“Not long. There’s no crime in possessing a large sum of money; although with the singer’s testimony we may prosecute him for extortion.”
“I doubt Caruso will oblige. He hasn’t the advantage of our system, and will in all likelihood consider himself fortunate to have gotten off so cheaply, without inviting further mayhem from his predators. He may even forfeit the return of his money, lest it invite another attempt, and one more costly given the extra trouble. Merely informing us of the details of the ‘drop’ was out of character.”
“Then Pizarro will be free in twenty-four hours.”
“Pray, Lestrade, keep him a bit longer. Vagrancy is out of the question, given the sum of money he possessed; it may develop that you’re forced to return it to him, with an apology for detaining him.”
“I’d sooner resign my position. The legality of his residency may be an issue we can turn to our advantage. The Home Secretary may elect to deport him.”
“Knowing the tortoise nature of our government system, I’d venture to say Signor Pizarro will be the ward of the state a fortnight at least. That should give his superiors pause; has he peached? Is he being held as a material witness? He must be aware these questions will be asked. Another interview in a day or so may yield a better harvest.”
Lestrade studied him. “You’re cold as ice, Holmes, when push comes to shove. He’ll suffer hell’s own torment in twenty-four hours.”
“I cannot disagree. It may be I’m responsible for it, but I can’t say that I’ll lose a moment’s sleep over the matter. Signor Caruso may cough up the sum of two years’ wages for the common man without complaint, but I shouldn’t wish to ask the common man his opinion on the situation were it turned his way. For him, a shilling is so big he can scarcely see round it.
“Twenty-four hours, Lestrade,” said he, tugging on his cap. “The Crown is kinder to its detainees than anywhere else on earth, but I can think of no worse penalty than to leave a dishonest man alone with his thoughts.”
In this, for once, Sherlock Holmes was naive; but even he could not foresee every event.
• • •
I slept in my old room that night, at Holmes’s invitation; it was closer to Scotland Yard than my present arrangements, and I tired more easily than in earlier days of our adventurous partnership.
How long I slept I know not; it was still dark when Holmes shook me by the shoulder. He was dressed for the street, and his face was pale as death. “Disaster, Watson. Dress quickly. I’ll explain on the way.”
Fifteen minutes later, unshaven and wearing yesterday’s soiled and wrinkled clothes, I listened to my companion’s account. He’d received a curt wire from Lestrade, who’d been knocked out of bed himself by news from Scotland Yard.
“Pizarro is dead. The gaol-keepers insist he hanged himself in his cell, using his own trousers, but I’m unsatisfied. That a man who only a few hours ago so feared death he’d sooner face prison than answer our questions should suddenly decide to take his own life, flies squarely in the face of my reading of human nature.”
“No man can know for certain what’s in another man’s heart,” I said. “You can’t blame yourself.”
“Whom else, if not me? Faster, man!” He thumped the roof of the hansom with his stick. A whip cracked and the horse broke into a canter.
Soon we found ourselves in Bow Street, home of the police-court and of much of the history of law enforcement in our ancient city. Lestrade met us within, looking every bit as ill-groomed as I, and conducted us down a whitewashed corridor to one of a series of reinforced oaken doors with iron gratings set into them through which the prisoners could be monitored. A lantern had been left burning in the cell, and I saw the man’s shadow before I saw him, dangling with legs obscenely bared from his makeshift noose. His eyes bulged sightlessly and his mouth was agape.
“Normally in such cases we cut them down immediately, in case a spark of life remains; but it didn’t take a degree in medicine for the keeper to determine our guest could trim the place for a year as well as a minute, and the result would not be different.”
I concurred; for in the flickering light the fellow’s face was as wine-dark as Homer’s sea. I examined his fingernails. They were a shade of purple that quite settled the question.
“Thank the fellow for me, Lestrade,” said Holmes. “It’s a rare civil servant who respects the scene in situ.”
“Surely the only foul play is the hiding the Yard will take from the press. When a man commits suicide in custody, that event is as predictable as Tuesday.”
