The Barrel Mystery

by William J. Flynn

An overcoat was thrown over the top of the barrel. It was fairly damp but not quite wet, indicating that it could not have been there very long. Mrs. Conners raised the coat. Quickly she let it drop and screamed. There was a man's body crushed into the barrel. The body was in a doubled-up position, both feet and one hand sticking over the rim of the barrel.

Summoned by Mrs. Conners' screams the neighborhood was on its feet in an instant. A panicky crowd gathered on the fateful corner listening with gaping mouths and blanched faces to the frightened chatter of the Irish woman. Morbid curiosity prompted a few to raise the coat and take a look. Every time this was done some of the women would scream hysterically.

A policeman came running up. The body in the barrel was still warm when the officer examined it after rolling the barrel over and dragging the victim out. About the dead man's neck was wound a strip of gunny-sack. When removed it revealed more than a dozen wounds any one of which would have resulted in death. An ambulance surgeon came at a gallop. He declared that the man could not have been dead more than two hours at the most.

The corpse was taken to the Union Market Police Station. The examination made there led to the conclusion that the victim was a man about the age of forty. His complexion was swarthy and his ears were pierced with rings. The clothing about the dead man's body was of good quality, and there was nothing about the physical make-up to indicate that he belonged to the laboring class. The forehead was of the high, receding type, and it was partly covered with thin, curly hair of a light-brown tinge. The moustache was turning grey. On the left cheek were two scars an inch or more in length forming the letter "V" inverted. It was an old scar.

A closer inspection of the body revealed that at least two weapons must have been used by the assassin or assassins. A narrow, two-edged blade had evidently been used for inflicting the wound just below the left ear. This stab was made by a powerful hand for it was at least three inches deep. A wound above the Adam's apple penetrated sheer to the spinal cord, and was doubtless done by the same weapon. Numerous other and smaller wounds were of a like character. A slash extending from ear to ear across the throat was probably done with a long, sharp blade.

In searching the clothing of the dead man a little brass bound crucifix was found. It was of foreign make with a Latin motto on the scroll work above the figure of the Saviour, and a skull-and-cross-bones at the base of the crucifix. This was found in a waistcoat, in which we also located a silver watch-chain similar in make to those common to the peasantry of Southern Italy. The crucifix was one that is not common to any locality. There was an overcoat on the body, and in one of the pockets two handkerchiefs were found, one of which was small in size and faintly perfumed. The only identification mark on the clothing was on the shoes, which were marked "Burt & Co., opposite Produce Exchange." The shoes were worn, and there was a small patch on one of them. The gunny sack about the throat was marked by the blood stains only. Stencilled on the barrel were the initials "W & T" on the bottom; on the sides "G 233." It was a regulation sugar barrel, and the bottom was covered with about three inches of sawdust soaked with blood. Onion peels and some stubs of cigars of the stogie make were scattered in the sawdust, the kind of cigars that are sold in Italian stores and bar-rooms. A charred note in the handwriting of a woman was found in the barrel. Two written lines were in part legible: "Giorne che venite—subito l'urgenza." Translated the words might read: "Day that you come—suddenly the urgency."

Every device of detection known to the New York Detective Bureau was brought into service. Inspector George W. McCloskey, head of the bureau in person, aided by picked men, scoured every nook and corner of New York in an effort to learn, first of all, the identity of the victim. The whole uniformed force was also instructed to follow any little lead of information which might indicate a connection with the murder. No identification, however, developed.

I read of the murder in the afternoon newspapers. This was on April fourteenth. I recalled certain unusual activities among the band of "Black-Handers" on the night of April 12, which was about thirty-odd hours before the murder must have been committed. It came to my mind that I had seen a face new among the members of the gang. I went to the morgue and looked at the dead man. I identified him as the stranger who recently appeared at the haunts of the Black-Handers. (When I say Black-Handers, I mean also counterfeiters.) Two other Secret Service men also identified him. The body was taken out of the ice and measured according to the Bertillon method.

For some time prior to the murder I had been closely in touch with Morello, with Lupo and others of their band. I had them under surveillance for the purpose of arresting them on a charge of counterfeiting.

On the night of April 12, having accumulated considerable information concerning this band, I personally picked up the trail and followed several members of the band from their counterfeiting headquarters in the café at Elizabeth and Prince Streets. Just around the corner from this café was the saloon of Ignazio Lupo, another rendezvous of the gang. In the rear of Lupo's saloon Giuseppe Morello conducted an Italian restaurant.