The Barrel MysteryFlynn, William J. (William James)
General
The Barrel Mystery
Flynn, William J. (William James)
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction
As soon as the shooting took place there was a commotion. Vella's
wife, feeling that some such fate would befall her husband, rushed out
terror-stricken and fell prostrate across the dying chief. The
carabineers arrived and with them a crowd of people. Vella was taken
in a dying condition to his house, which became jammed with excited
neighbors. Among those present was Morello. He had hidden his gun in a
pile of rubbish at the river's edge and hurried into Vella's house to
look for developments. The hiding of the gun by Morello was testified
to at the trial of Ortonello by a man named Antonio Caronia, who, by
the way, was not murdered. He was a good shot himself, and had the
reputation of being able to mix it up with any of the Morello crowd
without much fear of the results.
The commander of the carabineers was a dear friend of Vella's and had
been dining with the chief but a few minutes before the shooting. The
commander asked Vella who shot him and the chief muttered:
"Cows, cows,--the Mafia." The chief also recited a long list of names
of the men he had been camping after in his efforts to rid the
community of the Mafia band. At this the commander of the carabineers
interrupted the dying chief, and told him he was naming too many men,
and that so many could not have done the shooting. The result, the
commander told the chief, would be that no one would suffer for the
offense. The commander then asked Vella whether he had any quarrels
recently and the chief answered:
"Yes, I quarrelled with Ortonello yesterday. He wanted to take my job
away--take the bread and butter from my wife and children--and he
threatened me with a gun."
The commander of the carabineers immediately directed his men to go
and get Ortonello and bring him to the house of the dying chief.
When Morello heard this order he smiled and departed for his home. It
was upon returning there that the conversation took place which
Zangara declared he had overheard between the "Black-Hander" and his
mother.
When the carabineers arrived with Ortonello in their custody, Vella
was in his last breaths. When asked by the commander of the
carabineers if Ortonello was the man with whom he had quarrelled on
the previous day, Vella nodded his head and fell back dead.
Another arrest followed that of Ortonello. It was that of Francesco
Orlando, who was also a candidate against Vella. Orlando was tried and
sentenced to a term of fifteen years, which he served and is now out.
Needless to say that Orlando's sympathies and activities are not
directed toward any movement favorable to the Morello crowd.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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