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Updated: May 12, 2025
Phillip Street he nursed a growing resentment at the news Norvin Blake had given him. His feeling toward Caesar Maruffi had all the fierceness of private hatred, calling for revenge, and he considered himself ill-used in that he had not even been permitted to witness the arrest.
And towards eleven o'clock in the morning, Girolamo Savonarola, Domenico Bonvicini, and Silvestro Maruffi were led to the place of execution, degraded of their orders by the ecclesiastical judges, and bound all three to the same stake in the centre of an immense pile of wood. Then the bishop Pagnanoli told the condemned men that he cut them off from the Church.
There came the rumble of the prison van below, the tramp of feet upon the hollow stairs, and into the dingy, high-ceilinged hall of justice filed the accused, manacled and doubly guarded. Maruffi led, his black head held high; Normando brought up the rear, supported by two officers. He was racked with terror, his body hung like a sack, a moisture of foam and spittle lay upon his lips.
He knew Maruffi's countrymen would be likely to make a demonstration, and he was grimly desirous of being present when this occurred. As he neared the heart of the Italian section he saw a blue-coated officer running toward him. "What's up?" he cried. "Have the dagoes started something?" "Maruffi was pinched, but he got away," the other answered. "Johnson is hurt, and "
Through the aperture O'Connell saw Maruffi run to an open window at the rear, then pause long enough to snatch the taper from its sconce at the foot of the little shrine and, stooping, touch its flame to the long lace curtains. They promptly flashed into a blaze. Parting them, he bestrode, the sill, lowered himself outside, and disappeared. It was an old but effective ruse to delay pursuit.
He had the genius of a great general, a great politician, and a great criminal, all in one, and he was as pitiless as a panther, more deadly than a moccasin. What influence had perverted such intellect into a weapon of iniquity? What evil of the blood, what lesion of the brain, had distorted his instincts so monstrously? Caesar Maruffi, rich, respected, honored! It was unbelievable.
The main gate of the prison opened before the rush of that tangled, growling handful of men, and they swept straight out into the turmoil that filled the streets. An instant later Maruffi was beset by five thousand maniacs; he was kicked, he was beaten, he was spat upon, he was overwhelmed by an avalanche of humanity.
I don't trust any of them. Say! The more I think about that letter, the more I think it's a bluff." "You can't afford to ignore it." "Of course not. I'll plant O'Connell and another man outside on Thursday night and see if anything suspicious turns up, but I'll take my dinner elsewhere." The two men had finished their meal when Bernie Dreux strolled in and took the seat which Maruffi had vacated.
He saw Caesar Maruffi turn full to the room behind him and search for his own face. When their eyes met, a light of devilish amusement lit the Sicilian's visage; his lips parted and his white teeth gleamed, but it was no smile, rather the nervous, rippling twitch that bares a wolf's fangs.
O'Connell lost the remaining words, for he had broken into a run. A crowd had gathered in front of a little shop where the wounded policeman had been carried to await the arrival of an ambulance, and even before O'Connell had heard the full story of the escape Acting-Chief O'Neil drove up behind a lathered horse. He leaped from his mud-stained buggy, demanding, hoarsely: "Where is he Maruffi?"
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