Will Thomas: The Black Hand

“It’s a good thing you finally moved,” Poole commented to me, opening his regulation pistol and shaking out the cartridges. “I was about to think I’d have to shoot through you.”

Barker handed me my cane, and we both pulled handkerchiefs from our breast pockets, I to stanch my cheek and he his shoulder. “It’s just a scratch,” he said. “That was a close thing, lad. Why ever did you get in the way?”

“Get in the way?” I shouted. “Get in the way? I was just trying to save your life, is all! I didn’t know you and Ho had this set up between you.” I turned to Inspector Poole. “Were you in on this as well? Of course you were. Did everyone know what was going to happen but me?”

“He’s babbling,” Barker commented to Poole. “It’s shock.”

“Is that Chinaman here?” the inspector asked, looking about. He’d have loved to arrest Ho, whose association with Mr. K’ing made him suspect; but the restaurant owner had vanished, as stealthily as he had come, taking his rope dart with him.

“No,” Barker said innocently. “Of course not.”

“Do you plan to explain to me how the late Inspector Pettigrilli was suddenly alive again and how I’ve managed to shoot a guest of this country and a brother officer?”

“You may relax, Terence,” the Guv replied. “This is not Alberto Pettigrilli. This, in fact, was the notorious mafiusu , Marco Faldo. You’ve not only stopped a dispute on the docks but also silenced a dangerous criminal.”

Poole wasn’t quite buying this pat answer. He crossed his arms and looked at my employer skeptically.

“So, you pulled it off, did you? You and the nipper, here?”

“I have a name, you know,” I insisted, “a perfectly good one.”

“I’ll learn it someday when I can spare the time,” Poole said.

Barker reached into his pocket and filled his pipe with tobacco while Poole rolled his eyes. It seemed to me the little meerschaum effigy of its master was smirking at me, but perhaps it was only a shadow. Barker lit a match, not hurrying, and set about properly igniting his pipe before blowing out the match.

“I’m just a citizen who saw a potential dispute at the docks and did his duty by alerting the police. I’d prefer to remain anonymous in this matter, if you don’t mind. As far as I’m concerned, the Yard lost Pettigrilli, and the Yard tracked him down again. My agency had nothing to do with the matter.”

“You nearly got yourself killed instead,” Poole said.

Barker puffed calmly on his pipe. While our backs were turned, most of the dockworkers had melted away. Some had jumped in the river. The South East India Dock was full of constables arresting Sicilians.

“ ’Pon my soul, Terry. You’re a dour man for someone who’s just saved London from being overrun with killers.”

“Don’t try to play me, Cyrus. You haven’t told me everything about this, yet.”

“I’ll tell you all you need to know,” Barker offered, “but it’s thirsty work, and these river vapors are doing no good for the lad’s throat.”

“Blast the lad’s poxy throat,” Terence Poole said suspiciously. “What did you have in mind?”

“I’ve heard that the Bread and Treacle serves a very tolerable porter not two streets from here. It’s more comfortable than the interrogation room in A Division.”

Poole frowned. His hands were still on his hips as if welded there and his nostrils flared as if he smelled something unpleasant. Finally he licked his lips.

“Done,” he relented, “against my better judgment. Let me speak to my sergeant and I’ll meet you there. I suppose after an evening like this, a pint of good English porter couldn’t hurt anything.”

"So,” Terence Poole said, setting a half pint of porter in front of Barker and full ones in front of himself and me. The Guv had a reputation once as a villainous drinker and was careful now where alcohol was concerned. “This was your bright idea, was it, to stage a labor battle on the docks?”

“Let us say, it was to coordinate a staged labor battle on the docks.”

“You tipped the Yard that it was going to take place?” I asked, still irritated at being left out of the plans.

“Oh, aye. They arrived by steam launch, with the aid of the river police,” he replied, and took a drink, leaving foam on his mustache.

“But to everyone on the docks it looks like the Metropolitan Police staged a raid instead of you,” I said.

“Exactly. I thought it was important that Scotland Yard get the credit for this, to discourage any other mafiusi from moving north.”

“Well, I’ll certainly give them the credit,” I said. “Thank you for saving my skin, Inspector.”

“It was nothing,” Poole said, “but why were you trying to get yourself killed? I swear I saw you jamming that man’s pistol barrel into your waistcoat pocket!”

I thought back to a recent sunny day in Sussex. “Keeping a promise I made to a woman,” I replied.

“What did she ask-that you sacrifice yourself?”

“Something like that.”

Poole put a sudden hand to his stomach and made a sour face. The porter was not doing good things to his ulcer.

“It was a good thing Mr. Barker had the situation under control,” I said.

“Here now,” Poole objected, “we weren’t exactly sitting on our hands. We have an inspector in Clerkenwell who is an expert on Italian culture, and a team of plain-clothes C.I.D. officers in the area. We were on top of the situation.”

“Did you suspect Pettigrilli was a fake?”

“No,” the inspector admitted. “But we had tracked his cohorts to a flat in Clerkenwell Close. Oh, and I deduced that the assassins were twins. It wasn’t merely that the measurements were wrong, but they were nearly reversed. We’ve seen that sort of thing before. So, what exactly did you do to them?” he said, turning to the Guv. “Will they live?”

“They’ve both been stabbed,” Barker said. “And I broke the kneecaps of one.”

“You were gentle with them, then.”

“I wanted them in good enough condition to be questioned about Faldo. I didn’t know you were going to shoot him.”

“Who else did you capture?” I asked the inspector.

“Patrick Hooligan, for one. We’ve had an outstanding warrant for him. He’ll see at least a year in jail. The rest are mostly Sicilian.”

“Any Frenchmen?” I asked.

“I believe we did catch a few Frenchies, yes.”

“Those are Dummolard’s brothers.”

“No special treatment,” Barker said, sipping his half pint.

“How many did you get in all?”

“I don’t know. A few dozen. A good many of them jumped into the canal and swam through the basin into the river.”

“So there was never to be a full-out fight at all,” I said to my employer. “It was a feint to make the Sicilian leader show himself.”

“Exactly. Tomorrow, the newspapers will announce that Scotland Yard broke up a fight on the docks between two groups of casual laborers, during which a dangerous Sicilian criminal, Marco Faldo, who had masqueraded as Inspector Pettigrilli of the Palermo police, was shot and killed.”

“What of the fact that he killed Sir Alan and the Serafinis?”

“That need not come out, I think. Don’t you agree, Inspector?”

“Yes. There’s no need to bring Bledsoe’s name into a murder investigation. When did you first suspect Pettigrilli was a fake?”

“I suspected when he was found with his head conveniently blown off, but I was not convinced until you showed me that letter from the Palermo police, expressing their regret over the loss of Alberto Pettigrilli.”

“What did that have to do with anything?”