The Black Hand (2 page)

When we arrived, the coroner for the East End, Edward Vandeleur, was occupied with another postmortem. We cooled our heels in the main corridor, while the assistants, in gutta-percha aprons, brought in the bodies and washed them down with more carbolic. I sat and pondered the fact that there was at least one occupation worse than mine to be had in London.

One of the doors in the hall opened suddenly and Vandeleur appeared, his long laboratory coat heavily stained with gore. His appearance always reminded me of Franz Liszt, with his sharp features and shoulder-length white hair combed severely back. Vandeleur was a perfect choice for an East End coroner, having both a law and a medical degree, no small feat. The latter is not a requirement for the position, and most coroners depend on hired surgeons to do their postmortems for them, at two pounds apiece. By doing them himself, Vandeleur was not only saving the government two quid, but also was able to draw his own conclusions, which was far more important.

“Barker!” he said, when he’d noticed us sitting on the bench. “What are you doing here already?”

The Guv frowned. “I came to see about a postmortem.”

“I’ve just finished it. Come have a look.”

Confused, we stood and followed him into the room, to the spattered table where a corpse lay. I had reached that state in my experience as an enquiry agent where the sight of a body no longer made me ill. On the marble slab, its fluids draining into the troughs on the sides, was the body of a man in his early sixties. His nude form had been savaged by the examination process, and the top of his skull lay in a pan. The neatly trimmed gray beard and the state of the nails and hands informed me that this was no common East-ender but a man of substance, a merchant, perhaps, or a banker.

“What have we here?” Barker asked, looking at the corpse.

“Don’t you recognize him?” Vandeleur asked. “It’s Sir Alan Bledsoe.”

“Director of the East and West India Docks? He’s one of the most powerful men in the East End. What’s his body doing here?”

I concurred with my employer that the sight of a man so important to Her Majesty’s government lying here in the Poplar Mortuary was unexpected. Men like Bledsoe died in their Pall Mall clubs or their manors in Hampshire. This corpse was on the wrong side of town.

“His body was found yesterday afternoon in Victoria Park. He went there every day after lunch to read the newspaper. In fact,
The Times
was still open in his hands when he was found. All factors point to heart failure. He’d already had one a year ago, and was taking digitalis for it. Since the death occurred nearby, the body was brought here, but I’ve had a devil of a time getting permission to do the postmortem. The examination itself was rather routine until
about fifteen minutes ago, when I discovered the actual cause of his death.”

“What caused you to doubt it was heart failure?” the Guv asked.

“I found ash on the man’s lips. As luck would have it, I’d seen that sort of thing before. I inserted a long forceps into the throat, and what do you suppose I found? The fag end of a cheroot.”

“He’d swallowed it?” I asked. Sometimes I speak before I think. “Was it lit?”

“It was. Singed his throat, though he was beyond caring by that time. With an infarction of the heart, there is often a constriction of the chest cavity, producing a cough. But if the victim is shot or stabbed, there is an involuntary, sharp intake of breath, and the jaw unclamps. The result is that the cheroot or cigarette may be swallowed. It happens more often than one might think. It’s not conclusive in a court of law, of course, but it was enough to send me looking for an alternative means of death. I methodically examined the body from scalp to sole but found no external wound. I thought perhaps my hunch was wrong.”

“You’re rarely wrong, Dr. Vandeleur. What was the actual cause of death?” Barker asked.

“Something had been inserted into his ear, penetrating the brain; some kind of stout wire perhaps, or an ice pick. Killed him instantly.”

“Wouldn’t that result in an issue of blood?”

“It did. There was a small amount in the ear canal, but the outer ear appears to have been wiped clean. Someone came up behind him while he was reading and killed him so quickly he never even had time to drop his newspaper.”

“The thing that strikes me,” the Guv said, “is the only person I know in London capable of such a subtle method of killing is in the other room there, being disinfected at this very moment, an Italian assassin named Serafini. In fact, it was Serafini’s postmortem I was coming here to speak with you about.”

“That’s more than a coincidence,” Vandeleur said. “Was he killed the same way?”

“No, but he was definitely murdered.”

“Let’s take a look. I don’t suppose Sir Alan will mind if I sew him up later.”

The doctor led us across the hall. If possible, the odor of the corpses was even stronger in the confines of the examination room. Serafini’s form lay stretched on the table, a mountain of mottled flesh. Beside it, the coroner’s assistants bent over a second table.

“What’s going on here?” Vandeleur asked curiously, looking over their shoulders before stepping back with a start. “Ye gods! What is it?”

“It’s a woman, sir,” the first assistant said. The man’s name, I knew, was Trent, and he had helped us on a previous case. Medical students were always queuing up to work under Vandeleur. He was the best coroner in London. “Most of the bones have been crushed. There’s no way we’ll ever get her stretched out, I’m afraid.”

“It’s Serafini’s wife,” Barker supplied. “He never went anywhere without her, not even into the afterlife.”

“It’s obvious both were dispatched by shotguns, though it won’t be official until I file my report. Your Italian assassin took a gun blast to the chest.”

There was no doubting it, for a purplish wound cratered
his left breast and another was found among the ribs on his right side.

“I beg your pardon, Dr. Vandeleur,” Trent put in, “but there’s another in his back and two in the woman’s as well.”

“His flesh is all churned up,” the coroner said. Pulling the forceps from his pocket again, he began poking about the wounds. In a moment, he held up a round, metal ball.

“Lead shot,” he pronounced. “His internal organs are peppered with it.”

Barker crossed his arms. “Two blasts; four, if you count his wife. Even if one were to discharge one barrel at a time, it would require reloading.”

“I cannot imagine either one of them giving someone sufficient time to reload,” I hazarded.

