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"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.
Several letters passed between the brothers, and at the end of the month Toni drew out his money from the bank, received his wages in full, and prepared to leave Lambertville. Meantime a letter had come from Nicoletta telling of his mother's joy at learning that Vito was still alive. 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.
Still she waved; and finally, by a miracle of faith, the boy was roused from his slumbers, drawn to his window as the sun arose, and, looking out, saw Barbara's familiar flag wigwagging frantically on the heights of Lambertville three miles away. Then he answered, and Barbara cried out in her joy.
Here they huddled in a dirty car filled with smoke and were whirled with frightful speed for hours through a flat and smiling country. The noise, the smoke and the unaccustomed motion made Antonio ill again, and when the train stopped at Lambertville, New Jersey, the padrone had difficulty in rousing him from the animal-like stupor into which he had fallen.
Every night he and the rest were carried to Lambertville on flat cars and in the mornings were brought back to the embankment. The work was no harder than that to which he had been used, and he soon became himself again. Moreover, he found many of his old friends from Culiano working there. In the evenings they walked through the streets of the town or sat under the trees playing mora and tocco.
The stamp indicated that it had been cancelled at Lambertville on July 26. When she saw the envelope she called Petrosini's attention to the fact that the stamp was a two-cent red stamp, and said, to his surprise, that she was able to identify the letter on that account as one mailed by Strollo on July 26.
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.
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.
It almost seemed like the finger of Providence indicating the assassin when the last necessary piece of evidence in this extraordinary case was discovered. Petrosini had hurried to Lambertville immediately upon the discovery of the letter and visited the post-office.
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