The Black Hand

6

The Cafe Royal is the unofficial headquarters of Bohemia in the heart of London. Men such as James Whistler and Oscar Wilde ate there while plotting how next to amuse society. People came for reasons other than dining, although both the food and the cellars were considered the best in London. They came to be seen and to further their careers. Artists pushed themselves upon playwrights, who fawned over aristocrats, who collected intellectuals, who hoped to meet famous beauties.

The man we were coming to see fit none of these categories. If pressed, I’m sure he would say he was of no fixed occupation, though I understand he had read for the bar, as if that were some trifling thing he picked up in passing. The Honorable Pollock Forbes was a gentleman, son of a Scottish laird. That was more and less than what he actually was. If there was a scandal brewing, Forbes would be summoned. If some great man threatened to throw over his wife for a dancer, Forbes would discreetly talk him out of it. If a criminal attempted to blackmail an earl, Forbes would buy him off or warn him off or, for all I know, kill him off. The dandified silk gloves he wore belied the chain mail underneath, and mail there was. His people had fought at Culloden and Bannockburn, but before that they had fought in Jerusalem. Forbes was a Freemason and the only man in London who I felt carried as many secrets as Cyrus Barker, which is saying something. I’d heard them joke about splitting the town between them, East End and West End. And yet there was a finiteness to this young man’s abilities. Forbes, I knew, was fighting tuberculosis. He only had so long to live, and every time I saw him I was cognizant of the fact that one day I might come into the Royal and he would not be there.

Barker and I slid between the Regent Street doors of the establishment. It was easier to slip in here than into the Neapolitan, but, then, there was far less danger of someone entering armed. I’m not slighting the service, which is impeccable, but the Royal was not the place for an over-attentive waiter. People came here to mingle and chat and sometimes disappear into various discreet rooms, or so I’ve heard. It would not do to be inquisitive, or rather to seem so. Any information is funneled into the ears of one of two people: the first is Monsieur Daniel Nicols, a French exile, owner of the place, the second Forbes, who makes it his pied-a-terre.

Had I known we were going to visit the Cafe Royal that day, I wouldn’t have eaten so much of the antipasto at the Neapolitan. I had made several attempts to cadge a meal there in Barker’s presence but had never had anything more substantial than the mocha coffee they served. We were always too busy or had just eaten a meal or were on our way to one. I had to content myself with coffee once again, not that the mocha is anything of which to complain. I suppose it would have been churlish to eat at Dummolard’s chief rival in London, while he was under the scalpel. One of these days, I promised myself, the meek will inherit the earth.

After the coffee arrived, Pollock Forbes dropped into the chair beside us as if out of a skylight. Forbes’s pale, foppish appearance contradicted his clandestine credentials. An amiable-looking fellow, young and urbane, with little trace of a Scots accent, he dressed in the latest aesthetic fashion: light-colored suit, soft collar, and fresh boutonniere in his lapel. He favored waistcoats by Liberty.

“Carlos!” he called to a waiter, in a tone that seemed bland and bored. “Champagne over here and none of that seltzer water you brought me the last time! Hello, chaps. So, Cyrus, what has happened? You’re not exactly in the habit of indulging your assistants.”

“Dummolard was stabbed today,” the Guv said flatly. The day’s events had scraped off his veneer of civility and left the more elemental Barker showing.

“Who was it? Any idea?”

“It was the Sicilians. Etienne received a Black Hand letter.”

“Is there any chance it is the Camorra instead of mafiusi?”

“None,” Barker said. “The Serafinis have been assassinated also. Gigliotti is considering retribution.”

“Is that all?”

“No, actually. Sir Alan Bledsoe, director of the East and West India Docks, was murdered, in what Gigliotti claims is a Sicilian method. The initial signs seem to point toward a group of mafiusi moving into the area.”

“Do you have any idea who is in charge?”

“Not yet.”

“Oh, come now, Cyrus,” Forbes said. “You know how Black Hand notes work. Sometimes it is a Camorra gang, sometimes Sicilian or some other Italian secret society. Sometimes it’s not even Italian in origin. It could be Irish or even English. We have our own underworld. I work with a delicate system of checks and balances. I cannot move without certainty.”

Barker lifted his glass of champagne and downed it without savoring it. He wiped his mustache with a thumb and shook his head. “It’s the Sicilians, I’m sure of it.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“If I’m wrong, a few Sicilians will be sent back to Palermo needlessly. But if I’m right and we do nothing, more people will die.”

“It’s all circumstantial,” Forbes said guardedly.

“You’re speaking like a solicitor, Pollock. This is not like you. I’m going to track down these Sicilians. Will you assist me?”

“I’m sorry, but I cannot.”

“Cannot or will not?”

“It amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?”

“Can you give me a reason why you should not help bring down a gang that is a danger to our way of life?” my employer said coolly.

“You’re the professional reasoner here. I’m certain you can work it through yourself.”

