He hastened, not to the magistrate having the case in charge, but to another, and induced him to begin an independent investigation. He swore by his priestly office that his godson, Ciro Alfano, was innocent as well as the others. He whispered the names of the real murders—two ex-convicts, Tommaso De Angelis and Gaetano Amodeo—and told where the evidence of their guilt could be obtained. He produced a witness, Giacomo Ascrittore, who had overheard them confessing their guilt and the motive for the murder—revenge because Cuocolo had cheated them out of the proceeds of still another homicide. A police spy, Antonio Parlati, and Delegato Ippolito, a Commissary of police, gave their active assistance to the crafty priest. The prisoners were released, while in their stead De Angelis and Amodeo were thrown into jail. Then the storm broke. The decent men of Naples, the Socialists, the honest public of Italy, with one voice, demanded that an end should be put to these things—and the Camorra. The cry, taken up by the unbought press, swept from the Gulf of Genoa to the Adriatic and to the Straits of Messina. The ears of the bureaucracy burned. Even Giolitti, the prime minister, listened. The government put its ear to the ground and heard the rumble of a political earthquake. They are shrewd, these Italian politicians. Instantly a bulletin was issued that the government had determined to exterminate the Camorra once and for all time. The honest and eager King found support ready to his hand and sent for the General commanding the Carabinieri and intrusted the matter to him personally. The General at once ordered Captain Carlo Fabbroni to go to Naples and see what could be done. Fabbroni went, summoning first Erminio Capezzuti and Giuseppi Farris, non-commissioned officers of the rank of Maresciallo,[15] sleuths of no mean order. In two months Capezzuti had ensnared Gennaro Abattemaggio, a petty thief and blackmailer and an insignificant member of the Camorra, and induced him to turn informer against the society, and the house of Ascrittore was searched and a draft of what it was planned that he should testify to upon the charges against De Angelis and Amodeo was discovered _written in the hand of Ippolito, the Delegato of Police_! Thereupon the spy, Parlati, and Ascrittore were both arrested and thrown into prison on the charge of calumny. Vittozzi, the priest, was arrested for blackmail, and his residence was rummaged with the result that quantities of obscene photographs and pictures were discovered among the holy man’s effects! Abattemaggio made a full confession and testified that the five diners at “Mimi a Mare”—the first arrested—had planned the murders and were awaiting at the inn to hear the good news of their accomplishment.