“‘The stiletto, la pistola, the garrote.’” The detective quoted Luigi Pizarro. “The first and third are permitted?”
A pair of meaty shoulders rolled. “The streets are dangerous. Whilst a blameless tubercular is turned away at Ellis Island, a cutthroat may pass through the eye of the needle. One must protect oneself and one’s family.”
“I submit that strangling one’s attacker with a length of wire requires something other than defence of self and home.”
“You do not know our community. In London, the entire foreign quarter would fit inside Battery Park. There are some twenty millions of Italians here alone.”
“That is one of the reasons Dr. Watson and I made this voyage: to see the enemy in its natural habitat.”
“Sicily was much closer.”
“Geographically correct. However, on that island, one Medusa is indistinguishable from all the others. When you truly wish to know how a man made his fortune, and upon how many backs, you must come to the place where the streets are paved with gold.”
“I cannot help you, sir.”
“Your grammar is faulty. The phrase you’re looking for is ‘will not.’”
He smiled, this time without warmth. “I can see I must go to an Englishman when my English needs improving.”
“Thank you for the refresher course in the classics, Signor.” Holmes reclaimed the bullet and stood. Medusa kept his seat.
“Parla Italiano?”
“Un po,” replied the detective.
The barber crooked his finger. Holmes hesitated, then leaned close to the desk. My hand tightened upon my pocketed revolver unbidden; all this talk of knives and strangling had set my nerves on end.
However, our host made no motion other than to place his thick lips close to Holmes’s ear. His voice rustled in an unintelligible whisper.
The interview was ended. Medusa saw us to the door and unlocked it. When we were on the street, the shade he’d drawn flapped back up onto its roller.
“What did he say?” I asked when we were back on the street.
“Il mondo e antiquato, y voi e anche immaturo per lo.”
“What does it mean?”
“My usage is no doubt atrocious, and I can provide but a rough approximation: ‘The world is old, and you are too young for it.’”
CHAPTER XIV.
PASTA AND THE PRESS
We walked the short distance to Petrosino’s precinct, but a dusky-faced young officer told us he was still at home, having been up late the night before. Nothing in the polite young Italian’s manner suggested he held us responsible for the inconvenience.
“A most dangerous man, Medusa,” said Holmes, as we followed the policeman’s directions. “No Napoleon of Crime, of course; but quite possibly a Richelieu. At the same time I’m reasonably certain he had nothing to do with what took place last night.”
“What are your grounds?”
“He’s afraid, Watson. His kingdom is built upon sand, held in place by the kerbs of Little Italy. This incident has international implications. He may be able to contain the local authorities through threats and bribery, but not the full weight of two vengeful governments. His parting words were as much a plea as a warning. He is not our man.”
“Then we have come all this way for nothing.”
“Emphatically not. We have flushed out Lungo. Plainly we pose a hazard to some nefarious plan. Lestrade was correct insofar as the Black Hand in London seeks to avoid publicity, hence its efforts to see that Pietro Venucci’s final resting place remains final. But by taking the matter all the way to the United States, we have forced these fellows to take drastic measures to stop the investigation. Depend upon it, there is something more behind all this than just a dead gravedigger.”
We entered a brownstone building whose interior smelled—refreshingly, not of the city’s indigenous cabbage, but of cooked tomatoes and a delectable variety of herbs. On our way up the three flights to the lieutenant’s flat, we heard arguments of differing decibels in Italian, a tenor singing an operatic aria on a gramophone (Caruso, perhaps), and an interesting debate between a woman speaking Italian and a boy speaking New York–accented English involving when he should be expected home for dinner.
The smell of Mediterranean cooking increased as we approached a door at the end of a narrow dim hallway, and positively gushed out at us as Petrosino opened the door. In place of his uniform he wore a stained apron over a brown woolen waistcoat and clutched a squat green wine-bottle in a woven basket under one arm and his short-barreled revolver in his free hand. Recognizing us, his wary expression broke into a genial smile. The weapon vanished beneath his apron.
