Putnam patriot., 1914-05-08
THE PUTNAM PATRIOT May 1914

NOFN- ne tra gedy had occurred on Main street, no later than ten o'clock, and was a crime of the boldest and bloodiest sort Cantino had been stabbed seven times, and any one of the cuts would have been fatal.
 l reached Cantino's office a few minutes after the alarm had been spread. There were no signs of a struggle and no disorder of any kind Cantino apparently had been stabbed nrst in the neck as he was turning away from his assailant-stabbed by someone whom he did not fear-and after that the assassin had wrecked terrible vengeance on his victim. h. vestigation proved that the bank had not been robbed. The safe was locked and Cantino's papers and property were all in order.
 The local authorities began to seek for the motive for such a strange crime, but I put it down ss Black Hand work at once. I reasoned that Cantino had been threatened even as my friend Leoni in New York, that be had refused to yield to the blaekmail- CTS, and that he had been slain as promised in the threats.
 With the permission of the sheriff began to go through the old mans pa- pers. had not searched long before I found what I was looking for. He | had received threatening letters just as I deduced. There were three of them. The last one had threatened him with death in two weeks if he did not turn over a certain sum of money | to the man who comes and asks you 1 for it." Apparently he had not done this, and he was killed as conse- I quenee.
 l was disappointed in those letters. I had expected to see them in the | handwriting of Martina. But they | weren't. They were in another and ! quite different hand, an educated ltal | ian hand, but not Martina's. However, I went at once down to l the house where Martina had boarded. | He was not in. He had gone back to the old country the night before. He l had purchased his railroad and steam ship ticket of old Cantino several days earlier, and last night he had gone. l leaving the house at nine o'clock. went from there down to the sta | ton and found that Martina had taken | the midnight train for Milwaukee. He | would have had plenty of time to com 1 init the murder.
 At once I wired the New York of flee of the Burns Agency what had l happened and to have them watch the | boats of the Italian line on which Mar | tina had bought tickets. After this l I caught train back to New York, | taking with me the threatening letters | received by Cantino. To while away l the tedium of the long journey l took | these letters out to re-read. Studying them more carefully now l as struck with the impression that l had seen that handwriting somewhere before. I was sure of it. had a piece of Leoni's writing in my possession. It was an address he had written for me l in his office. l dug it up and careless Iy compared it with the Cantino let. ters. Then I got a shock. The letters were positively in Leonis hand-writ ing,
 It took some time for the signif canoe of this to sink in.
 Martina had written Leoni in New York a practical duplicate of wha Leoni had written Cantino in White fish, Wis. Leoni, the banker, who hat come to us with threatening letter | ha ter himself to a banker in Wisconsin And Martina had left Whitefish th' night that Cantino was murdered.
 Meanwhile the New York office O our agency was watching the boat' that sailed for Mediterranean ports Every 200 miles or so I would get wire advising me that such and suci a boat had sailed and nobody answer
 ing the description of my man hat come aboard. Every time l opened
 wire I hoped to see the news tha Martina had been arrested while try ing to get out of the country, put nothing of the sort occurred.
 When I reached New York city 1 didn't go to the office. I hailed a tax icab and had myself driven to within a couple of squares of LeonPs bank In Elizabeth street. Discharging the taxi man I walked down to the place. min gling with the crowd in a way to make myself inconspicuous. Leoni was back of the cashiers cage. l walked In.
 Hello. MT. Leoni." I said. "Seen anything of Martina?"
 | hxxf m, enough.
 You haven't seen him, have your he said.
 "Oh. yes" I said. 'T saw him out in Whitefish. He killed fellow by the name of Cantino out there the day before yesterday"
 I never watched anybody closer III all my life than I did Leoni while was telling him this. No Anglo-Saxon could have hidden what was going on in his mind the way that little Italian did. His expression was one of sur
 prise, only surprise. that shoulo mention such thing.
 How horrible," he said. How dis tressing,"
 He did it so we'll that he fooled me I said to myself: You big - fool! You guessed wrong, absolutely wrong"
 I went back to the office and began to write up my reports, trying to find I a flaw in the theory I had worked out. Since had been up against Leoni and had played my big card and hadn't