The Black Hand

23

A man came quickly into Poole’s office, and I nearly jumped from my seat when I saw him. He was an Italian in a thick mustache and knit cap, one of the men in the identity parade I’d just attended.

“It ain’t him, sir!” he cried in a Cockney accent. This fellow was as Italian as pork pie with chips. Obviously, he was a constable in disguise. “The cards don’t match up at all!”

Poole took both cards out of the constable’s hands and compared them. The Bertillon card Pettigrilli had brought with him was slightly yellowed with age, but the one the constable had just made was of new buff. The men in the photographs were nearly identical, but now that I saw them together, perhaps not completely identical. I supposed one must allow for the vagaries of light and shadow and expression.

Poole exposed the constable to his choicest vocabulary, which one could use to strip paint and barnacles off the hull of a boat.

“Take your pill, Terry,” Barker counseled, unruffled by the revelation.

The inspector reached into his drawer and pulled out a small brown bottle. He shook several lozenges into his hand and crunched them in his teeth.

“We can still charge him, can’t we?” I asked. “I’ve identified him as the murderer of Victor Gigliotti, after all. It’s him, without a doubt.”

“This card says it isn’t him, and it was prepared by the very man who trained us. Palazzo claims he was at the East India Docks all morning and he has several witnesses who’ll attest to it. His name is even written on the casual labor list, though I suppose it wouldn’t be hard for someone to forge it. Damn! I’ll have to let the blighter go.”

“Did he have a cape?”

“Yes, but no shotgun, no dagger, not so much as a boat hook. Just an innocent dockworker who happens to look exactly like the man who blew a hole in the leader of the Camorra.”

“It was him, I tell you!” I insisted. “He even recognized me!”

“I believe you, Thomas, for once,” Poole said. “I’ll keep him as long as I can, but if a solicitor appears, I’ll have no choice but to let him go. Blast Bertillon and his stupid French method!”

“Is there a way the card could have been altered?” I asked. “Could it be a forgery?”

“It looks genuine enough, lad,” Barker admitted. “I’m afraid Terence is correct. According to these cards, Guido Palazzo is not Vito Moroni. They merely have similar features.”

“Then the cards are wrong, I tell you! I know what I saw!”

“We believe you, lad,” Barker murmured.

“You’re going to let this fellow go, and the first thing he’s going to do is come after me.”

“Perhaps we could use that,” Poole suggested. “Wait for the fellow to come after Llewelyn here and bring him down.”

“After he’s used my chest for a pin cushion? No, thank you. I’ve been sliced enough for one week.”

“You’re not being particularly helpful to this investigation,” Poole complained.

“I’m sorry, Inspector. Shall I walk about Clerkenwell with a big target on my chest? Shall that satisfy?”

“It’s a start,” he replied archly.

“We want to get this fellow as much as you do,” Barker said. “He stabbed Dummolard, after all. But if this charge against him will fail, let it. We’ll try again some other way.”

“Just once I’d like this to go my way, Cyrus. The Yard’s way.”

“Perhaps it shall,” Barker said. “One can never tell about such things. Let’s go, lad. I’ve still got work to do before dinner. Is there any more you need, Terence?”

“The whereabouts of Marco Faldo would be nice,” the inspector replied.

“I should think he’d be in Clerkenwell or Soho.”

“I’ve a mind to take Clerkenwell apart. Go on, out you two. I’ve got to start all over again.”

We showed ourselves out. In Whitehall Street, I was using every trick Mr. Gallenga had taught me. Were there any open windows along the way? Was anyone on the roof? What about the cabs? Did anyone in the street look dangerous? Suspicious? Sicilian? Was anyone glancing my way? Were we being followed?

“This eye training is driving me mad,” I told the Guv. “I don’t know how you can live this way. How can one ever relax one’s guard?”

“One can’t,” Barker replied. “But it gets easier. It becomes second nature. You’ll pick it up. Or you won’t.”

“Such confidence.”

“All the confidence in the world, lad. Have you got sixpence?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, digging about in my pocket. “Here you go. What do you need sixpence for?”

“For this little fellow,” he said, taking a passing street arab by the collar and slipping the coin into his filthy hands. Barker murmured something into his ear, and the boy ran off like Scotland Yard was after him.

“Oh, no-you’ve asked for Soho Vic, haven’t you?” I complained. “Just when I thought today couldn’t get any worse.”

A half hour later the aforementioned blight upon humanity invaded our quarters in his usual manner-over the back wall and through the back door. I really must counsel Barker to put some broken glass atop the wall for our personal safety. As it stood, just anyone could get in.

“ ’Ello, Ugly. Cracked your egg, did yer? Afternoon, Mr. Barker, sir.”

“Ah, Vic,” Cyrus Barker said. He always allowed him liberties. As usual, the young man went to the cigar box on Barker’s desk and in a minute, was seated in the visitor’s chair attempting to blow a proper smoke ring, one leg wagging negligently over the leather arm.