“My friends, you are just in time for luncheon.”
“We wouldn’t impose,” said Holmes.
“Absurd. I am a bachelor, who cooks enough in one day to feed myself all week. I have prepared pasta sufficient to satisfy the neighborhood. Prego, entrare, e partire un po della felicita tu portare.”
“Grazie, mi amico; although I fear we do not bring so much in the way of happiness. No,” he said, when our friend registered alarm, “not another attack. Just lack of progress.”
He took our hats and coats and hung them on a halltree and removed his apron. “We shall dine in five minutes.”
The apartment was small but homey, a combination living and dining room and kitchen, with a worn but once costly rug on the floor, photos in oval frames of mustachioed men in stiff collars and solemn women in black bombazine, and a view through an open doorway of a single bed on an iron frame. A gramophone (possibly the one we’d heard on our way up the stairs) perched upon a shawl covering a spindle-legged table. Petrosino filled three glasses on an oilcloth-covered table from the squat bottle of wine, served us in threadbare overstuffed chairs pinned all over with antimacassars, and wound up the gramophone. The clear tenor voice issued from the great chrysanthemum horn.
“The doctor and I had the honour of meeting Signor Caruso in London shortly before we left,” Holmes said. “In person his voice is magnificent.”
“I was privileged to hear it as well, from backstage at the Metropolitan last year. I was in charge of ensuring Il Mano Negro held up its end of their bargain. The dinner the man had delivered to his dressing room would have foundered Diamond Jim Brady.”
“Geniuses are often voracious. I seem to be an exception.”
The lieutenant nearly choked on his wine. He mopped his lips with a great lawn handkerchief. “Scusami. I find your frankness refreshing after this morning’s telephone conversation with the chief. He owes his position to the mayor, and the jargon required to maintain public office has rubbed off upon him.”
“I trust he doesn’t hold you responsible for what took place last night,” Holmes said.
“I am sure it was no worse than what he heard from the mayor. You have spoken with Medusa?”
My friend provided him with a full account. Petrosino nodded. “I agree with your construction. He plays the buffoon to perfection, but he is too wise to stir up hornets larger than he.” He sighed. “Someday, my chief will grant my request to revisit Sicily and rip up this noxious weed by the root. What is your next step?”
An alarm clock rang. Our host excused himself and rose. “The sauce, it burns. Shall we continue our conversation over our meal?”
Holmes agreed, and we sat down to a sumptuous repast. The pasta tasted of refined butter and the sauce was delicious. We complimented the chef.
“I thank you on behalf of my grandmother. She would curse me in her grave were I to share the secret outside the family. Omerta, it is not exclusive to Il Mano Negro.”
“I wonder if I could prevail upon you for a favour,” Holmes said.
“Anything.”
“Would you notify the newspapers where we are staying? I wish to make a statement for publication.”
Petrosino was as surprised as I was. “If that is what you wish; but will they not hamper your movements?”
“A little, but
as those movements involve merely a ride to the docks, the inconvenience won’t be great. We sail with the tide, assuming we can arrange accommodations.”
“The department can help with that. You are abandoning your quest?”
“On the contrary,” said Holmes. “I intend to lure our friend Lungo from his lair.”
Whereupon he indulged himself with a second helping from the big bowl on the table.
• • •
Petrosino hung up the telephone in the foyer of his building. “Di compiuto. Your berth on the Dolley Madison awaits at six o’clock this evening, and the gentlemen of the Fourth Estate have been notified. If I know them, they will greet you at Mrs. L’Azour’s front door. I would be honoured if you would allow me to deliver you to the dock in the chief’s go-devil.”
“Thank you, but so official a leave-taking may frighten our prey back into hiding.”
We said farewell, and prepared to shake his hand, but Lieutenant Giusseppe Petrosino seized us each in an embrace that would bring a bear to shame. “Addio, mi caro amicos! I pray that our paths will cross again under better circumstances.”
