"So I would. Give me two or three men and we'll bring in Normando, dead or alive."
Six hours later the last of Donnelly's actual assassins was in the parish prison and the police were in possession of evidence showing his movements from early morning on the day of the murder up to the hour of the crime. His identification was even more complete than that of his accomplices, and the public press thanked Norvin Blake in the name of the city for his efficient service.
The anonymous letters continued to come to him regularly, and each one contained some important clue, which, followed up, invariably led to evidence of value. Slowly, surely, out of nothing as it were, the chain was forged. Now came the names of persons who had seen or had talked with some of the accused upon the fatal day, now a hint which turned light upon some dark spot in their records. Again the letters aided in the discovery of important witnesses, who, under pressure, confessed to facts which they had feared to make public—until at last the history of the six assassins lay exposed like an open sheet before the prosecuting attorney.
The certainty and directness with which the "One Who Knows" worked was a matter of ever-increasing amazement to Blake. He himself was little more than an instrument in these unseen hands. Who or what could the writer be? By what means could he remain in such intimate touch with the workings of the Mafia, and what reason impelled him to betray its members? Hour after hour the young man speculated, racking his head until it ached. He considered every possibility, he began to look with curiosity at every face. At length he came to feel an even greater interest in the identity of this hidden friend than in the result of the struggle itself. But investigations—no matter how cautious—invariably resulted in a prompt and imperative warning to desist upon pain of ruining everything.
Gradually in his mind the conviction assumed certainty that the omniscient informer could be none other than Caesar Maruffi. He frequented the Red Wing Club as Donnelly had done, and the more he saw of the fellow the more firm became his belief. He had recognized at their first meeting that Caesar was unusual—there was something unfathomable about him—but precisely what this peculiarity was he could never quite determine.
As for Maruffi, he met Norvin's advances half-way; but although he was apparently more than once upon the verge of some disclosure, the terror of the brotherhood seemed always to intervene. Feeling that he could not openly voice his suspicions until the other was ready to show his hand, Blake kept a close mouth, and thus the two played at cross-purposes. Maruffi—if he were indeed the author of those letters—had not shrunk from betraying the unthinking instruments of the Mafia. Would he ever bring himself to implicate the man, or men, higher up? Blake doubted it. A certain instinctive distrust of the Sicilian was beginning to master him when a letter came which put a wholly different face upon the matter.
"The men who really killed Chief Donnelly," it read, "are Salvatore di Marco, Frank Garcia, Giordano Bolla, and Lorenzo Cardoni." Blake gasped; these were men of standing and repute in the foreign community. "Larubio and his companions were but parts of the machine; these are the hands which set them in motion. These four men dined together on the evening of October 15th, at Fabacher's, then attended a theater where they made themselves conspicuous. From there they proceeded to the lower section of the city and were purposely arrested for disturbing the peace about the time of Donnelly's murder, in order to establish incontestable alibis. Nevertheless, it was they who laid the trap, and they are equally guilty with the wretches who obeyed their orders. It was they who paid over the blood money, and with their arrest you will have all the accessories to the crime, save one. Of him I can tell you nothing. I fear I can never find him, for he walks in shadow and no man dares identify him."
The importance of this information was tremendous, for arrests up to date had been made only among the lower element. An accusation against Di Marco, Garcia, Bolla, and Cardoni would set the city ablaze. O'Neil was aghast at the charge. The Mayor was incredulous, the Committee of Fifty showed signs of hesitation. But Blake, staking his reputation on the genuineness of the letter, and urging the reliability of the writer as shown on each occasion in the past, won his point, and the arrests were made.
The Italian press raised a frightful clamor, the prisoners themselves were righteously indignant, and Norvin found that he had begun to lose that confidence which the public had been so quick to place in him. Nevertheless, he pursued his work systematically, and soon the mysterious agent proceeded to weave a new web around the four suspected men, while he looked on fascinated, doing as he was bid, keeping his own counsel as he had been advised, and turning over the results of his inquiries to the police as they were completed.
Then came what he had long been dreading—a warning like those which had foreshadowed Donnelly's death—and he began to spend sleepless nights. His daylight hours were passed in a strained expectancy; he fought constantly to hold his fears in check; he began sitting with his face to doors; he turned wide corners and avoided side streets. He became furtive and watchful; his eyes were forever flitting here and there; he chose the outer edges of the sidewalks, and he went nowhere after nightfall unattended. The time was past when he could doubt the constancy of his purpose; but he did fear a nervous breakdown, and even shuddered at the thought of possible insanity. Being in fact as sane a man as ever lived, his irrational nerves alarmed him all the more. He could not conceive that an event was immediately before him which, without making his position safer, would rouse him from all thought of self.