“Let us leave the cart and horse where they are at present, Inspector.”
Holmes extracted from the folds of his caped overcoat a bull’s-eye lantern, and adjusted the louvers until the shaft fell full upon the hideous countenance of the dead man. It lingered there but briefly, then shifted round the cell, stopping at last with a self-satisfied intake of air on the detective’s part. “What do you make of it, Watson? Inmates have been known to decorate their bleak surroundings in an effort to cheer them up, but this particular ornament may be unique.”
I stepped close to the masonry wall, studying the object upon which the shaft of light fell, fixed to the mortar between the stones by means of a square nail driven through it. It was horseshoe-shaped. “It appears to be a scrap of leather; the end of a belt?”
“Use this.” He handed me his pocket lens in its leather sheaf.
I unfolded it and scrutinized the object through the powerful glass. “Good Lord,” I whispered, lowering the lens. “It’s a human tongue. Dried and puckered from its exposure to the air, but a tongue just the same.”
“I thought as much. A man’s trousers do not serve the same merciful purpose as a hangman’s coils, which snap the third cervical vertebra immediately, causing instantaneous death—more or less. This poor devil strangled. In such cases, the tongue swells and protrudes between the lips, but I observed at once that while the mouth was wide open, that appendage had not made its appearance. It must be somewhere, said I to myself, and so it is. What do you think of your suicide theory now, Lestrade?”
“Blown, like my recent promotion. I shall consider myself fortunate to rattle doorknobs in Whitechapel when this gets out. Murder, certainly; but what can it mean to cut out a man’s tongue and nail it to a wall?”
“It means my disgrace, as surely as yours. I thought detaining Pizarro would force him to reconsider his silence, lest his comrades suspect him of informing against the society; that they would act so swiftly to prevent him was an alternative I didn’t foresee. It’s a message, Lestrade: To talk is to die, and the symbolic amputation of the chief instrument of speech removes all ambiguity.”
“I shall issue a warrant for the arrest of the man in the striped suit. Either he did this thing, or he knows who was responsible. Simultaneously I shall authorise a complete investigation into the characters of the personnel who oversee these cells. That door wasn’t forced; whoever opened it had a key, and we don’t leave them around like candy in a dish. Money changed hands, depend upon it.”
Holmes lowered the lantern, returning the cell to its murky twilight. “I’m sorry, Lestrade. For what it’s worth, I’ll welcome whatever onus you may shift to me.”
The inspector shrugged. “It’s just as well. The closer one gets to chief inspector, the greater the likelihood of unemployment next time the government changes. Perhaps my past record will allow me to return to my old duties. Give me my passion-killers and second-story men, and the Empire can assign the right good profile of the Metropolitan Police to the politicians.”
“A good fellow,” said Holmes, as we drove away from that grim scene. “I beg you, Watson, if your works are ever collected, to edit out certain disparaging remarks I’ve made in regard to that capital man.”
“What now?”
“I shall leave Mr. Billiards to Lestrade; whether he was the instrument of Pizarro’s death, or merely the messenger, the lesson itself will make him a vault of secre
ts, lest it be repeated.” He brightened. “What say you to a voyage abroad? Will your practice survive a holiday of a month or so?”
“My practice has shrunk to old men with lumbago and old ladies with the vapors; whatever they are. They’ll be there when I return. I’ve always wanted to visit Italy. The pope is a sight to see, they say, upon his balcony, and the Swiss Guards nearly the equal of Coldstream.”
“Perhaps you shall, although not this season. I speak of a pilgrimage to New York City, and an audience, not with the pontiff, but with Detective Giusseppe Petrosino, who has dedicated himself to the eradication of the Mafia, and knows them as a hunter knows his prey. Pack pullovers,” he added. “I’m told the winds off the harbour blow cold as Valley Forge through those corridors of brownstone.”
CHAPTER IX.
LITTLE ITALY
On the morning of our departure we met upon the dock. Holmes smiled at my luggage.
“Two trunks,” said he, “and I recall when you travelled with only a razor and a fresh collar.”
