real swell - tall hat, dark greatcoat and cape, beard. After I yessed his plan, he palmed me. I never seen the pig-widgeon again."
"Then how did you get him the proofs?" asked Longfellow.
"They wasn't for him. He told me to deliver them to an address. I don't think it was his own house - well, that was just the sense from the way he talked. I don't remember what the street number was, but it ain't far from here. He said he'd get the proofs back to me so as I wouldn't feel no heat from Mr. Houghton, but the jackcove never came back."
"He knew Houghton by name?" Fields asked.
"Listen good, man," said Lowell. "We need to know exactly where you took those proofs."
"I told you," the shivering devil answered. "I don't remember no number!"
"You don't look that stupid to me!" Lowell said.
"Guess not! I'd remember easy enough if I went by the streets on my trotter, I would!"
Lowell smiled. "Excellent, because you're taking us there."
"Nah, I ain't turning stag! Not unless I keep my job!"
Houghton marched down the embankment. "Never, Mr. Colby! Choose to reap another's harvest and you'll soon sow on your own!"
"And you'll be hard-pressed for another job locked up in the blockhouse," added Lowell, who didn't exactly understand Houghton's axiom. "You're going to take us to the place you delivered those proofs you stole, Mr. Colby, or the police will take you there for us."
"Meet me back in a few hours, when night falls," the devil replied in proud defeat after considering his options. Lowell released Colby, who bolted off to thaw at Riverside Press's stove.
In the meantime, Nicholas Rey and Dr. Holmes had returned to the soldiers'-aid home where Greene had preached early that afternoon, but they found nobody who fit Greene's description of the Dante enthusiast. The chapel was not being prepared for its usual supper spread. An Irishman, bundled in a heavy blue coat, lethargically nailed boards over the windows.
"The home's been spending nigh all its money heating the stoves. The city hain't approved more funds for soldiers' aid, that's how I hear it. They say they gotta close up, at least for the winter months now. Doubt we'll see it reopen, 'tween us, sirs. These homes and their mangled men are too strong a reminder of the wrongs we've all done."
Rey and Holmes called on the manager of the home. The former church deacon seconded what the caretaker had told them: It was a function of the weather, he explained - they simply couldn't afford to heat the premises anymore. He told them there were no lists or registers maintained of the soldiers who made use of the facilities. It was a public charity, open to all in need, from all regiments and towns. And it wasn't just for the poorer lot of veterans, though that was one of the charity's stated purposes. Some of the men just needed to be around people who could understand them. The deacon knew some soldiers by name and a small number of those by regimental number.
"You might know the one we seek. It's a matter of absolute importance." Rey relayed the description George Washington Greene had given them.
The manager shook his head. "I'd be happy to write down the names of the gentlemen I do know for you. The soldiers act as though they're their own country sometimes. They know one another much better than we can know them."
Holmes wriggled back and forth in his chair while the deacon nibbled at the feather end of his pen with painstaking slowness.
Lowell was driving Fields's coach to the Riverside Press's gates. The red-haired printer's devil was sitting atop his old spotted mare. After cursing that they were putting his horse at risk for the distemper, which the board of health had warned was imminent after a review of stable conditions, Colby sped through small avenues and down unlit frozen pastures. The path was so circuitous and unsure that even Lowell, master of Cambridge since infancy, was disoriented and could only stay on course by listening for the pounding hooves ahead.
The devil pulled in rein at the backyard of a modest Colonial house, first going past and then turning his horse around.
"This house here - that's where I brought the proofs. Dropped them right under the back door, just as I was told to."
Lowell stopped the coach. "Whose house is this?"
"The rest is up to you birds!" Colby snarled, sandwiching his heels into his mare, who galloped away