Barker 05 - Black Hand Read Online Free Page B

congregating.”
    “We must discourage them somehow—not the Sicilians as a whole but the criminal element.”
    “Men armed with knives and the wherewithal to use them might be difficult to discourage,” I pointed out.
    Cyrus Barker reached into his pocket and retrieved his old repeater. “Thomas, I’ve been remiss. Go to Le Toison d’Or and inform Madame Dummolard of her husband’s injury.”
    “Me, sir?”
    “Yes. I must stay to hear of Etienne’s condition when he gets out of surgery, and it would frighten Madame to deathif Inspector Poole arrived in the restaurant. Bring her,” he ordered, “though God help us all.”
    It’s easier to stand on the tracks and argue with the approaching express train from Brighton than with Barker once his mind is made up. Not finding a cab, I walked to Soho, a matter of ten minutes. It was still too early for the restaurant to open, so I entered through the back door. Before I even knew what happened, Madame Dummolard had me by the shoulders and was shaking me.
    “Thomas, où est Etienne? What has happened?”
    Madame, a blond woman in her mid-thirties, is a true beauty, but she towers over most men. As she shook me, I clutched my hat to keep it out of the potage cooking nearby on one of the stoves and had to extricate myself from her clutches before I could speak.
    “Etienne has been attacked. Stabbed. He stumbled into our offices half an hour ago. He is in surgery now.”
    “He is not dead. Tell me he is not!”
    “He was awake when I last saw him. He spoke to us.”
    “Where is he?”
    “Charing Cross Hospital.”
    “Take me to him at once, Thomas. Vite!” She pushed me out the door again. There was no question of her walking the distance I had just come, but cabs congregate in Soho, even at that early hour. I hailed a hansom and told the driver to take us to Charing Cross Hospital.
    “No!” Madame cried. “Clothilde! His stepdaughter must be by his side. It is but three streets south of here. Go!”
    Madame can be difficult enough, but the thought of sharing a cab with her sharp-tongued daughter was even more daunting.
    “Where was he stabbed?” Madame Dummolard continued, once we were safely ensconced in the cab and on our way.
    “In the stomach and the back.”
    “Ma pauvre!” she cried. “Did he have the note with him?”
    “The Black Hand note? Yes, Mr. Barker has it.”
    “It was shoved under our door yesterday morning. It was from the Sicilians, I know it. They are trying to take over Soho,” she cried. “They want to shut down Le Toison d’Or and fill the district with cheap little coffee shops.”
    There wasn’t much use arguing with her. The cab pulled to the curb in front of a row of town houses on the south edge of Soho in Old Compton Street. The Dummolards were doing well for themselves, I noted. They lived in a sand-colored three-story building with window boxes full of bougainvilleas. We sprang from the cab and I followed Madame into the hall.
    Clothilde Dummolard is a miniature version of her mother. She’s the kind of girl that could swoop down upon one like an eagle, and suddenly one wakes up with three daughters, a position in the city, a house in the country full of furniture one wouldn’t sit on, and a mortgage it would take two lifetimes to pay. Luckily, I didn’t have an earldom to attract her, but I saw through her schemes and she found that vexing.
    “Injured, you say?” she demanded. “How badly?”
    “He’s been stabbed,” Madame cried. “Stabbed in the street, and is now in the hospital!”
    “Don’t stand there like an idiot, Thomas,” Clothilde said, pushing me out the door. “Take us to him at once!”
    I ushered the ladies into the waiting cab.
    “Now, tell me everything from the beginning,” the girl ordered, once we were in the cab and on our way again. “How did Papa get stabbed?”
    I explained in as much detail as I could what had occurred, but it only took up half the brief journey, leaving her