TKe “Black Hand” at Tony's
-1 By GEORGE F. BUTLER and HERBERT ILSLEY
Cr. Furnivall in the Solution of a Perplexing Case.
the 12th of July at two o'clock
I I in the morning “Little Italy”
L_J was startled by a sound that
sent its constituent parts tum
bling out of bed and scamper
ing about as if demented. It was
the report of an explosion, like that
of a gun discharged suddenly in
the silence of the night. While women
in nightclothes ran wildly here and
there, squalling babies in arms, and
men nearly naked vociferated excit
edly and rushed for weapons, three
things happened in front of No. 110
with the suddenness of a flash of
lightning. A first-floor window vom
ited a policeman to the sidewalk, the
door flew open disclosing another po
liceman in the entry, and the near-by
alley emitted a breathless third.
Meeting at the foot of the stairway,
these three officers regarded each
other blankly.
"He took the stairs—where is he,
Murphy?” gasped the one who had
come by way of the window.
“Man, I tell you I saw him!” con
tradicted Finnegan. “He hanged open
Tony’s door and hit the landing in
two jumps and down he went. I was
looking right at him. And I heard
him on the stairs. He was in his
stocking feet, by the sound.”
“I heard sounds all right, and that’s
jvhy I opened the door—to let the light
in from the street lamp so I could see.
But nobody showed up.”
o1 If
the darkness had been less dense they
would have seen that his face was set
and grim. In the hall a thin line of
light ran beneath a door, from behind
which came sounds of sobbing and
moaning, and entering without cere
mony they beheld, through little
wreaths of smoke, a woman sitting on
a bed, holding in her arms a young
fellow down whose face the blood
streamed, and a man on his knees in
the middle of the floor praying ve
hemently with uplifted hands.
"' eny,” be said then to the praying
m '.harply, “anybody but him in
J motioning towards the bed. j
v ■ ne-a bud da boy,” he answered,
ant n the same breath continued his
scrt tiing supplications.
-d boy!” he said encouragingly.
“Yo i e got the right stuff in your in
side. * It takes more than a little
thing'like this to knock you out, hey!
Now, fetell us about it."
“I don’t think I know much,” the
boy returned in a weak voice, but in
good English. “I woke up and saw
somebody outside my room on the
fire-escape, and I .asked who was
there. Then something struck me on
the head, I heard a big roar, and I
suppose 1 fell out of bed, for when I
came to myself my mother was drag
ging me across the floor.”
“Well, but say!” cried the aston
ished detective, “the window was
closed and locked, wasn’t it, as I
found it just now? How could any
body throw a bomb through it with
out breaking the glass? It ain't
broken, and it was fastened when I
went to put it up.”
“It is strange,” said the youth. “Be
sides, father and mother heard some
body hurry across this room, open
the door and shut it, and then run
downstairs.”
i iik ut'ieaive looaeu inquiringly at
the woman, who nodded.
“We heard-a da one,” she gaid, in
the midst of her moaning. “He make-a
da foot on da floor, on da floor, an'
make-a da door go bang. We hear
for sure.”
Detective Dirsch started suddenly
into the next room, the sleeping quar
ters of the parents, and the living
room of the family as well. On the
way he raised the praying little Ital
ian by the collar, and, carrying him
along, deposited him on a chair. !
Then carefully closing the connecting
door he gazed sternly at the fright
ened countenance of the man who in
the neighborhood was known as Tony
the Barber.
“Look here,” he said, with all the
weight he could put into his manner,
"didn't I say you mustn't let a liv
ing soul know you had received a let
ter from the Black Hand? Yet here
you go and tell it—”
“Non, non, 1 no tal-a!" the Italian
interrupted. “You tal-a me no tal-a
anybod’. I tal a nobod', for sure. Da I
boy he ask for why I clos' da wind’
sosh da hot night, I no tal-a da boy.
I tal-a nobod’, non non!”
“Well, blit it's a sure cinch they
were on the lookout for us, or the
thing wouldn’t have been pulled off
so slick. They must have been onto
the game for fair, however they got
th re. Why, here was Murphy at the
foot of the stairs, Finnegan almost 1
tight at your keyhole, and I myself
in the alley under your window; yet
this slick gazabo scoots In, bangs the
bomb and slides to cover without any
trouble. The thing is impossible. It's
' Impossible any way you look at it.