“And I, regardless of the circumstances.”
I said as much, and the association was ended.
Our new friend had not exaggerated, for a gaggle of men in unwashed linen and battered bowlers boiled off the front steps of our boarding house the moment we appeared. Holmes quieted their simultaneous queries with hand upraised.
“No questions, please, gentlemen. We came to your splendid country on a matter of grave importance, but the trail leads back home, where we shall root out its source. I have nothing to add.” He turned and sprinted up the steps with me in tow.
“Mr. Holmes!” This came in chorus. One voice, belonging to a tall man in tailoring somewhat superior to his colleagues, came to the fore. “Pemberton of the Sun,” he announced. “Is it true someone tried to shoot you in your room last night?”
Holmes paused in the open doorway. “That rumor is false. Mrs. L’Azour would tolerate no such inhospitality. I commend the comforts of her establishment to anyone who intends to visit your fine city. Thank you.”
“But that sling—”
I followed Holmes inside quickly and pushed the door shut against the force from without. This was my first encounter with American journalism. At last I knew the full meaning of the word press.
CHAPTER XV.
I OWE MY LIFE TO A CIGAR
We hired a carriage, and within the hour we were aboard the Dolley Madison, which despite its gracious namesake was altogether a less lavish affair than the vessel that had brought us to the shores of liberty. It had begun life as a tramp steamer, and such improvements that had been made to upgrade its status were little more than cosmetic. A rat the size of a bull pup greeted us in the corridor outside our stateroom, a chamber scarcely more spacious than a monk’s cell, with upper and lower berths bolted to the bulkhead and the pervasive odour of coal oil and fish. It lacked even a porthole.
“We should have sent ourselves with the luggage,” I said. “The cargo hold can’t be much worse.”
Holmes was sanguine. He stretched out in the lower berth with his hands behind his head, the sling discarded as no longer necessary. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t join you in your plaint. I earned my first passage to this country stoking coal. Did you mark our fellow passengers?”
“I didn’t see anyone carrying a rifle case, if that’s what you mean.”
“I should be disappointed if you had. Apply my methods.”
“The mysterious party in the sun hat and smoked glasses caught my eye. I thought, ‘There’s a man with something to hide.’”
“I gave the purser a pound note in return for the information that the gentleman owns a tin mine in Bolivia that yields some one hundred thousand dollars monthly. He prefers to travel incognito, which explains the outlandish disguise. Evidently he’s an admirer of Poe. Anyone else?”
“The East Indian princess or something, dusky-skinned, in expensive furs and pumps as fashionable as any I saw in New York.”
“No one seems to know anything about her, but her bags are calfskin, with gold fittings. Anyone can obtain fine clothing, but luggage is another matter. I wouldn’t assign much to her nationality. The Mafia uses women only to procreate and keep house. Next.”
The hoarse whistle blew. I clambered into the top berth before the movement of the ship could defeat me. “Your turn.”
“The middle western farmer and his wife interest me, if only because I cannot conceive of anything less oceanic.”
“I must have missed them.”
“You were at my side when they passed us outside, looking for their cabin. Such types rarely wear overalls and flour sacking when they travel. His callosities were consistent with steering a plough, and a wheat stalk gifted with the power of speech could not sound more like Kansas.
“The invalided U.S. Marine has possibilities. I won’t belabour your patience with how I arrived at the simple conclusion of his past occupation and injury. That branch of the service employs more sharpshooters than any other. He’s Nordic, but the Black Hand has been known to import its specialists, based upon merit and anonymity.”
“He sounds like our man.”
“There are three hundred forty-two passengers aboard this ship, excluding ourselves. Until I have eliminated three hundred forty-one from suspicion, he’s only a wounded veteran with wanderlust.” He took his hands from behind his head and tipped his hat forward over his eyes. “Wake me at eight bells, will you, Watson? When I said food is the enemy of sleep, I had yet to encounter Nonna Petrosino’s pasta and sauce.”