“Both optional, back then.” For I was in a bright mood, and would not be needled. In the excitement of packing I had realised how much I’d missed the hurly-burly of shucking off months of inaction and taking to the high seas as on a whim. “Do not fear that I’ve become a clothes horse. I stuffed the second trunk with authors I’ve been meaning to catch up on: Stevenson, Clark Russell, Conrad, Jack London, the American writer. Is that all your gear?” I nodded towards his carpetbag.
“The clothes I’m wearing, tweeds for warmth, a dinner jacket, and sundries.” Items shifted heavily inside when he hefted the bag. I knew them well: brass knuckles, a cosh, his revolver—the “sundries” he’d mentioned.
“No reading material? Won’t you be bored?”
“I place my trust in the mortal equation. Six hundred souls living in close proximity for a fortnight will provide entertainment for an ageing detective, or the race is lost irretrievably.”
Without going into detail, I shall report that he was proven right our first day out, when a number of our fellow passengers complained to the crew that their staterooms had been entered in their absence and certain items removed: a wooden comb, two small sewing kits, a battered pewter flask, and a tobacco pouch. It was but the work of two days to connect the pilferage of these varied and relatively worthless items to a pet marmoset belonging to the assistant purser, who had adopted the monkey during a stopover in Brazil and was unaware of what the animal was about while he was engaged in his duties. Objects and their owners were reunited and little Mono was placed in Holmes’s temporary custody at his request, “for observation.” By the time we passed the grand lady holding a torch in the harbour, he’d drafted a monograph concerning the difference between willing thievery and innocent curiosity in our fellow primates.
“Signor Holmes! Welcome to America!”
No sooner had we reclaimed our luggage than a sturdy party in brass buttons and a peaked cap ploughed his way through the passengers and well-wishers on the dock. He was clean-shaven, with a broad square face and a gold shield pinned to his breast.
But before he could reach us, a group of men in long overcoats in need of brushing and bowler hats touched up with bootblack intercepted him, charging our way with pencils and notebooks in hand. Holmes looked pained. “The American press. Aggressive fellows. I fear we’re in for a proper grilling.”
We were saved, however, when a whistle shrilled and what seemed a regiment of men in uniforms similar to the first man’s double-timed their way across the dock, shoving aside the crowd and inserting themselves between us and the gang of journalists. A chorus of middle western twangs, Irish brogues, and pidgin English assailed them as the officers sent them into retreat with wooden bludgeons prominent.
“Lieutenant Joe Petrosino, sirs, at your service.” The first man pumped Holmes’s hand and then mine, using a two-handed grip I still feel in my wrist and fingers when the weather is damp.
Holmes saw me wince. “Be grateful, Watson. Imagine how it must feel when those fingers grip a miscreant’s shoulder in the middle of his crime. I cabled the lieutenant from aboard ship, and was pleased to receive a positive response. I hardly thought you would take the trouble to greet us,” he told Petrosino, “much less throw yourself between us and our interrogators. And in the full array of your office.”
The Italian’s smile was abashed. “I haven’t had it on since Columbus Day. These fellows are the salt of the earth, but I knew they could not resist an interview with the great Sherlock Holmes come hell or high water, short of a show of force on my part. Have you arranged accommodations?”
“The Brevoort Hotel. If we may prevail upon your hospitality even more, we’d be grateful if you would send on our bags and take us to your office straightaway.”
“Splendid! I, too, cannot wait to confer with you.”
Petrosino made the necessary arrangements with a porter—paying him despite our protests—and led us to a black contraption with red trim that resembled a London growler, albeit with four pneumatic tyres and no team in sight. “You know the motorcar, certainly,” he said.
“I’ve yet to experience one at firsthand. Still feeling adventurous, Watson?”
“Don’t bother looking round for me, Holmes. I’ll be there.” I could not wait to climb aboard.
Petrosino cranked the machine into sputtering life and we squeezed in beside him on the stiff leather upholstery. Our contraption appeared to attract little attention from passersby; plainly, the citizens of the New World had accepted the presence of horseless carriages in their midst as a rite of Yankee passage. Our pilot depressed a pedal, pulled a handle, and soon we were whirring along the macadam at a dizzying 24 kilometres an hour, all of us holding on to our hats.
