“Now that we know he’s safely out of surgery,” Barker said to me, “let’s go over to Scotland Yard. I want to speak with this Palermo inspector Poole mentioned. Perhaps he can shed some light on what’s going on.”
There was a time, and recently it was, too, when walking into the Criminal Investigation Department made me go clammy all over. It felt as if all I had to do was answer one question wrong and I’d be on my way back to prison. The fear had passed now; and I saw the building as it was, slightly damp and seedy, in need of a fresh coat of paint, and full of people milling about who looked bored or upset.
Cyrus Barker stopped and looked at some offices on the first floor. This was where he had taught his physical culture classes before a bomb left by the Irish Republican Brotherhood had rent it asunder. He sniffed dismissively and walked on.
When we found Poole’s office, he had a small crate open on his desk and was looking through it.
“What have you got, Terry?”
“More work,” Poole grumbled. “Commissioner Henderson has chosen me to try out the new Bertillon system of detection from Paris.”
“Does it work?” my employer asked.
“I have no idea as yet. It’s scientific enough, I’ll grant you that. I can see the importance of photographing criminals as they are booked in and taking down their vitals, I suppose, but Inspector Pettigrilli’s taking it much too far. Why measure a man’s forearms or the circumference of his head, I ask you? What’s that going to accomplish? It’s a waste of our valuable time. It takes a good half hour to fill out each card, and someone walking in the door every five minutes. It will turn us all into clerks.”
“What card?” I asked. “What exactly is the Bertillon system?”
“It’s a scientific method created to identify criminals,” Barker explained. “It was invented by Alphonse Bertillon, chief of criminal identification for the Paris police. It involves a careful measurement and indexing of dozens of parts of the body, parts that cannot change over time and that no criminal can disguise, such as the shape of his ears or the length of his feet. It’s more complicated than that, of course; and, as I recall, it’s tied up with the so-called science of eugenics. If one has the wrong ear shape, for example, it proves somehow one is racially inferior.”
“I haven’t read that far,” Poole admitted. “I just got the instructions today. Look at all these instruments!”
He lifted a pair of calipers and mockingly measured the diameter of his own head. Then he brought out a set of rulers, measuring tapes, special tools for measuring parts of the body, and finally a small wooden bench with centimeters marked upon it.
“So this Sicilian inspector Pettigrilli is in the country to teach the latest police methods,” Barker stated.
“Yes. It’s a cooperative effort between the French, English, and Italian governments.”
“Europe’s once again bringing enlightenment to benighted England,” I put in.
“Something like that-though if you ask me, it’s more a way to put money in Monsieur Bertillon’s pocket.”
“What’s your impression of Pettigrilli?” Barker asked.
“He’s all right, for an Italian. He’s the first one trained by the Surete.”
“I thought the Sicilians hate the French,” I said.
“Pettigrilli says it is important to make alliances; and if the French are willing to extend an olive branch and allow him to study the latest methods, he would be a fool not to do so. Claims it will r-revolutionize the world.”
“I’d like to meet him,” Barker said.
“He’s giving a lecture now for the benefit of the Special Branch, not that they’ll appreciate it.” Poole pulled out his watch and consulted it. “He should be done soon.”
“How much practical use do you think the Bertillon system will be?”
Poole ran his fingers through his long, drooping whiskers. “It would require retraining every officer in the country and getting them to agree on the same procedures. Then thousands of these kits must be sent out everywhere and a working camera given to every constabulary, with training in photography and developing. Records would have to be filled out after each arrest and an officer hired and trained to do naught else but keep them. You’re talking about thousands of pounds there. Plus, it’s all theory. Only a few arrests have occurred in France because of the new records, and those were due more to the photographs than the measurements, I’m thinking. It’s all good intentioned, but I’d have to be convinced of its reliability.”
“You’re skeptical,” Barker concluded.
“I am, but then, the commissioner doesn’t lose any sleep at night wondering whether the Yard is being run to my satisfaction. It’s more ‘go and make it work, or feel my boot hard against your backside.’ ”
There was a clamor of stout shoes in the hall and men began filing past Poole’s door.
“The meeting must have adjourned,” Poole said. He came quickly around the desk and stepped out into the corridor. “Mr. Pettigrilli!” he called out. “Could I speak with you for a moment?”
A squarely built man stepped into the room, dressed in a European-looking suit and an alpine-style hat. He had good features-dark eyes and a thin mustache that made him look refined. He seemed vigorous, a dynamo running on some internal source of energy.
“Yes, Inspector. What can I do for you?” he asked.
“May I present Mr. Barker and his assistant, Mr. Llewelyn? They are private enquiry agents.”
“Ah!” The Sicilian’s face lit up and he pumped Barker’s hand soundly, as if he were drawing water from a pump. “Umberto Pettigrilli. So good to meet a representative of the private fraternity. The methods I teach, they will change the way we do everything. Science is the way of the world now, and it is only a matter of time before it r-revolutionizes detective work.”
I could see now that when Poole said “revolutionized” he had been mimicking Pettigrilli’s rolling r’s. The Sicilian seized my hand in his firm grip, shaking it with enthusiasm.
“How long has it been since you were in Palermo, Inspector?” Barker asked.
“Six months, sir. The Surete keeps me to a very strict schedule. I shall be traveling around England for the next two weeks, and after that I go to Scotland and Ireland. My schedule was put together by a madman, sir, a madman.”
“Mr. Pettigrilli, there have been three murders and one attempt on another’s life here in London by what I believe to be members of the Sicilian group that calls itself the Mafia.”
The Sicilian inspector frowned a moment in puzzlement, then suddenly threw his head back and laughed. “This is a joke, is it not? This group you mentioned-it does not exist outside Sicily.”
“Not even in a city like London where there are hundreds of Sicilians?” Barker asked. “Or where the Camorra is already well settled? At least one of them received a Black Hand note.”
“Just that? No request for money? That is-” Here he snapped his fingers impatiently until the English word finally came to him. “Atypical. It is atypical. The reason for a Black Hand note is generally to extort money. I’m afraid also that few such notes come from the actual group that uses that name. Often it is another group or individual posing as mafiusi hoping to scare someone out of a few liras by it.”