The Final Descent (The Monstrumologist #4)(39)

“What did the clerk say?” he asked finally.

“A short man who spoke with a thick Italian accent. Dropped off the letter around one this morning, while I was occupied with the Irish cargo on the bridge.”

He fished a cigar from the humidor. It slipped from his gnarled fingers and rolled across the Persian carpet. I scooped it up and handed it to him.

“The Black Hand!” he said. “Ah, Pellinore, did not your old master warn you not to go?”

“What is the Black Hand?”

“Did you not read the letter?” He stabbed his finger upon the drawing. “Ach, the villains! Not to be trusted. I warned him.”

“Why would an Italian be delivering a ransom letter for an Irish gang?”

“It is not the Irish; it is the Sicilians—the Camorra has taken him, that blackguard Francesco Competello. He is a dangerous man and I told him so.”

“I don’t understand, Meister Abram. Why would Dr. Warthrop . . . ?”

“Because ours is a dark and dirty business—like its ugly cousin, politics—and so it makes for strange bedfellows! It was his idea to enlist the aid of the Irish’s sworn enemies in discovering the whereabouts of T. cerrejonensis.”

“In exchange for what?”

His eyes narrowed above his hooked nose. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that criminals aren’t known for their good deeds, Meister Abram,” I answered the old fellow gently. “Dr. Warthrop must have been prepared to offer the Camorra something for their assistance.”

He waved his pudgy hand. The cigar was gripped in the other, unlit.

“He said Competello owed him for a service performed years ago in Naples, when many of the Camorristi were driven out of Italy. I do not know all the details, but it has always been his practice to nurture relationships with unsavory characters.”

I nodded, thinking of Mr. Faulk and the others like him who would appear at all hours bearing packages to the doorstep of 425 Harrington Lane. Distrusted and despised outcasts—his spiritual brothers in a sense—who asked no questions and told no tales.

“Something to do with helping to secure safe passage for him and his fellow padrones,” von Helrung went on. “ ‘It is part of their code to honor a debt,’ he told me. Bah! I hope now he has learned his lesson.”

He lit a match, but not the cigar. The flame edged dangerously close to his fingers before he dropped the match into the ashtray beside him.

“Should we pay it?” I asked.

He looked sharply at me. My question startled him. “What do you mean? Of course we must pay it!”

“But what guarantee do we have that Competello will keep his end of the bargain?”

He snorted loudly: Mein Gott, the naivety of youth! “The Black Hand is a time-honored tradition, Will. How effective would it be if the recipient could not trust the sender? No, we must pay. I shall handle everything—including the boxing of my former student’s ears for his lack of judgment! For now he has tipped his hand; the Camorra knows of our special prize and even now must be marshaling every illicit resource at its disposal to find it!”

He rose, shoving the cigar into the breast pocket of the robe monogrammed with his initials, AVH. “I love him as my own son, but your master is the most maddening of human conundrums, young Will: at once calculating and headstrong, astute beyond measure and obtuse without equal.”

He rang the bell to summon his butler. I said, “I will handle the delivery of payment, Meister Abram.”

“No, no. You are too young to—”

“And you are too old.”

He stiffened; his bushy white brows crowded against each other; his chest expanded, parting the fold of the robe to reveal a profusion of curly white hair.

“The letter was addressed to me,” I went on quickly. “And for all we know, the clerk at the hotel is in on the deal.”

He nodded, clearly impressed with my reasoning. “Return this afternoon; I shall have the funds ready. But tell me—ach, there is so much that crowds the weary mind!—how did it go last night? Smoothly, I pray?”

“Had to size the refuse to fit the containers, but otherwise no problems.” I gave a little laugh. “Well, Sir Hiram’s assistant nearly took a tumble into the East River—luckily, Mr. Faulk was there to catch him.”

Von Helrung was nodding slowly, and his eyes were bird bright and watchful. “You know he is related to royalty. Fourth or fifth cousin to the Queen, I believe.”

“Who? Mr. Faulk or Mr. Isaacson?”

“You make a jest. Ha! Go now, and come back at three. Tell no one else of this! Particularly Mr. Faulk. I believe that man would sell his own mother for a dollar and a dram.”

“Oh, no, you’re wrong, Meister Abram. Mr. Faulk is a capital fellow, worth twice his weight in T. cerrejonensis venom.”

“Do not say such things!” he exclaimed, and then for some reason crossed himself.

FOUR

I returned to the hotel intending to catch an hour or two of much-needed sleep, but I was too distracted and anxious about the unexpected kidnapping of my master to snatch more than a few minutes of restless slumber. I gave up finally and telephoned Lilly’s house.

“Three things are easily cracked and never well mended,” I said when she came on the line. “China, glass, and what is the third?”