“You will not help me?” the Guv repeated.

“I’m afraid my hands are tied,” Forbes answered.

“What about Nicols? He is a Frenchman in Soho, like Etienne. His life could be in danger, as well. Don’t you see that?”

“He is a lodge brother, and under our protection, but thank you for the warning.”

Barker sat immobile for a moment, puzzling it out. Obviously, he’d come expecting support. “You’re leaving me to fall back upon my own resources,” he said sternly.

“I wish there was another way. I’m sorry, Cyrus.”

“Very well, if you won’t help, I’ll do it my way. You leave me no alternative.”

“You’re going to cut up rough about this, aren’t you?” Forbes asked.

Barker stood. “As rough as it takes. If I’m left out in the cold on my own, then I needn’t take anyone’s feelings into consideration. Also, if I end up dead over this, it won’t be because of anything I’ve left undone. Come, Thomas.”

The Guv stalked out, leaving me to follow. These were matters too deep for me. It was all insinuation and vague pronouns. “We.” “They.” I didn’t care for the talk about ending up dead. Surely it wouldn’t come to that.

Coming to Glasshouse Street, the Guv headed south, striding purposefully but to no apparent end. I’m not even certain he knew where he was going, like an engine off its tracks, barreling ahead until it ran out of steam. Eventually he came to a stop at a park in Leicester Square. He sat down with his long limbs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankle, a hazard to passing pedestrians, and did not move for a quarter hour.

As I said, I knew Barker better now, after nearly a year and a half in his employ, and I understood that there was nothing to do but to leave him alone. I crossed the street and looked through the windows of a shop that was to let. Poole and a few others of his former students had been after the Guv to rent a gymnasium and start teaching physical culture classes again. More correctly, Poole had spoken to me, wishing that I would make the proposition to Barker, as if somehow I could convince him to do anything. So far I hadn’t got up the nerve.

He was smoking his pipe when I returned, which was a good sign. He had unbent. I sat down and waited for him to speak first.

“Mazzini,” he growled.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Giuseppe Mazzini. He was a political refugee in London who joined the Freemasons and conceived of an organization along the same lines, called Young Italy, that would grow until it overthrew the Bourbon government. Later, after Sicily won its independence, the organization there gained power but began to factionalize.”

“Wait, wait,” I said, holding up a hand. “Are you trying to tell me the Mafia was conceived in London and is a Freemason organization and that’s why Forbes won’t help us?”

“Mazzini is the father of Italian Freemasonry, and he is also called the founder of the Mafia, but in his defense, he didn’t live to see it become a criminal organization. That only occurred with the chaos engendered after the Bourbons had been driven out.”

“And Forbes? How is he connected to them?”

“The Masons straddle international borders. In Italy’s case, lodges such as the Grande Oriente d’Italia and the Propaganda Due include members of the Camorra and the Mafia, but they are a small part of the general membership. I suspect Forbes thinks it politic not to stand against them, at least until he has more information. He and his little star chamber may lend us aid eventually, but there’s no saying what situation we shall be in by then.”

“Star chamber?”

“A metaphor. Cabal, if you prefer.”

“Ah.” I nodded. When in doubt, I say, best to act as if one knows what’s going on and hope not to be caught out by a question.

Behind our bench, swallows were flitting in and out of the shrubbery. It was remarkably warm and I felt almost too drowsy to think. It was difficult to imagine that nearby a secret, foreign organization was plotting who knew what form of devilry.

“So,” I said, going on, “Nicols has joined the English Freemasons and has its protection. He even has a lodge at the Royal.”

“Aye.”

“But Etienne has no such protection, since he’s not a Mason.”

“Oh, he’s a Mason, all right, but not a member of the English order. He’s a member of an ancient French lodge from Dijon called the Order of the Golden Fleece.”

“Golden Fleece,” I repeated. “Toisin d’or.”

“Exactly.”

“I believe I am getting a headache. So why would they help the Mafia but not Etienne?”

“They’re not. Pollock is saying they won’t choose sides.”

“Excuse me, sir, but are you prepared to face the Sicilians alone?”

“Not completely alone, I trust, but I must do something. We are obligated to the Home Office now.”

“Or is it because of Etienne?”

“No. I know that as soon as he can crawl out of his hospital bed, he shall go after his attackers and, in his weakened state, give them the opportunity to finish what they started, but, believe me, Etienne would be the very worst of clients.”

“So, are you a Freemason, sir?” I dared ask.

“No,” he replied. The word was accompanied by a plume of smoke from his mouth.

“But if you were, you would not be permitted to tell me, correct?”

“Correct.”

“So, either you are not a member, or you are a member. Which is it?”

“You tell me-you’re the detective.”

“Private enquiry agent,” I corrected.

“Not yet, rascal.” Barker finished his pipe and knocked out the ash against the bench, scattering it in the light breeze. “You’re still an apprentice.”