Will Thomas: The Black Hand

Ahead of me, Barker almost seemed to be enjoying himself, disarming Sicilians and bringing them down. I’ve always wondered how a man who spends most of his evenings immersed in prayer so well enjoyed a pitched battle against other human beings. He seemed to achieve some sort of release by it.

I’d brought down four men so far, putting them all out of commission. The Guv had not yet trained me in fighting two men at once, as he could; but as long as I took them on one at a time I was doing all right.

Barker suddenly stuffed two fingers under his mustache and blew a shrill whistle. Abruptly, a barge that was standing alongside the dock spewed sailors-dozens of them-out onto the deck. One man rested a long limb against the rail and surveyed the scene with an air of command. It was Peter Beauchamp, here to lend a hand. Barker must have known that Hooligan was not to be trusted days before, and had planned accordingly. I saw relief on the faces of Barker’s men and renewed vigor against their opponents.

My employer had almost reached the spot where the Sicilian twins were battering our men to the ground with ebony canes. I was busy knocking the legs out from under a new acquaintance, when a hand seized my collar from behind, and I felt cold metal against the back of my neck. I recognized the barrel of a pistol when I felt one.

“No guns!” I protested hotly, looking over my shoulder. Then I gasped. It took a moment for my brain to verify what my eyes were seeing.

" Inspector Pettigrilli?” I asked. “You’re alive?”

“No, lad,” Barker called behind me. “This is Marco Faldo.”

The Sicilian nodded, his pistol barrel still pressed against my neck. “Very good, Mr. Barker. I see you did not fall for my little ruse.”

“I did,” the Guv admitted, “for a time, at least.”

By now the twin killers had fought off other opponents and were standing on either side of my employer, ready to do battle. He looked at them appraisingly.

“Lad, your stick,” Barker called.

I tossed him my brass-headed malacca, and he caught it in his left hand, still holding his cane in his right. Barker, I realized, was about to square off against two skilled assassins at once. I wasn’t sure if it was possible to defeat them both, even for one as trained as my employer. I dared take one step in his direction.

“Mr. Llewelyn,” Faldo warned, “I would not hesitate to blow your brains out through a small hole in the front of your skull.”

I stopped. There was nothing I could do-not yet, anyway.

The brothers began to circle Barker, looking for a weak spot to attack. It has been my experience that when it comes to fighting, he doesn’t have one, but he’s not above giving a false impression in order to bring on an attack. Both brothers closed in at once, raising their sticks to strike, and the fight began.

Cyrus Barker blocked both blows and then attacked, but his reach was not long enough. Caught between them, he could fight only within a limited half circle, whereas they had the full length of their bodies, six feet or so, in which to swing an arc. Barker fended off each new blow, but even as I thought this, the silver ball of a stick struck him on the shoulder, making him wince. It didn’t stop him, however, but made him change positions with his back to me.

They attacked again, the exchange coming so swiftly that I couldn’t see it. The assassins’ sticks were silver arcs in the moonlight, spinning dangerously close to my employer. One of the brothers came too close and received an elbow in the face that drew blood. He wiped it with a handkerchief, and then gave a tug on his stick, pulling out a sword that must have been the weapon used on Etienne Dummolard. His brother followed suit and now, Barker faced not two weapons but four.

“That’s not fair!” I cried, but a clap on the head from the butt of Faldo’s pistol was all the response I received.

Barker was hard-pressed on both sides as the brothers moved as if they had one mind between them. I thought it likely that they must have trained together for hours every day to be so good. The Guv was defending himself adequately so far, but it could not go on much longer. He would soon be overwhelmed. One of the brothers pressed forward but was rebuffed again. He dared press a second time. Then Barker raised a foot and brought it around behind the other, almost too quickly for my eye to follow. It caught one brother on the knee as he was retreating, and there was an audible snap as it broke. I wouldn’t have noticed the move if Barker hadn’t once shown it to me and tried to teach me its mechanics. The shadowless kick, it’s called, one of those mystical names the Chinese find so attractive. The injured man fell back with a look of pain and consternation; but Barker moved toward him, pulling him forward as a shield, just as his brother drove home his blade. It went through the man’s upper chest, possibly puncturing a lung. Then my employer seized the sword from nerveless fingers and lunged forward, driving the blade through the side of the remaining brother, tenting the fabric of his cape behind. The Guv stood as both adversaries fell to the ground at his feet, too injured to fight any longer.

Faldo’s pistol came away from my head, and I knew he was about to shoot Barker. I raised my left arm to keep him from aiming, the dagger in my sleeve giving added force to the block. The pistol went off by my ear, but I seized his wrist and we struggled together. I had promised Mrs. Ashleigh that I would look after my employer. I wasn’t about to let go. The Sicilian tried to push his weapon toward me so it would discharge in my face, while I tried the same thing with him. I struggled into a position where I could flip him, when something fluttered by my head. A length of rope wrapped around Faldo’s wrist, jerking his gun away. I recognized that rope, but it took a few seconds to recall just where. It was part of Ho’s rope dart. The Chinaman stood in an alley a few yards away, attempting to control Faldo’s arm with his long length of rope.

Marco Faldo was a powerful man, as I soon found out. He strained against both of us, trying to switch his gun to his other hand and fire again. Ho pulled the rope, and I hung onto Faldo’s arm for dear life, but the Sicilian was still able to raise both arms over my head and transfer the pistol to his left hand. I leapt for the other arm now, but I was too slow. The pistol went off and Barker grabbed his shoulder with a grunt.

We both had our hands on the pistol now, and it wavered back and forth in an arc with Barker at its center. There were crates nearby, but I realized they were too far away for him to dive behind. I pulled Faldo’s hand down hard toward my own stomach, thrusting it into the pocket of my waistcoat. If he wanted to shoot Barker again he was going to have to kill me first. Faldo had untangled himself from Ho’s rope and was now using his free hand to tear at my newly plastered cut. Blood trickled down my cheek and into my eye. Clumsily, I tripped over Faldo’s foot and staggered to the side. I was going to fail in my mission to save Barker.

Suddenly I felt the Mafia leader jump once, twice, thrice. I heard the shots after, and turned to Barker in wonder as the man I was grappling with sagged, but the Guv had only our sticks in his hands and was looking behind me. I let Faldo fall to the dock and turned awkwardly. Ten feet away, pistol still aimed toward me, stood Terence Poole. It took a moment for my mind to register what had happened. First, Ho had come out of nowhere, then the inspector. Where had they come from? It didn’t matter. I was never so glad to see the inspector in my life.

Suddenly police whistles were sounding everywhere, and men on both sides scurried away like rats. Constables were laying about right and left with their truncheons, and I heard the clicks of derbies being applied to wrists.