wine and conversation enough for all. Adams is currently away traveling but will be thrilled that you have decided to visit your home country again. By great good coincidence, the diplomatic attaché from King Oskar II, King of Sweden and Norway, is scheduled to be our dinner guest on Sunday night. We all look forward to meeting your intrepid explorer friend!
James showed Holmes the cable on their way to the Jersey City terminal and could not resist a grim smile. “A bit of a problem, perhaps?”
“What is that, my dear fellow?” said Holmes as they waited at the front of the ferry.
“Does the disguise of Mr. Jan Sigerson include a native’s facility with the Norwegian language?” James asked most pointedly. “Perhaps you had better stay at a Washington hotel, visit Hay and Adams only upon careful occasion, and be indisposed this coming Sunday evening.”
“Nonsense,” said Holmes and smiled. “It is a great advantage to stay with the Hays. You said that their home was near that of Henry Adams’s?”
“Next door and contiguous,” said James. “Just like Sweden and Norway.”
“There you have it then,” said Holmes. “We shall leave the representative of King Oskar the Second of Sweden and Norway to sort things out for himself on Sunday.”
* * *
Their rail tickets were nominally “first class” but there was nothing resembling a private compartment. Luckily, the first-class carriage was not crowded this Friday morning and, while sitting across the aisle from each other, Holmes and James could lean forward and converse in private when they wished. James also noticed that while the disgusting American male habit of constant expectoration had not disappeared, there seemed to be somewhat fewer spittoons visible everywhere than there had been in the early 1880’s during his last visit and the red runner down the aisle of the first-class carriage was not so spongily porous with liquified tobacco as so many rugs and carpets had been ten years earlier. James had decided in 1883 that he could never again live in—and possibly never again visit—America if it was only because of the universal spitting.
“Tell me about the Five Hearts,” said Holmes as they left Philadelphia. For this conversation, the detective had crossed the aisle and was sitting uncomfortably close to James, knee to knee as it were, and was perched on the north-facing seat across from the south-facing writer. Holmes leaned on his northern-European-style walking stick. James wished that he had brought a stick to the compartment, if only to use as a barrier between them.
James set his palms firmly on his knees as if that created a structure separating them further. “In truth,” he said, “they referred to their small group not as the Five Hearts but as the Five
of
Hearts.”
“Tell me then about the Five
of
Hearts,” said Holmes.
“In truth, it was Clover Adams’s
salon
,” said James. “A very uniquely American
salon
, I might say.”
“How so?”
James paused a second to comprehend exactly what he
had
meant. “It was not, as are so many scores of salons I’ve known in France and Italy and elsewhere, centered on things or people literary, nor upon artists and art, nor upon that most central trinity of
salons
—money, aristocracy, or notoriety, although the Adamses might not be found wanting in any of the three of those categories.”
“Really?” said Holmes. “I thought there was no aristocracy in the United States of America.”
James smiled almost pityingly at the younger man. James was turning fifty in a few weeks and Holmes had mentioned that he was currently thirty-eight years old, turning thirty-nine in April, but at this moment Henry James felt very much the wiser, older gentleman. “Every society has its subtle aristocracies, Mr. Holmes . . . er . . . Mr. Sigerson. If not based on birth, then upon wealth. If not upon wealth, then upon power. And so forth.”
“Yet isn’t Henry Adams a
James showed Holmes the cable on their way to the Jersey City terminal and could not resist a grim smile. “A bit of a problem, perhaps?”
“What is that, my dear fellow?” said Holmes as they waited at the front of the ferry.
“Does the disguise of Mr. Jan Sigerson include a native’s facility with the Norwegian language?” James asked most pointedly. “Perhaps you had better stay at a Washington hotel, visit Hay and Adams only upon careful occasion, and be indisposed this coming Sunday evening.”
“Nonsense,” said Holmes and smiled. “It is a great advantage to stay with the Hays. You said that their home was near that of Henry Adams’s?”
“Next door and contiguous,” said James. “Just like Sweden and Norway.”
“There you have it then,” said Holmes. “We shall leave the representative of King Oskar the Second of Sweden and Norway to sort things out for himself on Sunday.”
* * *
Their rail tickets were nominally “first class” but there was nothing resembling a private compartment. Luckily, the first-class carriage was not crowded this Friday morning and, while sitting across the aisle from each other, Holmes and James could lean forward and converse in private when they wished. James also noticed that while the disgusting American male habit of constant expectoration had not disappeared, there seemed to be somewhat fewer spittoons visible everywhere than there had been in the early 1880’s during his last visit and the red runner down the aisle of the first-class carriage was not so spongily porous with liquified tobacco as so many rugs and carpets had been ten years earlier. James had decided in 1883 that he could never again live in—and possibly never again visit—America if it was only because of the universal spitting.
“Tell me about the Five Hearts,” said Holmes as they left Philadelphia. For this conversation, the detective had crossed the aisle and was sitting uncomfortably close to James, knee to knee as it were, and was perched on the north-facing seat across from the south-facing writer. Holmes leaned on his northern-European-style walking stick. James wished that he had brought a stick to the compartment, if only to use as a barrier between them.
James set his palms firmly on his knees as if that created a structure separating them further. “In truth,” he said, “they referred to their small group not as the Five Hearts but as the Five
of
Hearts.”
“Tell me then about the Five
of
Hearts,” said Holmes.
“In truth, it was Clover Adams’s
salon
,” said James. “A very uniquely American
salon
, I might say.”
“How so?”
James paused a second to comprehend exactly what he
had
meant. “It was not, as are so many scores of salons I’ve known in France and Italy and elsewhere, centered on things or people literary, nor upon artists and art, nor upon that most central trinity of
salons
—money, aristocracy, or notoriety, although the Adamses might not be found wanting in any of the three of those categories.”
“Really?” said Holmes. “I thought there was no aristocracy in the United States of America.”
James smiled almost pityingly at the younger man. James was turning fifty in a few weeks and Holmes had mentioned that he was currently thirty-eight years old, turning thirty-nine in April, but at this moment Henry James felt very much the wiser, older gentleman. “Every society has its subtle aristocracies, Mr. Holmes . . . er . . . Mr. Sigerson. If not based on birth, then upon wealth. If not upon wealth, then upon power. And so forth.”
“Yet isn’t Henry Adams a
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