Two of them, Alessandro Vetri and his cousin Giacomo Santucci, left on ships from Italy, one from Naples, the other from Genoa. A third, Gaetano Vetri, the brother of Alessandro, traveled to Marseilles, where, after a wait of three days, he boarded an American steamship bound for New York. His disguise was that of a Catholic priest and his new name was Padre Giovanni Agostini. He was pleased with himself. The character of a priest came easy to him, for he had been an acolyte for many years and had been destined by his family to the seminary. He would have none of it, ran away, and joined Garibaldi’s army. He fought all over Italy, knew Garibaldi personally, and had been highly decorated as a soldier. He sat smugly on his berth, alone now, for the other passengers had not yet arrived.
He fell into a pleasant doze for a few hours. He was awakened suddenly by the motion of the boat. It was leaving. But there were no other passengers in his cabin. Rosary in hand, he opened the door and climbed to the lowest deck. He heard a few passengers on the deck above him, but none where he was. It was dusk. He watched as Marseilles drifted behind into the darkness. He smiled, content with his mission and the adventure that lay before him. He repeated his Hail Marys instinctively, hypnotically, fingering the rosary as if in a trance. So at peace was he for the moment that he was unaware of the figure that had emerged wet and naked from the sea, now behind him, who grAbbed him with all his strength at the neck, twisting it, killing him instantly. The killer pulled the priest’s body into the deep shadows, donned his clothes, and as quickly as he could, threw the naked body overboard. He watched as it disappeared into the wake of the ship. He quickly found the key to the cabin in the right-hand pocket of the priest’s frock and went below. The boarding pass found in the same pocket gave him the priest’s name. Only one other passenger was to take his place in the same cabin, a well-dressed man who introduced himself subsequently as Mr. Carlos Romero of the town of Las Vegas in the territory of New Mexico and a recent pilgrim to Lourdes. The killer responded with a smile: “I am Padre Giovanni Agostini. I am from Italy.”
On the first night on board, as the ship entered Spanish waters as it pressed toward the Strait of Gibraltar, a diminutive figure, naked except for a loin cloth, came forth from the darkness and, bending over, reached for a plate of food that had been left there for him. The man was extremely muscular but small, dark-haired, his skin a kind of yellow that almost glowed in the dark. His eyes had within them the simple look of a child. Hungrily, he stuffed the food into his mouth, gorging, as if his hunger had become almost uncontrollable. When he had finished, he left the plate where he had found it and disappeared into a dark corner of the ship, where he was safe from view, covered by a tarpaulin stored near the lower deck.
If the upright Mr. Romero had harbored any suspicions concerning the priest with whom he shared a cabin, he would have noted that the priest prepared such a plate of food every evening and took it outside and placed it on the deck, usually just after dusk, like food for a dog or cat. Mr. Romero, however, saw nothing out of place and indeed was awed by his cabin mate, for he grown up to have the highest respect for the clergy. The priest, receiving no question from his cabin mate, mumbled some remark in explanation, something about the Christian duty to feed the animals, as did St. Francis, in this case some pelicans that had decided to travel to America with the ship.
It did not take the killer long to learn more about his new identity. The dead man’s small valise contained the information that he eventually deciphered. He felt no remorse. For him it was survival that came first. And who worries about killing such a man? he thought as he went through the various articles in the bag. He learned that “Agostini” was an Italian agent instead of a holy man, bound for America in order to raise funds for Garibaldi. His instructions noted that he would be met by agents of the Italian revolution at Baltimore when they docked. And so the killer learned that he would have to leave the ship before they landed. Luckily, he was told that they would be docking in the dark in the early morning.
Except for Mr. Romero, the priest kept his distance from the other passengers. He spoke to no one, pretending to spend most of his time in religious meditation. This impressed Mr. Romero, who was a good, religious man himself. Indeed, so impressed did our New Mexican traveler become with his priestly roommate that he suggested one day shortly before they arrived that the priest journey to New Mexico.