Now—”
The detective's puzzled gaze hap
pened at this moment to light upon !
Murphy, who was poking around in
a closet with* his night-stick, and a j
gleam of surprised intelligence shot,
into his face. He paused abruptly
in his speech and stood considering.
Then he looked at his watch. “I'll
leave this to you, Murphy for the
present," he said, finally. “You know
wbat do. and I’ll see you later. I
am due somewhere else now.” And
he went out.
“Dr. Furnivall,” said Detective
Birsch, “here is something that will
interest you, or I am mightily mis
taken.”
He passed a letter to the celebrated
psychologist as he spoke, his thin,
clean-shaven face flushed with eager
ness. Dr. Furnivall, sitting back in
his chair, glanced at his visitor, and,
taking the dirty sheet of paper, read
slowly aloud:
“ ‘Tony, you gotta four thous-a dol
lar wat we gotta get from you
Wednesday, sure. We donna wan no
foolin'. We need-a da mon bad, an'
gotta get it by this-a time Wednesda’
da 10 July, or we kil-a you. We kil-a
da boy firs’ an’ da worn’. Thursda’
we kil-a da boy if we donna getta da
mon Wednesda’. You sen in letter
to Jon Kilbraith, General Delivery,
San Francisco, Calif. We mean-a da
biz now, an’ we donna wan no chin
about da mat. You sen da mop or
we kil-a sure.’ ”
Heading the sheet were a rudely
drawn black hand and coffin. Dr.
Furnivall regarded it in silence for
some seconds after finishing the read
ing. Then he examined the detec
tive through his colored spectacles.
“Well?” he asked.
Detective Birsch leaned forward in
his chair.
“A week ago yesterday,” he said,
speaking rapidly and in a low voice,
as if fearing possible listeners, “Tony
Macaluso, the barber, brought this
letter to our station. bad Inst
received it by mail. It seems he has
saved up $4,000 to put his son, who
graduated from the Latin school last
month, through a college in Rome and
make a priest of him. Now, the
strange thing is that nobody but Tony
and his wife knows he has this money,
not even the boy, for they intended
it for a surprise for him on his birth
day, which comes next week. They
have lived so poorly in order to scrape
the stuff together that they are sup
posed to be about down and out. So
it's a puzzle from the start who
could write that letter. We told
Tony to hold his grip on the cash,
and we would see him through. First
we sent a dummy letter to the San
Francisco general delivery, and then
notified the police there to look out
for it. At this end of the line we
could do no more till yesterday, Thurs
day, because nothing was threatened
against the boy until then. We kept
the whole family covered all day, and
last night 1 hid myself under the fire
escape, within eight feet of Tony’s
windows; another man, Murphy,
sneaked around in the lower hall,
whero he could see everybody that
went over the stairs, and still another
man, Finnegan, laid on the landing
almost right at Tony’s door. Just the
same, at two o'clock this morning,
nobody being seen going in, we all
heard an explosion, which turned out
to have been in Tony's room. Finne
gan heard a door open aiiu shut right
on top of the explosion, saw a man
jump out of Tony’s rooms, and heard
him running down the stairs towards
the front door, where Murphy was
posted, and out goes Finnegan from
the hall window, dropping right in
front of the door. There stands Mur
phy, rubbering it up the stairs, be
cause he heard some noises. But
when Finnegan asks him for his man
he swears he has seen nobody!”
The detective paused and looked
suggestively at Dr. Furnivall, who
smiled delightedly.
uo on, ne said.
“We hiked it for all we were worth
for Tony's, and found him praying on ,
the floor, and the boy with a gash a
foot long, more or less, in his face, !
his mother holding him up in bed, and !
scattered all round were marks of a ;
bomb good and plenty. The boy was
hurt so that he was only half taking
notice, but he was leaking grit, just
the same, and managed to tell me all
he knew, which wasn’t much. He
said that he woke up in the night
and saw a person on the fire-escape
outside his window, and when he
asked who was there something struck
him in the head, and he fell out of
bed unconscious. Tony and the old
woman heard the sound of feet run
ning across the boy's floor, heard the I
door open and shut and the feet go ;
pattering down the stairs—just as
Finnegan says. And Murphy swears
nobody came down.’’
lie paused again, regarding Dr. Fur- |
nivall earnestly, and again his listen
er smiled delightedly, but said noth
ing.
