Will Thomas - The Black Hand

The Sicilian looked down at the instruments on the desk.

“So, Inspector Poole. How did you find your new Bertillon kit?” he asked.

“Delightful,” Poole remarked, but the sarcasm was lost on Pettigrilli.

“You fellows here at Scotland Yard, you will take to this new method the way a fish takes to water. It is orderly, and so should appeal to an English mind such as yours. The only mystery is how it was originally conceived by a Frenchman.”

Dummolard was awake when we returned to the hospital, but he’d been so sedated with morphine his mind wandered. He’d been moved to a ward and given a cot, while his wife and daughter fluttered about demanding better conditions. For once, he was too weak to bawl French curses at us all.

“Etienne, do you recall who attacked you?” Barker asked, lowering his large frame gently down onto the bedcovers.

“Oignons,” he replied. “I was not satisfied with the oignons at the restaurant this morning. I was going to Tottenham Court Road for fresh ones. The market was crowded. There was a man in a cloak in front of me. Suddenly, he stopped too quickly. I knocked into him, and the man behind, he knocked into me. Then I felt pain. Very bad pain. I thought I was having heart failure. Then I saw the blood and realized I had been stabbed. I thought perhaps they would try to finish me, so I came as fast as I could to see you, Capitaine.”

“Monsieur,” Mireille Dummolard implored, “he cannot speak. He must conserve his strength for recovery.”

“A cloak, you say,” the Guv went on, ignoring the woman. “Did you see his face?”

“Non,” Etienne stated. “He had a broad-brimmed hat, all in black.”

“All in black?” my employer repeated. “Hat, cloak, and everything?”

“Oui.”

“And the fellow behind?”

“I didn’t see him.”

“Very well. Thank you, Etienne. We’ll stop by tomorrow. Come, Thomas.”

Outside in the street, Barker turned in the direction of Whitehall, his stick swinging, leaving me scurrying to keep up.

“Assassins,” he growled.

“Professional, do you think?” I asked.

“Only skilled and dangerous men dress all in black as a rule, though I knew one in Kyoto who wore white, which amounts to the same thing. Black is a symbol among the underworld. It must be earned. If a minor criminal wishing to build a reputation were to attend certain places in full black, he would have to fight for the right to wear it.”

“What places?” I asked, noting to myself that my employer generally wore black himself, save for his crimson tie and white Windsor collar.

“Gang meetings, clandestine prizefights, pubs known to attract a certain type of fellow. These men that Etienne stumbled into, they killed Serafini and his wife, quite a brace of feathers for their caps, I’m sure. Then they killed Sir Alan and made the attempt on Etienne. The only thing all these individuals have in common is that they stood in opposition to the Sicilians. It’s highly possible that there is a pair of professional assassins walking the streets of London today; and sooner or later, we shall have to face them.”

“Sir,” I said, wishing he would stop at an outdoor cafe and sit down so we could talk properly. “I admit I know next to nothing about professional assassins, but don’t they generally work under contract? They wouldn’t do something like this on their own.”

“As I said before, lad,” he replied, “there must be a leader, someone they’re working for, the way the Serafinis worked for Victor Gigliotti. I think that is a reasonable possibility.”

“Three of them, then.”

“Let us say two, at least. We don’t yet know if Faldo does his own work.”

“Faldo? Do you really think it is he that followed Inspector Pettigrilli here all the way from Sicily?”

“Men that ruthless and skilled at murder and intimidation are rare, Thomas. I’ll take it as a probability that Marco Faldo is somewhere in London this minute, considering his next Black Hand note. If that doesn’t concern you, it should.”

The next morning, Cyrus Barker and I attended service as usual at the Baptist Tabernacle, while Mac crept surreptitiously across the street to that den of iniquity, the Elephant and Castle public house, for our Sunday lunch. The Reverend Spurgeon’s sermon was up to its usual standard, but the meal in no way made up for the loss of our cook.

“What are you doing today, lad?” Barker asked over his bowl of tepid brown Windsor soup.

“I need to write a letter, sir, but I had no further plans beyond that. What about you?”

“I’ve got to think this problem through. Would you mind doing a favor for me today? I need you to take Juno to Victoria Station and put her in a horse carriage. I’m sending her south, out of harm’s way. She’d make a large target for the Mafia’s wrath.”

“How far south?” I asked.

“All the way to the coast, a town called Seaford. I’ve already made arrangements for her to be picked up there.”

“I’ll take care of it as soon as my letter is done.”

“Good. Cusp, is it?” the Guv asked.

“Yes, sir.” Thad Cusp was our solicitor. He was Barker’s until recently, but now he worked for me as well. Recently I had hired my employer to find the grave of my late wife, who had died of consumption while I was still in prison. Her mother, the most disagreeable specimen of womanhood I’d ever met, had buried her in an unmarked grave and packed up for parts unknown. Once I was freed, I tried to locate Jenny’s grave to no avail. Now, with more than a year’s salary in my bank account, I had turned to my employer. It took him little more than a day to find it, going from constabulary to mortuary to church. It was difficult for me to be in Oxford again, the site of my former disgrace, but finally I stood over the grave of my dear girl and could begin the task of having her buried properly. To do so required the services of Mr. Cusp. Jenny’s mother had put her in the ground and I could not move her without the woman’s consent, which meant a settlement of some sort, much as it galled me. Thad Cusp, a man as sharp as his name sounds, was now in the process of scouring the country for my former mother-in-law. I began to fear the case would end up in Chancery before it was finished.

Having sent off my letter with the inevitable accompanying bank draft, I made my way to the stable and saddled Juno. As we trotted through the streets, I wondered who would pick her up at the end of the line and what sort of treatment she would receive there. The south coast is full of racing stables, any one of which was capable of looking after the mare, but I’m rather particular about her care and wished I could have seen her settled in. I led her into the horsebox myself and watched as the express pulled out of sight, gathering speed as she steamed away. At loose ends, and feeling rather unsettled, I admit, I took a hansom back to Newington.

On the ride back, I began to fret. Together, Barker and I had taken on terrorists and murderers, but facing organized criminals was another matter. From where would Barker recruit enough men to face these mafiusi who traveled about armed with shotguns and swords? Matters were clearly coming to a head if Barker felt it necessary to send his horse out of town. I began to wish he’d sent his assistant along with it.

When I arrived at the house, Mac met me in the hallway, giving me a look that said I’d been dawdling and wasting his time. He held a paper in his hand.

“Mr. Barker has asked that you go to this address in Soho,” he said. “You are to meet a Mr. Antonio Gallenga there.”

“Gallenga?” I asked, taking the slip of paper that held the address in Barker’s illegible scrawl. “Did he-No, I know. You wouldn’t presume to say.”