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"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 naïvely 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.
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.
These are very inexpensive and in use generally by the Italian population of Lambertville, who are accustomed to rent them in common one box to three or four families. She had noticed Strollo when he had come for his mail on account of his flashy dress and debonair demeanor. Strollo's box, she said, was No. 420. Petrosini showed her the envelope of the letter found in Strollo's pocket.
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.
On the first story, in the show window where Petrosini had been wont to ravish epicurean eyes by shad and red snapper, perch and trout, cunningly imbedded in ice blocks upon a marble slab in that window, framed now in the hated orange and black, stood a woman. She was turning backward, for the benefit of onlookers who pressed close to the glass, the leaves of a mammoth pad resting upon an easel.
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. Thus he told the detective many things which the latter did not know or even suspect.
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.
Strollo made no attempt to explain the possession of this letter, which, if sent at all would naturally have come into the possession of the addressee. "And what was Vito's address at Yonkers?" inquired Petrosini. "1570 Yonkers," answered Strollo. "Is that the street number of a house or a post-office number?" asked the detective. "Neither," said Strollo. "Just 1570 Yonkers."
They heard first the story of the mushroom digger, there of the expedition of Petrosini to Lambertville, of the identification of Torsielli's body, of the elaborate fabrications of Strollo, and in due course, of the tell-tale letter in the murderer's pocket. Gradually the true character of the defendant's crime came over them and they turned from him in aversion.
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."
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