"Now,” Birsch continued, “the sec
ond' strange thing, or a bunch of
strange things, is that the boy’s win
dow was shut and fastened, the per
son he saw was outside of it, the
bomb that person threw struck the
boy without breaking the glass, and
without the sash being raised, and
the mother and father heard some
body cross the room, open the door,
shut it, and skip downstairs. Finne- 5
gan saw this somebody, heard the
door open and shut, and saw and
heard the person going down the
stai-s, but Murphy at the foot of these j
stairs st.-M nothing of any person of
the kind!”
For the third time the detective
paused meaningly. Dr. Furnivall
laughed and stroked his beard. i
"I see,” he said. “Murphy let the
bomb-man in and out. That’s why
he didn’t see him!”
The detective appeared gratified at
this evidence of perspicacity on Dr.
Furnivall’s part. But only for a mo
ment. Then he searched the bearded
face with his eyes. He did not like
the tone of that laugh.
“There’s no other way out of it—”
he began.
“I could give you six different ways
out of it,” the doctor interrupted.
“But the one in which it really hap
pened will do. I suppose you have
come to ask me to hypnotize Murphy
and extract the truth from him—-is
that it?”
The detective flushed and gnawed
his lip.
“Yes,” he answered, shortly.
Dr. Furnivall rang for a maid, and
scribbling a note, passed it to her.
“Read that aloud—all but the ad
dress,” he said.
“ ’If you will come with the bearer
r//syF//rf/?fD j//m#r(Zew
Tfff <5Cf//£ or mm lM£//mr/M
of this note,” the maid read, “ ‘to my
office, you may save yourself some
trouble, and the humiliation of being
taken to the police station, instead
of here. Dr. Furnivall.’ ”
The doctor looked at the detective,
whose face was blank, and then said
to the maid:
‘‘Explain that to Mike and let him
deliver it. Tell him to hurry. Now,”
he continued briskly to the detective,
“you shall see the culprit and hear
his confession. I have no time to
waste over this affair, and while we
are waiting we will improve the mo
ments by indulging in a word or two
of psychology. In the first place, you
should know that the proper method
of beginning the search for the perpe
trator of a crime is to learn all the
facts that you possibly can, and then
understand that you almost certainly
have not learned them all, and par
ticularly the most necessary ones.
Then, making large allowances for
what you don't know, you should
round up the person concerned whose
character fits snuggest into all the
circumstances and question him. The
usual method is to get a few facts and
:hen go at the job without the slight
est regard for the character of the iu
lividuals involved, neglecting to allow
for the facts that are unknown. In
:hts, way always some innocent person
becomes the first suspect. In this
>anicular case you say there is only
me way in which this peculiar assault
md still more peculiar escape could
rave happened. That is one of the
hings you don’t know, and for which
i'ou have made no allowance in your
leduetions. Suppose, for example,
:hat a criminal, after starting down
:he stairs, and seeing or hearing Mur
phy there at the foot, hurried back
again and up the higher flight? Fin
negan had dropped to the street, and
lie could easily have done so, making
his escape by way of the roof—”
Detective Birsch made an involun
tary movement of chagrin.
“You see,” smiled Dr. Furnivall,
‘you had your idea, the first that
came to you, so firmly fixed in your
mind, jumped to the belief in Mur
phy's guilt so quickly, not seeing any
other way, and were so incapable of
entertaining amy other idea that you
really could not recognize this other
way out though it so openly confront
ed you. Then you never dreamed of
considering the characters of the sev
eral persons concerned. There were
three people in that tenement, any one
of whom could, as far as physical pos
sibilities go, have done the act, and
it seems as if nobody else could. Not
another soul was near. The first
question you should have put to your
self is, which one of these three has
the character in which lurks the pos
sibility of throwing that bomb. Let
us in fact begin the inquiry now.
You have seen them all, while I never
even heard of any of them before.
Now tell me if you think the boy
could he guilty?”
“Him? Hardly,” the detective grunt
ed. “He wouldn't be likely to bust
his own face all up. Besides, the
money was for him, anyway. It would
be only stealing from himself, for he’d
have it in a day or two. And on
to)) of that, he didn't even know that
his father had the stuff, and was all
broke up because he couldn't go to
college and be a priest."
"Very good,” smiled the doctor.