“I have a message I want delivered to several individuals, some of whom have no fixed abode.”

“Got it. What’s the message?” he asked. Vic was wearing a collar so loose it hung around his neck, and a rusty coat with his sleeves rolled up at the wrists. As usual, his black hair shot out in each direction, like the spines of a sea anemone, and he displayed his congenital aversion to soap.

“Inform them there is to be a meeting tomorrow at six P.M. sharp. The address is thirty-seven Wentworth Street.”

“Meeting tomorrow, six sharp, thirty-seven Wentworth. Got it. Who gets the message?”

“Patrick Hooligan; Robert Dummolard, who can be reached at Le Toison d’Or; and Ben Tillett of the West India Docks.”

Vic took a large puff and blew it out again, then listed the receivers in order on his grubby fingers.

“Hooligan, Frenchie in Soho, and the docks. Got it.”

“I want you to deliver them yourself, if possible, by noon tomorrow.”

“Easy as fallin’ off a bridge. I’ll need two pounds for my troubles. That’s two pounds sterling, turnip face,” he said to me, “if you’ve got the scratch.”

With a sigh, I took out two pound notes and started writing the expense in the ledger. Vic reached for the notes and in doing so, managed to flick the ash from his cigar all over the shoulder of my cutaway.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” he cried, taking the opportunity to rub the ash all over me while appearing to wipe it away. I think he’d been planning it since the moment he’d entered. He’s diabolical that way. I bore the insult silently. Barker would take the accident at face value. A businessman like Soho Vic had no time for pranks.

“P’raps if we wipe some ink on it, it’ll go black again-” the boy offered helpfully, reaching for the bottle on my desk.

“Never mind,” I said, putting the ink out of reach. “You’ve got your orders and your money. Now go.”

“Touchy, he is,” Vic said, and tsked. “I’m off, then. Ta for the smoke.”

He left, out the back door as always, but a minute later, put his head back in.

“What is it, Vic?” Barker asked with somewhat less patience than he had exhibited the moment before. Vic, I should point out, did not stand for Victor. The boy’s real name was Stanislieu Sohovic. He was a transplanted Pole who had buried his origins in a Cockney accent.

“Would you be requiring anyfing else, sir? Anyfing at all?”

“Just the messages. Why do you ask?”

“Well, sir, I know the I-talians are kicking up, and that Mr. Etienne got hisself stabbed. Are you taking ’em on?”

“If I did, ’twould be no concern of yours,” the Guv replied coolly.

“I might be concerned if I were part of that list myself. I’ve got plenty o’ boys ready for a scrap anytime. You name it.”

“None of them are over fifteen,” my employer said dismissively.

“We grow up fast on the streets, sir,” Vic continued. “Some of me lads is full growed. We’ve been in dozens of scraps before. Just say the word, and we’re there.”

“No, Vic. Do you hear me? No!”

Soho Vic frowned. I don’t think Barker had ever spoken to him in such a manner before. He’d always treated Vic as an adult associate, a business partner, but now he was being dismissed as a child.

Vic opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again. Finally he shrugged, affecting that he didn’t care. “Suit yourself, then, Push. If you need me, ask around.”

He took himself off with less bluster than he had entered with.

“Five thirty, sir,” Jenkins announced, coming around the corner as if Big Ben down the street hadn’t informed us already. “Dare I risk a return to the Rising Sun?”

“Is your house well fortified?” Barker asked.

“All locked and barricaded, sir.”

“If we walk you to the Sun, can you find escorts to see you home?”

“I’m certain I could, Mr. B.” It was obvious he was eager to go.

“Would it disturb you if Thomas and I dined there? We would sit at a private table.”

“Of course it wouldn’t, sir.”

“Drat!” I said.

“What is it, lad?” our employer asked, looking my way.

“Nothing, sir. Soho Vic nicked my ledger pen. It must have happened when he destroyed my suit.”

“Nonsense. You must have mislaid it. You have several pens.”

“It was my favorite nib.”

He cleared his throat as if to say that writing instruments were beneath his notice, and returned to the matter at hand.

“You have no objection, Jenkins-you are certain?” Barker pursued.

“Of course not, sir.”

“Very well. Let us close up the office for the day.”

We were just putting on our hats and extricating our sticks from the hat stand by my desk when something shot in through the postal slot and slid across the polished parquetry of the entranceway. It was an envelope, rather flat. Jenkins opened the door and shouted “Hey!” returning a moment later.

“It was a child, sir. A messenger. He ran off when I called. It’s addressed to you, Mr. L.,” Jenkins said, lifting it from the floor.

With a dry mouth, I took the envelope and opened it with my dagger. I was clumsy with it, because my fingers were nerveless. Extricating the note, I read the words circling around the black handprint in the center:

We did not wish you to feel left out, Mr. Llewelyn. You have killed a promising young man and are becoming a nuisance. Who will save you when your boss is saving everyone else?