We sat down at a table and Gallenga ordered two coffees from a waiter who appeared to know him well.
“Excuse me, sir,” I asked after the waiter left, “but how do you know all these things? Are they common knowledge among the Sicilians or do you have some connection to … to any organization involved in this case? How did you learn how to use a dagger?”
“Once, I was a student agitator, when the Bourbons ruled Sicily,” Gallenga said, “then a political prisoner, and then I met the man, Giuseppe Mazzini himself, and became an assassin.”
There was a time when I would have blurted out “assassin!” and attracted attention throughout the cafe. Now I merely said, “Really?”
“Yes, but I was not very good at it, I admit. After a failed attempt, I became a fugitive, eventually coming to England. The Times required someone knowledgeable about Italian affairs and I needed work. I’ve been doing it now for twenty-five years and have written several books.”
“Do you have any connection to the Mafia?”
“I am a member, Mr. Llewelyn. I took a blood oath, one I can never forswear.”
I thought about that as the coffee arrived, small porcelain cups of espresso with rusty cream on top.
“Oh, my word,” I said, after I’d taken a sip. “I believe that’s the best cup of coffee I’ve ever tasted.”
“I will not doubt your word, sir.”
“So, Mr. Barker says the Camorran organization is older than the Mafia.”
“Far older. It goes back a century or two when Naples was ruled by Spain and a criminal organization known as the Garduna sent exiles to Italy.”
“So, in order to escape prosecution in Spain, they went to Naples, just as you came to England in order to prevent your arrest in Italy.”
“Yes, and as Victor Gigliotti did. You did not think he came to England to sell tutti-frutti, did you? He is wanted in Naples.”
I put down my empty cup and hesitated. “That’s cracking good coffee. Might I have another cup?”
Gallenga shook his head. “Better not. Sicilian coffee is very strong. Another cup and you won’t sleep tonight.”
“I’m not certain I’ll sleep anyway now, not without checking every closet and chest in the house for assassins.”
“That is the ‘eye’ I was telling you about. From now on, if you enter a room without asking yourself what is the safest way to escape, it shall not be my fault.”
“It looks like some trouble is brewing between these two rival organizations. Mr. Barker seems determined to stop a war from breaking out in London, but, if I may say it, you appear to be in the enemy camp.”
“After twenty-five years, I consider myself a Londoner, and believe me when I say that I do not want to see it turned into another Palermo with a list of assassinations in the Sunday edition of The Times. I am willing to help your employer up to a point. I will teach you to fight with a dagger, for instance. However, I want you to understand I’m doing this to repay a debt.”
Gallenga paid the bill with a few brief words to the owner and went out the door with his hands in his pockets, hunched over as if he’d forgotten I was there. I followed along behind him back to his garden.
“Have you ever seen a dagger?” he asked, turning back to me suddenly. “Do you know the difference between a dagger and a knife?”
“Yes, sir,” I responded. “Mr. Barker owns a few. A dagger has two symmetrical blades and is weighted for throwing.”
“Not always,” the journalist said, holding up a finger, “but most of the time, I’ll grant you. Have you ever held one?”
“Yes, but only to open a letter.”
“Open a letter!” he roared in my face. “You use an Italian dagger to open a common letter? Why do you tell such things to an old man? Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“No, sir. I’m sorry.”
“Open a letter,” he muttered to himself, rubbing his chest. “Mia madre.”
He opened a garden shed and reached down by the door, pulling a dagger out of a bucket that was full of sawdust. “The old woman will not let me keep my blades in the house,” he explained. “If they are not kept in oiled sawdust, they will rust. It is important to take care of one’s weapons.”
He wiped the dagger and handed it to me hilt first.
“Here is a proper dagger. The point, for thrusting forward, an edge on either side for cutting, a hilt for stopping another weapon, and a ball at the other end for breaking a bone or punching a hole in someone’s skull. In a city such as London, it is the most important defense one can own.”
“What about a walking stick?” I asked, holding up my malacca.
“Pfui. A wand. A stick of wood. A splinter. Try putting that through a man’s intestines. It’s impossible.”
“Well, I can’t argue with that,” I admitted.
“Put your stick down,” Gallenga ordered.
I put it down beside a bench in the garden, then came forward at his bidding and reached for the dagger he presented.
“Ow!” I cried, as the point entered the fleshy webbing between my thumb and forefinger. He’d done it on purpose.
Gallenga raised the blade he still held in his hand and watched as the drop of blood slicked the blade and puddled at the hilt.
“This is your blade now, Thomas Llewelyn. It has tasted your blood and now it knows its master. I make it a gift to you, for I cannot stand between you now.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Gallenga cut his own hand in the same place with his personal blade, then reached out to me. We shook hands and in so doing, a blood covenant was made between us.
“You must promise not to teach what you learn here to anyone save your own son, when the time is right. I assume you have none at the moment.”
“No, sir. I promise.”
He raised his hand like a soothsayer. “A benediction from an old man, then. May you have a houseful of sons.”
I had not asked for a houseful. In fact, I hadn’t asked for any, but I knew sons were important in Italian culture, and so I merely thanked him.
“And now, let the lesson begin. This is how to hold a Sicilian dagger.”
9
Barker decided that before the day ended he must stop and see how Etienne was progressing. It was perhaps coincidental that he chose an hour at which Le Toison d’Or was just opening its doors for the dinner crowds and Madame Dummolard was occupied.
When we arrived at Charing Cross Hospital, we buttonholed the admitting orderly to see about Dummolard’s condition.
“He’s not allowed visitors, sir,” the young man told us.
“What? Is he still gravely ill?”
“No, sir, but he boxed the ear of the last doctor what got near him. The hospital cannot be liable for your safety, I’m afraid.”
“I know his temper,” Barker said with a chuckle. “I’ve been acquainted with it for many years. I’ll take my chances. Come, lad.”
When we entered Etienne’s room, we narrowly missed the chamber pot shied at our heads.
“Good afternoon, Etienne,” Barker replied, as if flying pots were our cook’s standard form of greeting.
“Mon capitaine!” Dummolard roared from his bed. “Get me out of here. These cochons don’t realize I have a restaurant to run. London must have a choice beside le Yorkshire pud.”
“You stay until the doctor says you can leave,” the Guv ordered. “I won’t have you collapsing over your roux.”
Dummolard crossed his bare arms and cursed, but it was obvious he would comply. He was used to taking orders from his former captain, if no one else.