"Facts, facts, facts, and never a word
of character! 1 fear you are incor
rigible. However, so much for the
boy—he’s obliterated. Now, how
about Tony? Did he really wish the
boy to have all that money? Could
he afford to let him take it? Did
you inquire into his business, in or
der to find if he happened to be des
perately pressed for money just now,
as mcst men are sometimes?”
Birsch appeared uncomfortable.
"Why, anyway,” the detective ex
claimed, “it was Tony himself who
brought us the Black Hand letter and
told us about it, asking us to send
men to protect him. He wouldn't do
that, would he, if he had this thing
up his sleeve? Besides, he’s scared
blue. I never saw anybody before
frightened clean in to his marrow, the
way he was last night. He hasn’t
the brains, or the spunk, either, to fix
up such a plant and get up at two
o'clock in the morning and throw a
bomb into his own son's rootn. Bosh!
The notion is ridiculous.” The detec
tive sniffed in contempt.
“Well, you are improving,” the doc
tor grinned. "You do finally glance,
If ever so slightly, at character in this
Instance. And you put Tony out of
it. Now we have left only the moth
er.” The doctor proceeded imper
turbably in the face of his listener’s
look of incredulity and downright dis
gust. “Had the mother any reason,
could she have any reason for doing
such a thing, and if so, has she the
qualities necessary to the carrying
out of so bold a plan?”
“I don’t see what you’re getting at,”
growled Birsch, “and it don’t seem to
me there’s any sense in this kind of
business, guessing at all these things,
and wondering which one of ’em done
it. None of ’em done it. Somebody
else done it, and if you know who it
is, which I doubt, tell me, and I’ll go
and nab him.”
“Now,” the doctor continued, as if
the other had remained dumb, “you
have practically eliminated the three
who were the only persons in a posi
tion, physically speaking, to do this
thing, and that settles the matter,
with you, as far as they are con
cerned. You would take your oath,
wouldn’t you, that neither one of
these persons is, or reasonably could
be, the culprit?”
"Yes,” he replied, shortly. “Keep
up your jollying if it does you any
good, but I’d go my oath on these peo
ple, just the same, and I guess you
would yourself. It ain't in any sort
of reason that one of them done it.
It was the man outside on I he fire
escape, and that skipped downstairs,
or up, and that Finnegan and Murphy
and Tony and the old woman heard,
and that Finnegan saw as well as
heard.”
“Then the ramifications of the prob
lem must be, to you, how did this
man reach the fire-escape without
your knowledge, you being right un
der it; how did ho enter the room
without raising the window or break
ing it; how did he escape so miracu
lously; and what did he enter the
room at all for? For he could have
thrown the bomb through the glass,
you know, and it would have been
both safer for him and more within
reason.”
Birsch set his lips and for a moment
said nothing. Finally he burst forth:
"Seems to me you ain't helping any
thing great! In a minute you’ll make
it out that nobody could do it, and
that consequently it wasn’t done!”
"I am only showing you, so far, my
friend, what your method amounts
to,” said the doctor. "By it I can
prove or disprove anything under the
sun, because it has to do with ap
pearances. instead of character, with
the superficials as distinguished from
the realities. I can even turn com
pletely around and prove to you, by
your method, that each one of these
persons whom we have, by my meth
od, proved innocent, is the only per
son who could have committed the
crime. What you lack is—psychol
ogy.” Dr. Furnivall did not wish to
say "brains,” nor “learning,” nor “in
telligence,” nor even “training,” so,
after some hesitation, he said “psy
chology.” And he continued: “Now,
the moment I saw this letter and
heard the story, I knew indubitably
the guilty party.”
"The—the nation you did!” burst
forth the detective, involuntarily.
“The easiest thing in the world,”
smiled the doctor. "Just consider
this letter—was it written by an edu
cated or an uneducated person?”
‘‘Why, uneducated, of course.” re
turned Birsch. ‘‘See the spelling, and
the language. Or else it was an edu
cated person trying to seem unedu
cated.”
‘‘I fancy it was one or the other,”
he said, “but which?"
