The Barrel MysteryFlynn, William J. (William James)
General
The Barrel Mystery
Flynn, William J. (William James)
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction
"Now it happened that for two weeks Calichio had not received his
weekly salary and he became nervous for this reason. One day, when I
did not want to print on wet paper, he dressed and went away. I,
thinking that he had just gone out, stopped working and waited for him
to return. But at night, when Sylvester, Giglio and Bernardo saw that
Calichio did not return, _they threatened me with death_. Sylvester
pointed a loaded revolver at me saying that he would dig my eyes out;
Giglio, taking an axe in his hand, said he wanted to cut my head off,
but Caterina intervened and the threatening stopped. Sylvester left
the stone house to carry the news to New York.
"Three days went by without any work being done, then Calichio
returned in company with Sylvester and Cina. Cina handed me a note
from Cecala which informed me that I must obey Calichio's order or
suffer terrible consequences. I worked on against my will under
Calichio's orders."
CHAPTER XV
SOME "AFTER-DINNER" CONFESSIONS
"One night in the month of April (1909) I was sitting with the bandits
in the stone house and listening to their stories. Calichio,
Sylvester, Giglio and Bernardo were there. Among other exploits
Calichio remarked that he had once printed one million lire for a
baronial family residing at Naples in Italy. This was about fifteen
years back, he said, when his father was alive.
"Sylvester boasted that his first sentence was for five years in the
reformatory as a minor. He ran away from the reformatory in company
with several other boys and got into the horse-stealing business. He
was sentenced several times for small offenses and he once was
arrested for carrying concealed weapons.
"During his imprisonment he came to know a certain Terranova, who was
a half-brother of Morello, and they became fast friends. They stole
horses in New York and sold them in other cities at reduced prices; or
they would bring the horses to friends in the country (Highland) and
receive payment. He told of being arrested once when with Morello's
son and brother; they had thrown a bomb into a store in Mott Street.
They were let go because there were no witnesses to the crime. In
concluding his recitation Sylvester said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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