“It is a magnificent place, barren and empty, most of the people are honest and hard working. A few are bad, and they could use another priest or two,” said Romero between Hail Marys on his rosary. “Why don’t you come?”
The priest explained that he was in spirit a monk, not a priest who served, but a Religious hermit, who practised austerities and wished to do that in a lonely place atop a mountain somewhere. Were there such places in America?
“Well,” said Romero, “I got the most beautiful mountain on my land. The locals call it Tecolote. You’ll love it. Nobody there. My place is called El Porbenir.”
The priest agreed. He told Romero, however, that he had to meet some old friends in Baltimore and that the captain had given him permission to leave early.
The night the ship docked, Agostini, having bid good-bye to Romero, disappeared into the waters of Baltimore Harbor followed closely by his diminutive companion. It was a short swim, and they reached the shore undetected.
The two Italian agents who had come to meet him were surprised to find that Agostini was not there. They did not think to question Romero, but rushed back to their commander to report the disappearance.
As they had arranged, after two months, the priest met Romero in Kansas City, from where they continued their journey together to New Mexico by stage coach. It was a long and arduous trip, for the caravan was often beset by sudden storms and the threat of Indian attacks. When they reached Colorado, reports from Fort Union said that in order to avoid the Apache warriors in the vicinity they should take the northern trail through the mountains and descend into New Mexico through the Raton Pass. There a contingent of the American army would meet them and escort the party to Las Vegas.
The trip through the mountains was uneventful, and as they descended into New Mexico, they were met by Captain Knox of Fort Union and his men, who saw them to their destination.
A few miles out of Las Vegas, Romero pointed to the western horizon.
“Look,” he said to the priest, “there is Tecolote, your home.”
The priest looked in the direction Romero had indicated. There on the horizon, like some great purple whale, stood the mountain that would be the priest’s sanctuary for many years.
That evening we convened at our quarters at Holmes’s suggestion. Shinwell Johnson and Bobbie Neary sat on the floor near the door listening to every word. Holmes and I, together with Vasquez and Lestrade, sat in various places in the room. Even Jones, the forensic examiner, was there.
Holmes sat, weighted down by a large tome that Jones had brought from Scotland Yard. It was the volume on prisoners in the Andamans for which Holmes had made a special request. He had spent an hour perusing the appropriate entries. At a certain point, he looked up and said: “Gentlemen, we should begin our discussion, though one of our difficulties is the many points of entry possible from where we might begin. Let me start, however, with what we learn from this heavy tome. At least then I can rid myself of it once we have reviewed the facts.”
Holmes opened the volume to its beginning. “I shall briefly summarize its contents rather than read everything to you. The entry we are concerned with primarily is A.I. 3 and, as it turns out, A.I. 4 as a secondary matter. The real name of A.I. 3 is Ranjit, a man born in Motihari, India, in 1840, son of an untouchable worker in the early indigo plantations. From the beginning he seems to have had a religious bent, encouraged by his father, and he planned to devote much of his life to Hindu religious practise. He was raised in the household of the plantation owners, an English family by the name of Blair. The boy was accepted by the family, and he learned to speak English well. One day, when the boy was about fourteen, Mr. Blair, reacting to the threat of a workman’s strike, or hartal as they call it, had several villagers’ huts burned, among them that of Ranjit’s family. All were lost in the fire, father, mother, and sister. Ranjit left the Blair household, swearing eternal enmity to the British. He became attached to a number of violent revolutionary groups, and in 1857 participated in the Cawnpore massacre, where he personally is said to have killed over ten people. He was caught, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment at the new jail in Port Blair, Andaman Islands. His behaviour there was initially most cooperative, at least on the surface. One day, eight or nine years after his arrival, he participated in an attack on Lord Mayo, the visiting Vice-Roy. Mayo was killed in the fracas and Ranjit disappeared into the hills, presumably protected by some of the natives, who had no liking for our invasion of their territory. He escaped with an accomplice, A.I. 4, a member of the Santal tribe of Bihar by the name of Sujat, caught also at Cawnpore and again a member of the assassination plot to kill the Vice- Roy.”