“How do I know?” responded Birsch,
fatuously. The doctor smoothed his
features and answered, mildly:
“That is where, psychology—yes,
psychology—gives me the advantage
of you. Would an uneducated Italian,
such as apparently wrote this letter,
spell ‘Wednesday’ with a ‘d’ invari
ably in the first syllable, once with a
‘y\ as if to let the reader know that
he really knew how to spell it, and
then write it twice without the ‘y,‘ as
well as to leave the same letter out
of ‘Thursday?’ Would an unedu
cated Italian spell ‘thousand’ with a
dash, ‘thous-a,’ would he write ‘need-a’
for ‘need,’ or ‘kil-a’ for kill, and so
on? He would speak this way, but
he would require some education in
order to write this way. Moreover,
the punctuation and use of capitals
are perfect—two positive proofs of a
certain degree of education. And to
clinch the evidence, look at the hand
writing. It is disguised, but irregu
larly, as if done by an immature mind,
and the vertical penmanship taught a
little while ago in our public schools
sticks out all through the letter. The
! character and attainments of the
writer of this letter, taken together
with the injured boy’s testimony,
points with finality to a certain one of
the persons known to be concerned.
In short, whatever his motive may
be, and impossible as the known facts
alone seem to render it—”
The doctor paused as footsteps
sounded without, and then went on—
“the person who threw that bomb
was—”
“Master Frank Macalusco,” an
nounced the maid, opening the door.
And forward stepped the son of Tony,
his face bandaged, but wearing a
smile of deprecating good humor.
Detective Birsch stared at the boy
and then looked at the doctor.
“You don’t mean—” he began, and
paused. Dr. Furnivall smiled some
what grimly.
“Take a seat, Master Frank,” he
I said. And when the grinning youth
had taken a tentative position on the
I edge of the couch, hat in hand, the
doctor continued: “Shall I be com
I pelled to hypnotize you, or will you
| tell your story freely?”
“Oh, it's all off now, and I might
as well talk,” the boy answered. Far
from feeling embarrassed, he seemed
to enjoy the situation, grinning im
partially at each of his hearers as
he proceeded with his confession.
"You can take it straight,” he said,
in schoolboy slang, “that it wasn’t me
for the priesthood. It was my folks
that put up that job for me. It is
me for the stage—I’m going to be an
actor. It wouldn't do to let my father
know that, though—he’d go nutty. H&
\ thought it was all settled long ago,
and I let him think so because it
would be no good to start in fighting
him before I had to. Of course I
I knew he had the money saved up.
| How could I help getting wise to it;
| when they're always whispering about
it to each other, looking mysterious
and acting funny, me right there with
’em so much? So 1 fixed up this deal
to lift the money from father. I
wouldn’t use it—all I wanted was to
j make sure he wouldn’t send me to
college. I could not do that this way
without making him mad at me for
not doing as he wished, and I could
give the stuff back to him later. I
knew he was easily frightened, and
I tnougnt ne would give up rignt on
as soon as I was threatened, without
going to the police, but when I heard
him in the other room talking with
mother about the letter and the trap
the police had set I didn’t know what
to do. At first I thought I’d call it
all off. It was too risky. But the
excitement sort of apipealed to me,
and 1 thought that as I was bound to
be an actor, this was as good a time
as any to begin. So finally I hit on
the thing I did. Last night I got an
old piece of lead pipe and split it, to
make it look like an exploded bomb,
and put it on the rug, which I
scorched with a match, cut my face
a little with my razor, and then
touched off a cannon firecracker. I
had no gun, you know, and these
things wouldn’t tell any tales. I had
my door already unlocked, and ran
and opened it, and slammed it back
without latching it, jumped a few
steps downstairs, and then ran back
again, closing the door softly. I had
meant to unlock my window, to make
believe the Black Hand got in that
way, but I guess I was a little nervous,
and I forgot it, and so had to say the
man I saw was on the fire-escape out
side, instead of in the room, as I had
intended to say. The situation was
impossible, wasn’t it? It was funny
the way everybody swallowed such a
stiff as that!” He threw the cha
grined detective a sly glance. He
was the “everybody” referred to.
Then the boy, this would-be actor,
thrilling with a pride over his ex
ploit that not even its detection and
failure could materially lower, added:
T told father in the letter to send the
money to the San Fraacisco post of
fice, then I wrote to them there to
forward any letters for John Kil
braith to another post office, and I
wrote that office to forward the mail
to another, and so on, and the last
one tvas to forward it to our general
delivery here, where I could get it.”
(Copyright, by W. G. Chapman.)
(Copyright in Great Britain.)
Brof. Rogers—Have, you .Isbcn's
plays? Fair young librarian—No, sir,
but we have Ibsen's works.—Harper's
Weekly.