“Very true, Thomas,” my employer said. “This was done by two men, then, who would have to be professional killers. For all his girth, Serafini was quick and deadly, and his wife every bit as dangerous as he. Only professionals could have killed him.”

“Three assassinations in London in a day?” Vandeleur remarked. “What is the city coming to?”

“I don’t know, but I intend to find out. So, shall you give a verdict of willful murder regarding Sir Alan?”

Vandeleur stepped into the corridor, and my employer and I followed him, leaving his assistants to their grisly task.

“I am not in the habit of sharing my conclusions before rendering a verdict, Mr. Barker,” he said cautiously, putting the forceps back in his pocket, “but the evidence seems conclusive enough.”

“Is there no possible way that he could have had a seizure which produced bleeding in the brain?”

“Keep to your own field, Barker, and leave the diagnoses to a trained pathologist,” Vandeleur snapped. He could be quite waspish at times.

My employer hesitated. “I was merely thinking of your reputation. In your shoes, I would not wish to render a verdict based upon a wound so small it is barely visible. I wonder how you even spotted it, despite the convolutions of the brain.”

“It was the blood in the ear canal. What are you getting at?”

“I’m afraid no good can come of declaring it a murder. Sir Alan was a very important man. Is there proof it will hold up in court? Most likely, the government shall think you mad despite your reputation, and your position will be in jeopardy.”

“Are you suggesting I render a false verdict?” Vandeleur snapped. “I have never done so in my life and shall certainly not start now.”

“I was thinking of Sir Alan’s wife and Scotland Yard. They will wish to avoid a scandal at all costs. The wound is too small to appear in any photograph. As far as I can see, you won’t have enough proof to convince your peers.”

“For once, I don’t require it. A half hour ago, a representative of Her Majesty’s government arrived informing me that Sir Alan’s death was now a government matter. I don’t know how he knew the man had been murdered. He said he sent for you, as well. That’s what I thought you were here about when I saw you in the corridor.”

“I’d like to speak with this gentleman,” my employer said. “Where is he now?”

Vandeleur led us out of the room and down the main
corridor, while I contemplated what it would be like to work all day in a place that smelled of carbolic and moldering bodies. Just before we reached the desk, where an orderly watched like a sentinel, Vandeleur turned and opened a door on the left.

A man stood up in the room beyond, but I could not see him. Barker is over six feet, and Vandeleur approaches it. As unobtrusively as possible, I tried to peer over their shoulders. I was expecting a stranger, but in fact I knew the man. Coupled with what I had seen so far that day, I rather wished I didn’t.

F
OR ONCE I HAD SOME IDEA WHERE WE WERE
going as we clattered along Aldgate High Street, heading toward the West End. Our destination was the Neapolitan, a restaurant in Westminster run by Serafini’s former employer, Victor Gigliotti, leader of the English branch of the Camorra. Gigliotti’s bodyguard and his wife were now dead, leaving me to assume Gigliotti must have done something to warrant the attack on his people.

In Marsham Street, we pulled up to the curb and alighted. Passing beneath the metal red, white, and green flags of unified Italy that adorned the exterior of the restaurant, we stepped inside. A large portrait of Giuseppi Garibaldi, the Italian patriot, hung on one wall. Not as welcoming perhaps were the steely stares of several hard-looking men in the room, including the owner, who sat at a table near the back. The bodyguards moved their hands nearer to where their guns were secreted as we entered, but Gigliotti held up a hand to them.

“Victor,” my employer said, coming to a stop in front of
his table and offering a slight bow of respect as he removed his bowler.

“Cyrus,” the man replied with a smile, revealing a wide mouth with sharp canines. He was about thirty, thin but well built, with pomaded black hair. His jawline was so dark it looked as if gunpowder had been discharged into it. He spoke with only a slight accent. “How have I offended you that you have not honored my establishment with your presence in over a year? Rafael! A bottle of Gallo Nero and some antipasto.”

Barker pulled out a chair and sat close to him, speaking in a low voice. Gigliotti looked around, as if he did not even trust his own employees, and waved Barker even closer. The Guv spoke for almost a minute in his ear. As he listened, the Camorran smoothed a hand across his hair, though it was as flawless as if it had been shellacked. Eventually he nodded and sighed.

“Forgive my manners in not coming sooner, Victor,” Barker said, sitting back. “My only excuse is that I go where my work takes me, and there is no crime in Westminster to speak of, largely due to your presence.”

The table was suddenly surrounded by a gaggle of mustached waiters in long white aprons, setting down bottles and glasses and plates. A basket of fragrant, hot bread wrapped in linen appeared and then a cold platter of rolled meats and cheeses with olives. We helped ourselves. Perhaps it seems strange dining after the morning’s tragedy, but it is the Italian habit to punctuate everything, especially death, with food.

Gigliotti unstopped the basket-covered bottle of Chianti and poured three glasses with polished ease. He gave us each one and then raised his own.

“To Giorgio and Isabella, may they rest in such peace as God will allow them. They were cold-blooded killers and mad as hatters, but they celebrated life better than any Englishman.”

We drank. The Chianti was strong and sour, but it went well with the food. Gigliotti allowed us to eat for another minute or two, though I knew he must have questions about the fate of the Serafinis. An unwritten protocol demanded that everything occur in precise order, a play in which I alone seemed to be without a script.

“Barreled,” the Camorran finally said. “You know what that means.”

Barker nodded. “Sicilians, unless you have internal troubles of your own.”

“We don’t,” Gigliotti insisted, “and if we did, we would not be so ignorant as to float them in barrels. One might as well paint an Italian flag upon the lid for all London to see. Our community will be blamed for this. Giorgio, Giorgio! Who would have thought you’d be caught out in this manner?”

“It appeared to be the work of two men,” the Guv went on. “Serafini and his wife were gunned down together.”