“It belongs to the chief,” Petrosino shouted above the chugging motor. “When I told him the great Sherlock Holmes was coming to consult the department, he insisted you be greeted in style. I talked him out of sending along a brass band. That would have attracted every reporter in five boroughs. He is a good enough fellow, but no policeman.”
I was astonished at the number of motor vehicles we passed: touring cars nearly as long as omnibuses, lorries stacked with cargo, and two-wheelers operated by men in dusters and goggles growled, grumbled, and clanked between the kerbs, exciting little interest from pedestrians or horses. Holmes, of course, followed the path of my thoughts.
“This century will belong to America. One can only hope that Great Britain will cede it with grace.”
We crossed a dozen squares in a short space of time, passing, it seemed, through as many countries, identified by shop signs in Chinese, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Spanish, German, and finally Italian, coming to a stop before a squat building erected of unprepossessing sandstone, with electric globes flanking the entrance, each marked POLICE.
“It is even uglier inside,” said Petrosino, “but it has the advantage of being too far from City Hall for the politicians to visit.”
When we alighted, he summoned two officers who were smoking on the front steps to guard the automobile. “It is Little Italy, after all,” he confided to us, “and while most of my compatriots are honest and decent, one cannot expect the overworked customs officers on Ellis Island to filter out all the undesirables.”
As we accompanied him up the steps, a sharp crack rang out. Instinctively, the lieutenant slapped at the revolver in a holster on his belt; but as he wheeled in the direction of the noise, a lorry loaded heavily with what appeared to be kegs of beer thundered past, expectorating a ball of black smoke from a pipe mounted at the rear with an ear-splitting report. Petrosino chuckled and scabbarded his weapon.
“In time, I suppose, we will be so accustomed to backfires we will be able to distinguish between them and gunshots.”
Holmes and I withdrew our hands from the pockets containing our own firearms. “Yet another theme for a monograph,” said he. “Our brave new world threatens to turn me into a full-time scholar.”
The interior, railed and wainscoted in oak, smelled of cigars, chewing tobacco, and furniture oil. A brass cuspidor greeted us on all three landings and lined the narrow dim corridor that led to a door with LT. J. PETROSINO lettered on pebbled glass. He unlocked it and led us into a corner room with windows overlooking his domain to the south and west. It contained a battered desk, four wooden chairs, a telephone box mounted upon one wall, and framed portraits of various dignitaries, including the American President Roosevelt and a fierce-looking fellow in a foreign uniform. Holmes nodded towards the last.
“An excellent likeness. I met Generale Garibaldi in Victor Emmanuel’s court while hiking across the Continent. Before your time, Watson.”
“At last I know where you learnt to speak Italian.”
“I envy you,” said Petrosino. “Garibaldi is a god in this neighbourhood. Welcome to the Italian Squad, gentlemen. This is the oldest precinct house in Manhattan. When the squad was formed, I was offered a modern office at headquarters, but—”
“Politicians,” Holmes finished. “They’re the same all over. I turned down a knighthood for fear it would lead to an earldom and the House of Lords.”
Someone knocked on the door. Petrosino barked an invitation. A bull-necked man with stripes on his uniform sleeves asked if anything was needed. The lieutenant looked at us. “Refreshment?”
We declined, with thanks. Petrosino dismissed the man, waved towards the chairs, and seated himself behind the desk. Instantly he ceased to look like an immigrant in uniform. His genial expression became stern with authority.
“And now, my friends, I beseech you to abandon your plans to stop at the Brevoort.”
“We were told it’s one of the best hotels in the city,” I said.
“It is fine, very fine. However, I assume you made arrangements by cable, which involved two telegraphers at least, a messenger, and any number of hotel personnel. That is a small army of strangers who know where you can be found.”
“The danger is that profound?” Holmes asked.
Sons of Moriarty and More Stories of Sherlock Holmes Page 17
