ARTHUR.T Stories ----A Case of Circumstantial Evidence ----XI---Page 58

As Toni had doubts as to his ability to find his way to Yonkers, Strollo

kindly offered to accompany him. Toni had made many friends during his three-years' stay in Lambertville, and he promised to write to them and tell them about Vito and his family, so it was agreed that the letter
should be sent to Sabbatto Gizzi, in whose house he had lived, and that Gizzi should read it to the others. The address was written carefully on a piece of paper and given to Toni.

So early in the morning of August 16th, 1903, Toni and Strollo took the
train for New York. It was a hot day, and once again the motion and
speed made Toni feel ill, but the thought of seeing Vito buoyed him up,
and by the time they had crossed the ferry and had actually reached New
York he was very hungry. In his excitement he had forgotten to eat any
breakfast and was now beginning to feel faint. But Strollo said it was a
long way to Yonkers and that they must not stop. For many hours they
trudged the streets without getting anywhere and then Strollo said it
was time to take the cars. Toni was very tired, and he had to climb many
flights of stairs to the train. It carried them a long distance, past
miles of tenement houses and vacant lots, and at last into a sort of
country. Strollo said they should get out. It was very hot and Toni was
weak from weariness and lack of food, but his heart was light and he
followed Strollo steadily down the wilting road. After going about a
mile they crossed some fields near where people were playing a game at
hitting little balls with sticks. It was astonishing how far they could
strike the balls--entirely out of sight.

"Is this Yonkers?" asked Toni.

"It is near here," answered Strollo. "We are going by a short way."

They entered some thick woods and came out upon another field. Toni was now so faint that he begged his friend to stop.

"Can we not get some food?" he inquired; "I can hardly walk."
"There is a man in that field," said Strollo. "Go and ask him."

So Toni plodded over to the man who was digging mushrooms and asked him
in broken English where they could get something to eat. The man told
him that it was a long way. They would have to take the trolley to
Yonkers. There was a restaurant there called the "Promised Land," where
one could get Italian dishes. He seemed to take a kindly interest in
Toni and in Strollo, who had remained some distance behind, and Toni
gave him a cigar--a "Cremo"--the last one he had. Then Strollo led the
way back into the woods.

It was almost sunset, and the long, low beams slanting through the tree
trunks made it hard to see. They went deeper and deeper into the woods.

Presently Strollo, who was leading the way, stopped and said:

"We are going in the wrong direction. We must turn around and go back."

Toni turned. As he did so Strollo drew a long knife and plunged it again and again through Toni's body.

*        *        *        *        *

Strollo spent that night, under an assumed name, at the Mills Hotel in

Bleecker Street. He had stabbed himself accidentally in the knee and

also in the left hand in the fury of his attack, and when he arose in

the morning the sheets were covered with blood. There was also blood on
his shoes, which had been new, but he took his knife and scraped it off.
He had experienced a strange sort of terrified exaltation the night
before, and in the early light as he crept downstairs and out of the
hotel he could not have told whether he were more glad or afraid. For he
had three hundred dollars in his pocket, more than he had ever seen at
any one time before--as much as a man could save in two whole years. He
would be a king now for a long time. He need not work. He could eat,
drink and play cards and read some books he had heard about. As for
finding him out--never! The police would not even know who Torsielli
was, to say nothing of who had killed him, for he had removed, as he
thought, everything in Toni's pockets. There would be a dead man in the
morgue, that was all. He could go back to Lambertville and say that he
had left Toni with his brother, at Yonkers, and that would be the end of
it. First, though, he would buy some new clothes.

It was very early and the shops were hardly open, but he found one place
where he could buy a suit, another some underclothes, and a third a pair
of shoes. The shoemaker, who was a thrifty man, asked Strollo what was
the matter with the shoes he had on, so Strollo craftily said they hurt
his feet. Then he ate a hearty breakfast, and bought a better cigar than
he had ever smoked before. There was a bookstore near by and he
purchased some books--"Alto Amore" and "Sua Maesta e Sua Moneta" ("The
Height of Love" and "His Majesty and His Money"). He would read them on
the train. He felt warm and comfortable now and not afraid at all. By
and by he went back on the train to Lambertville and smoked and read all
the way, contented as the tiger is contented which has tracked down and
slain a water-buffalo.

The same afternoon about sunset, in a lonely part of Van Cortlandt Park,
the mushroom digger stumbled over Torsielli's body lying face downward
among the leaves. He recognized it as that of the man who had asked the
way to something to eat and given him a cigar. He ran from the sight
and, pallid with fear, notified the nearest police officer. Then things
took the usual course. The body was removed to the morgue, an autopsy
was performed, and "Headquarters" took charge of the case. As the

deceased was an Italian, Detective Sergeant Petrosini was called in.
Torsielli's pockets were empty save for the band of a "Cremo" cigar in
one waistcoat pocket and a tiny slip of paper in another, on which was
penciled "Sabbatto Gizzi, P.O. Box 239, Lambertville, New Jersey."
Whether this last was the name of the deceased, the murderer, or some
one else, no one knew. Headquarters said it was a blind case, but
Petrosini shrugged his shoulders and bought a ticket to Lambertville.

Here he found Sabbatto Gizzi, who expressed genuine horror at learning
of Toni's death and readily accompanied Petrosini to New York, where he
identified the body as indeed that of Torsielli. He told Petrosini that
Toni had left Lambertville in the company of Strollo on Thursday, August
16th. This was Saturday, August 18th, and less than thirty-six hours
after the murder. Strollo, reading "Alto Amore," and drinking in the
saloon, suspected nothing. New York was seventy miles away--too far for
any harm to come. But Monday morning, walking lazily down the street
near the railroad station, Strollo found himself suddenly confronted by
a heavily-built man with a round, moon-shaped face thickly covered with
pockmarks. Strollo did not like the way the latter's gimlet-like eyes
looked him over. There was no time to turn and fly, and, besides,
Strollo had no fear. They might come and ask him questions, and he might
even admit almost all--_almost_ all, and they could do nothing, for no
one had seen what he had done to Toni in the wood. So Strollo returned
Petrosini's gaze unflinchingly.

