The Barrel MysteryFlynn, William J. (William James)
General
The Barrel Mystery
Flynn, William J. (William James)
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction
At about this time I had pretty good evidence that the leaders of the
counterfeiting gang were none other than Morello and Lupo, as I had
suspected from the outset. Still, the time was not ripe to make
arrests that would result in dead-sure convictions. It is true the two
leaders could be arrested and charged with the making of these
counterfeit notes, but where was the evidence connecting them with
either the passing or the manufacture of the bills?
Let me here recite the case of Giuseppe Boscarini just to help the
reader appreciate how very difficult it would be, at that juncture, to
get Lupo and Morello involved in a way that would satisfy a court and
jury that they were legally guilty of making and of passing
counterfeit money:
While in Pittston, Pa., I learned that a man in that city named Sam
Locino knew Boscarini, a New York agent of the Black-Hand Society.
After talking with Locino for some time he told me that Boscarini had
made several trips to Pittston lately, and that Boscarini was willing
to sell counterfeit money to him. When Locino mentioned Boscarini's
name I felt sure that the Pittston man was talking of one of Cecala's
most active deputies.
In order to see how far Locino could go with Boscarini, and whether
Cecala's deputy would turn counterfeit money over to Locino, I made
the latter write a letter in the Sicilian dialect to Boscarini asking
the deputy of Cecala to send a sample of the counterfeit money in
order that Locino might see what it was like and whether he thought he
would be able to get rid of some of it in Pittston.
When Locino had finished the letter I took it over to the post office,
and with the Mayor of the city and the Chief of Police as witnesses I
had the letter registered and addressed to Boscarini. I came back on
the same train that brought the letter to New York, and when Boscarini
signed for it at the registry window, this act of his was noted down
by men of the Secret Service.
The next day Boscarini went to a sub post office on the Bowery and
bought a special delivery and a two-cent stamp. He placed the stamps
upside down on a large white envelope. An agent of the Service saw him
buy the stamps and place them on the envelope; also, the agent saw the
fictitious return address which Boscarini put on the envelope: the
agent saw this as Boscarini put the letter into the slot at the
sub-station.
I returned to Pittston on the same train with the letter and notified
Locino that the letter was addressed to him at the General Delivery.
He got the letter and opened it in my presence. It contained a
counterfeit two-dollar bill and a counterfeit five-dollar bill of the
kind made by the Morello gang.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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