“And when is eight bells?” I asked; but his even breathing told me he was deep in the arms of Morpheus.
• • •
Although he had not mentioned it, I knew the importance of staying alert whilst he slept. Ships and skullduggery went hand-in-hand. It was a simple thing to move about without attracting suspicion, catch one’s victim alone in a dimly lit gangway or a tiny cabin such as ours, dispatch him, and dispose of the remains by way of the nearest porthole, or simply shove him over the railing on deck and let the sea do the rest. I sat on the edge of my berth with feet dangling, pistol within reach, endeavoring to subtract the churning of the engines and the wash of the waves from a stealthy tread, the doorknob turning by way of an unseen hand, and to stave off sleep; I, too, had eaten a heavy meal, and the sway of the lantern depending from a steel hook in the ceiling, slinging shadows up and down the bulkhead, was hypnotic.
I dozed more than once, but lightly. A squeak (rat? the door hinge?), a groan (the flexing of the hull? a breath held, then expelled?), and I woke with a start, the revolver already in my hand as by magic. When at last eight bells rang (eight o’clock, by my watch; nautical time is seldom so rational), warped by distance and the motion of the vessel, I was never so glad to hear such a sound.
As before, my companion took the second watch, which in the morning he pronounced uneventful. There were several seatings for each meal, the tiny dining room accommodating but ten tables. The food was edible, the coffee bitter. We observed our fellow passengers at table and on deck. To my overexcited imagination, at least one out of five qualified for inclusion in Holmes’s planned photographic rogues’ gallery. But by the second day out, my friend had eliminated the Bolivian millionaire, the Kansas farmer and his wife, and (to my disappointment) the invalided U.S. Marine. The first wagered sparingly in the little casino (“Only the rich are so close with a dollar,” said Holmes. “Had he sprayed the bank notes about like water, I should have closed in”); the middle western couple were on their way to visit a nephew studying at Eton, and showed anyone who paused long enough a thick sheaf of Kodak portraits of a young man whose ears and nose were identical to the farmer’s; and the detective’s casual conversation with the retired soldier uncovered a plethora of information on how to prepare salmon steaks for a hundred men. He’d been a company cook, too busy frying potatoes t
o practise his marksmanship.
“Ruses are of course possible,” was the learnt conclusion. “However, such evidence as we have seen requires many months to manufacture, and if Petrosino is right about the slayer of the Macedonian presidential candidate, our Lungo was in the Mediterranean at the time, in possession of bona fides more germane to that region.”
We were in our stateroom, which we’d deemed the most secure place to share intelligence. The close quarters, and my mounting suspicion that either our enemy had chosen not to follow us home or had boarded a different boat, made me restless. I went out for fresh air.
The air on deck was bracing, stiffening my face and frosting my nose. I stood gripping the tarnished brass railing, gazing out at the choppy steel-coloured waves and remembered crossing a very different sea, weak from the lingering effects of enteric fever and promenading on the arm of an army nurse; thinking, then, that my adventurous days were over.
Smiling at my old naivety, I slid the silver case from my pocket and took out a cigar just as the wind changed, hurling spray over the railing and snatching the case from my hand. Instinctively I lunged to catch it before it fell into the ocean.
I heard a report, bent by the elements, but to an old campaigner a report just the same. There are no backfires at sea, and the noise that accompanied it, once heard, is never forgotten: the ear-splitting whistle of a bullet passing through the space where my head had been an instant before.
My soldier’s reflexes, thank the Lord, remained intact. I threw myself to the deck and rolled, upsetting a wooden lounge chair and coming to rest with my back against the deck cabin, my hand groping for my revolver. My gaze swept the deck from stem to stern, the roof of the cabin, every porthole. The last were all shut, and I saw no one. The air was too icy for casual strollers. There had been just us two: myself and my would-be murderer.
Sons of Moriarty and More Stories of Sherlock Holmes Page 20