"Are you Antonio Strollo?" asked the detective, coming close to the murderer.

"Yes, certainly, I am Antonio Strollo," replied the latter.
"Do you know Antonio Torsielli?" continued Petrosini.

"To be sure," answered Strollo. "I knew him well," he added almost insolently.

"Why did you accompany him to New York?" inquired Petrosini sharply.
Strollo paled. He had not known that the police were aware of the fact.

"I had errands in the city. I needed clothes," said Strollo.

"He has been murdered," said Petrosini quietly. "Will you come to New York to identify the body?"

Strollo hesitated.

"Why--yes--certainly. I will go to New York." Then he added, thinking that his words seemed insufficient, "I am sorry if Torsielli has been murdered, for he was a friend of mine."

There was a wait of several hours before the train started for New York
and Strollo utilized it by giving Petrosini a detailed account of his
trip with Torsielli. He took his time about it and thought each
statement over very carefully before he made it, for he was a clever
fellow, this Strollo. He even went into the family history of Torsielli
and explained about the correspondence with the long-lost brother, in
which he acted as amanuensis, for he had come to the conclusion that in
the long run honesty (up to a certain point) would prove the best
policy. Thus he told the detective many things which the latter did not
know or even suspect. Strollo's account of what had happened was briefly
as follows:

He and Toni had reached New York about twelve o'clock and had spent an
hour or so in the neighborhood of Mott Street looking at the parade of
"San Rocco." Then they had started for Yonkers and gone as far as the
terminal of the Second Avenue El. It was about five o'clock in the
afternoon. They had got out and started to walk. As they proceeded they
suddenly had seen a man standing under a tree and Torsielli had said to
Strollo:

"That man standing under that tree looks like my brother." Strollo had replied:

"You know I am not acquainted with your brother."

As they reached the tree the stranger had stepped forward and said to Torsielli:

"Who are you?"

"Who? Me? My name is Antonio Torsielli," had been the reply. "Who are
you?"

"I am Vito Torsielli," had answered the stranger. Then the two had rushed into each other's arms.

"And what did _you_ do?" inquired Petrosini, as Strollo naively concluded this extraordinary story.

"Me?" answered Strollo innocently. "Why, there was nothing for me to do, so I went back to New York."

Petrosini said nothing, but bided his time. He had now several important
bits of evidence. By Strollo's own account he had been with the deceased
in the general locality of the murder shortly before it occurred; he had
given no adequate explanation of why he was in New York at all; and he

was now fabricating a preposterous falsehood to show that he had left

his victim before the homicide was committed. On the train Petrosini

began to tie up some of the loose ends. He noticed the wound on

Strollo's hand and asked where it had been obtained. The suspect replied
that he had received it at the hands of a drunken man in Mott Street. He
even admitted having stayed at the Mills Hotel the same evening under an
assumed name, and gave as an excuse that his own name was difficult for
an American to pronounce and write. Later, this information led to the
finding of the bloody bedclothes. He denied, however, having changed his
clothes or purchased new ones, and this the detective was obliged to
ferret out for himself, which he did by visiting or causing to be
visited almost every Italian shop upon the East Side. Thus the incident
of the shoes was brought to light.

Strollo was at once taken to the morgue on reaching the city, and here for the first time his nerve failed him, for he could not bring himself to inspect the ghastly body of his victim.

"Look," cried Petrosini; "is that the man?"

"Yes, yes," answered the murderer, trembling like a leaf. "That is he."

"You are not looking at him," said the detective. "Why don't you look at him. Look at the body."

"I _am_ looking at him," replied Strollo, averting his eyes. "That is he--my friend--Antonio Torsielli."

The prisoner was now taken to Police Headquarters and searched. Here a letter was found in his hip pocket in his own handwriting purporting to
be from Antonio Torsielli to his brother Vito at Yonkers, but enclosed
_in an envelope addressed to Antonio at Lambertville_.

This envelope bore a red two-cent stamp and was inscribed:

ANTONIO TORSIELLI, BOX 470,

Lambertville, New Jersey.

The letter as later translated in court by the interpreter read as follows:

LAMBERTVILLE, _July 30, 1905._
_My dear Brother_:

Upon receipt of your news I feel very happy to feel you are well,

and the same I can assure you from me. Dear Brother, you cannot
believe the joy I feel after such a long time to know where you

are. I have been looking for you for two years, and never had any

news from you. I could not, as you wrote to me to, come to you,

because I had no money, and then I didn't know where to go because
I have been always in the country. Know that what little money I
have I sent it to mother, because if I don't help her nobody will,
as you never write to her. I believe not to abandon her, because
she is our mother, and we don't want her cursed. So then, if you
like to see me, you come and take me. You spoke to me about work
thither, but I don't understand about that work which you say, and
then what will I do because here I have work, therefore, if you
think I can come and work with you let me know because I have the
address. But if you want to do better you come and take me. _Dear
Brother_, I remind you about our mother, because I don't earn
enough money, which she is your mother also. DEAR BROTHER, I hope
you did not forget our mother. Dear Brother, let me know the names
of your children, and I kiss them. Many regards to your wife and
Aunt. I beg you to write to me. Dear regards, your brother, Antonio
Torsielli. When you answer send the answer to the address below,
Antonio Strollo.