The Barrel MysteryFlynn, William J. (William James)
General
The Barrel Mystery
Flynn, William J. (William James)
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction
Now, when the arrest was made, the news spread through East One
Hundred and Sixth Street, where Morello was living, and some of the
scouts brought the information to Nick Terranova, a half-brother of
Morello. Terranova thereupon rushed down to Milone's grocery store at
No. 235 East Ninety-seventh Street to notify the members of the gang
who might be there that Giuseppe had been placed under arrest.
There was a surprise coming to Nick when he discovered a number of
Secret Service men in charge of the store, and the members of the gang
taken away by the government's officers. He tried to act an imbecile,
and pretended not to understand English when asked for a reason for
his coming into the store. He was as communicative as the proverbial
oyster.
At the time when Morello was arrested he was in bed with his son.
Under the pillow of each was found a large revolver. Neither father
nor son, it is needless to say, were given the opportunity to reach
the weapons. The son has since been murdered.
And now that we are on the subject of letters I might relate that when
the members of the gang discovered Comito had confessed what he knew
of the counterfeiting scheme, they tried to locate Comito, who had
been hidden by me. They tried a number of ruses in their efforts to
locate him for the purpose, presumably, of murdering him.
One of their efforts was characteristic: Secret Service operative
Rubano was thought by the gang to be the man who was communicating
with Comito by mail. This was presumed by the gang without foundation.
However, it was enough for the gang to feel that this was the way in
which I was keeping in touch with Comito. Here is what happened:
Don Gasparo had a drug store at No. 23 New Bowery, where he also had a
branch post office and received letters there for a number of the
"Black-Hand" crowd. Some one wrote to the postmaster of New York, on a
change of address card, and asked the postmaster to have all of Pietro
Rubano's mail sent to No. 23 New Bowery.
Now you must sign your own name to the card asking for this change. So
there was the difficulty of getting Rubano's signature to the card
without his knowing it. That was easy for the writer. He forged
Rubano's name on the signature line of the card. The gang was elated.
They would now get the "Squealer" Comito's letters to the Secret
Service and locate and destroy the traitor.
But, like the plans of the little field mouse of whom Robert Burns
wrote, the best laid schemes "gang aft agley."
I asked Rubano if he had made the request of the post office to have
his mail addressed to the New Bowery place, and the detective told me
it was news to him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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