Will Thomas: The Black Hand

When I arrived at the hospital in Agar Street, I explained in words and gestures that one would reserve for a simpleton that a man was bleeding to death a few streets away, but they made me feel as if I were imposing on their time, as if I myself had stabbed someone merely in order to upset their schedules. As I waited, pulling my hair, an orderly attempted to convince various doctors to step down the road and see to the dying man, but they could not be bothered. I finally hit upon the realization that if I spoke as loudly and forcibly as possible, I would either attract someone to help or get myself chucked out. I surrendered my dignity in hope of saving Etienne’s life, not that he would appreciate it. Finally, the orderly came out with a hand cart, followed by a physician just putting on his topper. I’d have felt better if the barrow was not in every way the twin of the one I’d seen bearing Giorgio Serafini’s corpse off to the Poplar Morgue.

There was a logistical problem as soon as we arrived. The cart would not fit through the door. I went inside while the orderly stood at the curb watchfully, as if the whole of Whitehall had come there that day with the express purpose of stealing his cart.

Etienne was awake, or nearly. His eyes opened and closed now and then. He gestured, ever so slightly, and the physician bent down to listen, then shook his head dismissively.

“Stabbed twice, and the man wants a cigarette,” the doctor said, disapprovingly. He probed the wound, producing a faint curse from the Frenchman.

“There is no way to know immediately how deep the wounds are or how much damage has been done to the organs. If the smallest scrap of cloth has gone into the wound, it shall quickly fester. We must get him to the hospital immediately. May we use the rug to transport him to the cart?”

“Of course,” Barker said, though I knew he must have spent a good deal for it. Together the five of us lifted Etienne by the ends of the carpet and carried him down to the cart, while our cook cursed in his native tongue.

I walk the streets of London every day, arguably the most civilized spot on earth, especially in Whitehall where all is marble, but just put an injured friend in a hand litter and try wheeling him a few blocks and one shall see that the streets are not as smooth as one might think. They rise and fall like waves, and there are cracks and broken paving stones even in the seat of government. We left Jenkins to mind the office and mop the floor, and led the grim procession all the way to Agar Street.

Private enquiry agents or no, there was a point beyond which we could not pass. Dummolard was wheeled through a set of doors, and when we tried to enter, the orderly at the desk cleared his throat, as if issuing a warning. At loose ends, we found a couple of chairs in the hall and fell into them.

“Do you think this is related to Sir Alan and the Serafinis?” I asked the Guv.

Barker nodded grimly. “Etienne has complained about the Sicilian coffee shops opening up in Soho near his restaurant,” he stated, turning his bowler in his hands. “The Sicilians hate the French, of course.”

“The French? Why?”

“Sicily was ruled by the Bourbons for decades. The Mafia was formed to combat them. The word Mafia is an acronym for ‘Kill the French is Italy’s cry.’ Something was brewing, and I should have realized it before now.”

Barker spends his evenings in his garret aerie, poring over newspapers and pasting articles into oversized notebooks. Then he broods and prays over them, sometimes late into the night. He tracked civilization’s progress, or, rather, its descent, through the chronicling of its events. Many times I’d seen him solve a case based upon a seemingly unrelated event in The Times -an exhibition, perhaps, or the arrival of a foreign dignitary. But no man is omniscient. It is impossible to stuff one’s brain with thousands of facts, adding a hundred or more daily, and expect it to automatically produce all possible connections. My employer’s reliance upon such a method, as far as I’m concerned, is a recipe for an attack of brain fever. A brain is a human organ, not a machine.

Barker pulled the paper with the black hand from his pocket and glanced at it again while I looked over his shoulder. The writing was in English: You are a swine gorging at the trough , it read. Now you must give way so that others may get to the husks. If not, it shall go ill with you. This is your only warning .

“I imagine this came from Clerkenwell,” he noted, tapping the letter.

“The Italian quarter,” I replied. We were suddenly interrupted when Inspector Poole came in the front entrance and spotted us.

“How is he?” the C.I.D. man asked, putting a foot up on one of the empty chairs.

“We don’t know yet.”

“Your clerk said he was stabbed in the street somewhere and must have staggered to your door. I find it hard to believe a man can be stabbed in broad daylight a street away from Scotland Yard.”

“I slipped in the blood going into Craig’s Court,” I said, bristling. “That was real enough.”

“Stabbed twice, your clerk told me,” he went on, ignoring me as Anderson had. “I suppose someone crept up and stabbed him from behind, then when he turned, they got him a second time in the stomach.”

Poole acted out the motions, and being cursed with a vivid imagination, I clothed them with accompanying images.

Barker shook his head. “No, we have a pattern here. Serafini was murdered with two shots, one to the front and one to the back. His wife was probably killed in the same manner. Etienne is a savateur, a seasoned fighter. Being stabbed in the back would not stop him from defending himself. I think it more likely he was stabbed simultaneously in a surprise attack. It was why he said ‘front and back’ to us. He was defending his reputation as well as warning us to expect such an attack ourselves.”

“Hold on. You’re going too fast,” said Poole, who was scribbling in his notebook.

“You need lessons in Pitman’s shorthand,” I recommended, but all I received for my solicitous advice was a rude stare.

“You think Gigliotti is mixed up in this?” Poole went on.

“Not yet, but he knows about the Serafinis.”

“Oh, that’s just what we need,” Poole said. “An Italian gang war. At least they only kill one another.”

“Terence,” my employer pointed out, as if he were a child, “the fact that we are here now proves they’ve gone beyond killing one another. Bledsoe was a member of the gentry.”

“Blast. I suppose you’re right, but they’re all Latins, hot-blooded.”

“Gigliotti called the Sicilians a plague,” Barker said. “I’m afraid I concur with that assessment. Right now, the English gangs content themselves with sticks and coshes, but what if the Sicilian gangs arrive with daggers? All the English lads will want them in order to survive. Daggers will be smuggled across the Channel from the Continent, and soon every criminal in London will have one. Violent crimes and robberies at knifepoint shall rise. But the Sicilians will want to have the upper hand, so they’ll begin smuggling in pistols and carbines. The violence escalates, you see.”

“Meanwhile,” Poole noted, “London’s Finest are still patrolling the streets with truncheons and whistles. I’ll have to convince my superiors such is the case, if what you say is true.”

“Ask them how they’ll feel about the Thames being choked with barrels like the one this morning,” Barker said.

“I don’t know as the Yard can do a lot, however, until the Sicilians visibly break the law,” Poole went on. “We can’t arrest them for simply coming into the country or for congregating.”