The Barrel Mystery. Flynn William James

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СКАЧАТЬ stating that there was not sufficient evidence upon which to bring the accused to trial with any fair hope of convicting him. No sooner was Petto released than he disappeared from his accustomed haunts with the gang in New York.

      But Petto did not escape the eye of the Secret Service. He was traced to Pittston, Pa. Nor did Petto escape a blood relative of the murdered man. Probably I had better explain at this point that there is an unwritten law among the Italians of southern Sicily that when a member of a family is murdered, the crime must be avenged by a blood relative of the murdered person. If no blood relative is available, a kinsman by marriage assumes the task.

      Petto soon became the leader of a band of black-handers who preyed upon the Italian miners in Pittston. Then one night, when the streets were slippery with a cold, drizzling rain, there came an ominous knock at his door. Petto sensed that something was wrong. He made ready for any emergency and drew his big revolver. But the unknown visitor was quicker than the murderer of Benedetto, and the aim was certain. Five bullets stopped the Black-Hander forever. A dagger was sunk into the heart of Petto, the Ox, to make doubly sure that he was not playing 'possum. Beside the warm body of Petto his revolver was found fully loaded. The hand holding the revolver was partly shot away. On his body was discovered a little brass-bound crucifix with a skull-and-cross-bones at the Saviour's feet, an exact duplicate of that taken from the body of the man found in the barrel. As far as the police records show, the avenger of Benedetto has never been apprehended. Whether the avenger has since suffered a fate similar to his victim I cannot at this moment say.

      CHAPTER II

      WHAT WAS THE MOTIVE FOR THE MURDER?

      How do I know that Petto, the Ox, murdered Benedetto? you would ask.

      And what could be the motive for his crime?

      Follow me a little further.

      In January, 1903, several months before Benedetto's body was found in the barrel, three Italians were arrested in the City of Yonkers. They were Isadoro Crocervera, Salvatore Romano and Giuseppe DePriema. The latter is the brother-in-law of the barrel-murder victim. The three men were apprehended by the local police in Yonkers on the charge of passing counterfeit five-dollar notes of the National Iron Bank of Morristown, New Jersey. The Secret Service men were well aware that these notes were being imported from Italy by the Morello gang.

      When I was called into the case, the Yonkers police, who made the arrest, told me that the three men were accompanied by another Italian, a short fellow, who got away. Knowing the ways of the gang, it was plain to me that the escaped Italian was the treasurer of the crew passing the counterfeit money. Such a treasurer is always hiding in the distance with the greater bulk of the counterfeit bills for the purpose of making a get-away if the passers get into trouble and are arrested. The treasurer is supposed to rush away to the secret meeting place of the Black-Hand Society, where a counsel is held to decide just what plan to follow in the effort to get the members who have been arrested out of their peril.

      From the description given me of the Italian who made his get-away I recognized him as a counterfeiter already registered in the files of the Secret Service as Number Six. I was also able to identify Crocervera and DePriema as members of the Corleone gang.

      My next move was to bring the Yonkers officers to New York and place them where they could have a good look at Number Six. The officers identified the man without hesitation. Number Six was arrested, therefore, on February 19, and gave the name of Giuseppe Giallambardo. He got six years.

      The Black-Handers were puzzled. They could not understand how it happened that Giallambardo had come into the toils unless one of the three men arrested had "squealed." And perhaps I should say right here that the gang never realized they were ever under surveillance, and that every move made by them individually was noted in the daily reports of Secret Service sent to Washington.

      When Crocervera and DePriema were brought to my office I knew in advance that neither of them would talk, having had the characteristics of the men recorded long before they were arrested. However, in order to give Crocervera the impression that DePriema had told me a lot of the workings of the gang, I hit upon the idea of keeping DePriema in my inner office for several hours while Crocervera remained in an outer office. I was timing my effort for a purpose. As DePriema was leaving, I stepped to the door with him and shook his hand warmly and patted him on the back in order that Crocervera, seeing the performance, might gain the impression that DePriema had confessed all he knew about the gang. Naturally, the object of this move was to tempt Crocervera to talk and give information important to the government. But Crocervera did not talk. The subsequent arrest of Giallambardo served to strengthen the impression already planted in the mind of Crocervera that DePriema had betrayed him, and we overheard Crocervera telling this to the members of the gang while they were in our office.

      The gang was not in position to take revenge on DePriema, as he was in Sing Sing prison, where the three men had been sent upon conviction on the charge of passing counterfeit money. Following the hereditary Sicilian custom, the gang then proceeded to select a blood relative of DePriema and mark him for murder. There being no male blood relative of DePriema on this side of the Atlantic, the Black-Hand Society decided that the nearest male relative must pay the penalty for DePriema's treason. Benedetto, the brother-in-law, was chosen as the sacrifice.

      These details of the motive of the murder, and the society's choosing Petto, the Ox, to do the killing were confessed to me several years later by members of the gang after I succeeded in convicting them for counterfeiting and had them sentenced to long terms in the Federal Penitentiary at Atlanta, Georgia.

      As to the identity of Benedetto's kinsman, who made certain of his aim at Petto, the Ox, near the Italian rendezvous where "Il Bove" held sway in the little Pennsylvania city, I can only answer at the present writing that the kinsman was not DePriema, because the latter was still in Sing Sing Prison when the murder of the man in the barrel was avenged.

      CHAPTER III

      ORGANIZED TERRORISM

      From what has been related so far, I presume the reader may gain some idea of the dangerous type of men whom I refer to as members of the Black-Hand Society.

      You are now familiar with the kind of punishment meted out to one whom the gang suspects of having betrayed a member. You have also been acquainted with the Sicilian custom of revenge by way of an actual example showing how the slayer of the man in the barrel came to his end in a manner that is as certain as daylight follows darkness. It is the racial idea of the antique Hebrew law, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." The Sicilian "vendetta" demands a life for a life. You may have noted further that the police of New York and the machinery of the law failed to track down the slayer of the man in the barrel. A circumstance that makes it singularly difficult for the authorities to cope with this type of criminals is that the Sicilian does not ask the police for help when a member of his family is murdered. He keeps it quiet. And as quietly a blood relative of the slain person assumes the responsibility which we Americans place on the police and the courts. The end of Petto, the Ox, shows exactly what happens when individual vengeance succeeds in place of justice meted out by a court of law.

      The reader will remember that when the criminal band, which the police rounded up in connection with the barrel murder, were turned out by the police magistrate, because there was insufficient evidence to hold them for the murder of Benedetto, the suspects dropped out of sight as far as the police of New York were concerned.

      The Secret Service kept its eagle eye on them, however. Every suspect was carefully "shadowed" by a special operative. We expected that they would gravitate back to their haunts, and they did. We spotted them in such places as the café of Pietro Inzarillo, at No. 226 Elizabeth Street, and in the dark, little Italian grocery shop of Ignazio Lupo, at No. 8 Prince Street, which is just around the corner from Inzarillo's СКАЧАТЬ