r’ to be above the bottom alignment, the shape and increasing murkiness within the closed loop of the ‘d’, and the common opacity within the angles of the ‘w’.”
No one said anything. Now that his attention had been brought to the small imperfections, James could see them as a product of this machine. He also noticed that each small problem was more distinct on the card Holmes had just typed.
Holmes seemed to read his mind. “Use has somewhat exaggerated these nicks and alignment problems,” said the detective. “Since the original seven cards we have here look exactly the same, I would deduce that they were all typed at the same time, necessarily at least seven years ago since the Hays, King, and presumably Mr. Adams all received their first card on six December eighteen eighty-six.”
Clemens thrust out his fists, wrists close together as if awaiting hand manacles. “I confess. I will go peacefully.”
Holmes twitched an impatient shadow of a smile. “I presume, Mr. Clemens, that it would not have been difficult, say during the daytime, for one of your house guests to come into your billiards room and spend a few minutes typing a few dozen cards?”
“Certainly it’s possible,” said Clemens, putting the cigar between his teeth and striding back to the billiards table. “Even at night, no one save for me would have noticed the sound of typing and been curious.”
James cleared his throat. “You had no need for your typewriting machine while you have been in England and Europe the last few years?” he asked.
“Obviously not,” said Clemens, leaning forward over the edge of the table and positioning his cue in that odd but graceful sprawl of arms and elbows. “The last few years in Europe, I have written longhand once again and—in the few instances I wanted a typed version of any of my manuscripts—I hired a stenographer who provided the machine along with his or her note-taking skills.”
“Could I impose upon you, Mr. Clemens,” said Holmes, “to provide me with the names and last-known addresses of all the servants who worked for you here in eighteen eighty-six?”
“The list will be somewhere here in the house,” grumbled Clemens. “I shall find it for you before we leave today. May we resume our game now?”
“By all means,” said Holmes.
Clemens smashed the white ball into a random cluster of waiting balls. Three of those he’d struck with his ball or which had been struck in ricochet went into three of the pockets. Clemens straightened up and put chalk on the end of his cue as Howells frowned and leaned over the table.
“In billiards, that’s called nigger luck,” said Clemens.
“Did you keep a guest book from eighteen eighty-five until you began your travels?” asked Holmes.
“Yes,” said Clemens. “I don’t believe we packed them away and John and Alice Day keep their own guest book. There’s a drawer in that table at which you’re sitting, Mr. Holmes—yes, just lift up that tablecloth a bit . . .”
Holmes removed four leather-bound 8 x 12 journals or ledgers.
“May I . . .” began the detective.
Clemens nodded.
Howells struck the white ball and it caromed off two other balls and two of the side cushions before being the only ball to go in a pocket. “Heck and spit and damnation,” muttered the former editor.
“I’ll rack them up properly and we’ll start again,” Clemens said to Howells. “I don’t know why I’ve come to enjoy pocket billiards more than the carom billiards that stole so much of my youthful time, energy, and fortune. Most of the tables in England and Europe don’t even
have
pockets.”
While Clemens retrieved the white ball and shoved the others toward the point on the table where a wooden triangle waited, Holmes said, “Mr. Clemens, you and your family had many hundreds of visitors . . . per year it looks like.”
“Yes, well . . . .” said Clemens and just trailed off in whatever he was going to say. “I have nothing to hide, Mr. Holmes. I am serene in knowing that I have stealthily excised the pages on which Madame Lafarge and Her Writhing Pack of Belly-Dancing Virgins have written their names and left their comments on the visit.”
Holmes looked up from the four books filled with their hundreds of scrawls. “Perhaps, if it might be possible . . .”
“Yes, yes,” said Clemens. “Those four guest books cover eighteen eighty-five until we all sailed in June of eighteen ninety-one. All the names of all our overnight guests are there. Take the books with you, but make sure that Hay returns them to me in pristine condition. For I am certain, you see, that someday my biographers will have much need to refer to those guest books after they’re done with the immediate task of blotting the spot where I leave off.”
“Thank you,” muttered Holmes, “but I won’t need to borrow the guest books. Merely memorize the December ’eighty-five pages and all of the eighteen eighty-six.” Holmes began flipping through the pages of names and comments, running his finger down each page.
“You can
memorize
those hundreds of signatures and comments merely by looking at them once?” asked Clemens. His tone sounded dubious to James’s ear.
Holmes’s finger paused and he looked up at the others. “Unfortunately, my memory has been like this since I was a small boy. If I see something, I can call it back at any time. It is more of a curse than gift.”
“But it must be wonderfully handy in your line of work,” said Howells.
“At times, quite so,” said Holmes. “But it took me years to learn how to deliberately forget things which were of no use to me.”
“Remind me never to play poker with you, Mr. Holmes,” said Sam Clemens.
But Holmes had immersed himself in the 1886 guest book again, his finger rapidly sliding down page after page.
Clemens shrugged and gestured toward Howells, who leaned forward, got the white ball in his sights, and rocketed it into the triangle of clustered spheres. Balls rolled and caromed everywhere. One went in. Howells continued—sinking a second, then third before failing to get any in a hole on his fourth attempt.
“I presume we are playing eight ball, Sam,” Howells said.
“Ah hah!” said Clemens, flicking ash into a waiting bowl. “Assumptions are dangerous, Howells! In truth we’re shooting straight pool—fifteen points wins.”
“What can you tell me about billiards technique based on what I have seen so far?” asked Henry James as Clemens lined up his next shot.
“Well,” said Clemens, “from observing both Howells and me, you can see that if your ball glides along in the intense and immediate vicinity of the object ball, and a score seems exquisitely imminent, you must lift one leg; then one shoulder; then squirm your body around in sympathy with the direction of the moving ball; and at the instant when the ball seems on the point of colliding, you must throw up both your arms violently. Your cue will probably break a chandelier and then catch fire from the exposed gas jet, as Howells has demonstrated here in this very room so many times, but no matter; you have done what you could to help the final score.”
* * *
The game proceeded, Clemens evidently winning, when suddenly Holmes finished scanning the thick guest book, slammed it shut, and said, “You had Rebecca Lorne and her cousin as guests in February of ’eighty-six!”
“Lorne? Lorne?” said Clemens, his head snapping up with its lion’s mane of white hair. “Oh, yes, I remember the woman and her shy cousin . . . what was his name? Carlton? No . . . Clifton. ‘Clif’ with one ‘f’ as Miss Lorne called him. I couldn’t have told you that it was in February of ’eighty-six, not so soon after Clover Adams’s suicide.”