I went to see Mrs. Sippio. She had moved to another tenement, because
of the hostility of the Irish neighbors. I found Mr. Sippio at home
taking care of his wife, she was half hysterical from the shame and her
grief over Pietro’s fate. But she told me her story just as simply and
convincingly as had Mrs. Casey. Pietro had not been on the roof. There
had been only Felicia and Angelo. I was on the point of leaving in
discouragement. Apparently one of the women was lying. I could not
guess which. I had gained nothing but a conviction that the brick could
not have been thrown with an intent to kill. And that would be a very
weak plea against the verdict of a jury. Just as I was getting up,
there was a patter of feet in the hall-way. Mrs. Sippio’s face lit up.
"It is the children," she said. As they rushed noisily into the room
the whole mystery was cleared up. It had not occurred to me—nor to any
one—that there might be two redheaded boys in the same Italian family.
But Angelo’s hair was even more flaming than Pietro’s.
I took him up in my lap and amused him until I had won his confidence.
And when he was thinking about other things, I suddenly asked him.
"Angelo, when that brick fell off the roof the other day, why didn’t you
tell your mother?"
For a moment he was confused and then began to whimper. He had been
afraid of being whipped. I gave a whoop and reassuring the family, I
rushed down town and caught Judge Ryan, just as he was leaving his
chambers. He listened to me eagerly, for he was as tenderhearted a man
as I have ever known and he had been deeply horrified at the idea of
having to sentence such a youngster for premeditated murder.
The attorneys were summoned to the judge’s chambers, and—I guess that
the "pathos" writers of the newspapers were notified. For the next
morning they attended court in force. The district attorney made a
touching speech. He was grandiloquently glad to announce that new
evidence had been discovered which cleared the defendant from all
suspicion. The judge set aside the verdict of the jury. The district
attorney said that Mrs. Casey had so evidently mistaken Angelo for his
older brother that there was no use having a new trial and Pietro was
discharged. In making a few remarks on the case, Judge Ryan mentioned
my name and thanked me personally for my part in the matter. With
increasing frequency he began to call on me for assistance in other
cases and in time the other judges took notice of my existence. I found
my hands more than full.
Very often I was able in a similar manner to unearth evidence, which the
defendants were too poor and ignorant or the lawyers too lazy to obtain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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