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Conceived Dreadful Crime That Has Shocked All Italy

Conceived Dreadful Crime That Has Shocked All Italy image
Parent Issue
Day
5
Month
December
Year
1902
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

THE story of the murder at Bologna, Italy, of Count Bonmartini, scion of a noble family of ancient birth, reads like a chapter from the Italian middle ages, but even the horrors of that atrocious period pale before this recital of a crime perpetrated within the lordly walls of an ancient palace.

But if all this be strange and inexplicable, what of the fact that the assassination of the nobleman was the plot of a woman, and that woman none other than his wife, the Countess Theolinda Bonmartini? With more than the cunning of a Lady Macbeth this woman's mind invented the plot of a tragedy that has shaken all Italy. The Italian police say she is the wickedest woman in the world.

To fully understand the depth of this woman's cunning and the heartlessness and skill of her plotting it is necessary to go back to last August. At that time the countess was in Venice with her two children. Her marital relations with the count had been strained for more than two years. They were, in fact, practically living apart, although not divorced. In Venice with the countess was her most trusted maid, Rosina Bonetti. In the events herein to be recorded the maid became the accomplice of her mistress in the execution of the plot.

Count Bonmartini was living in apartments in the historic palace on that fatal night. That day brought him a daintily scented note, the superscription apparently having been written by a woman. The writer begged to be admitted to his apartments that night, but the note bore no signature.

That letter had a deep mission. Its purpose was to make certain that the nobleman would not leave his apartments and thus foil the knife that was to strike the fatal blow. It was written by the maid at the direction of the mistress. That much--and more--has Rosina Bonetti confessed.

The apartments adjoining that of the count had been let to a woman, one of mystery. The police are confident that her identity and that of the countess will soon be found to be the same. The tenant was one Carlo Sacchi, a university professor, who had formerly been the accepted sweetheart of the countess.

Between these two apartments there is a secret passage - a panel that opens at the touch of a secret spring. The countess and her accomplices alone possessed this knowledge. It was through this painted panel that the assassin or assassins of Count Bonmartini passed on that tragic night in August. Tullius Murri, brother of the countess, has confessed that it was he who wielded the dagger that felled the victim of a woman's cunning and hatred. But the police will not believe that he was alone when that secret panel in the wall flew open. They say that Carlo Sacchi was in the plot and may have assisted in the destruction of the marked victim.

But the ancient palace kept well its secret tragedy for a whole fortnight. None entered the apartments of the count. But one day there came a vague alarm. None had seen the count, and the police were notified. They went to his apartments. His body was found stretched on the floor. He had been stabbed in the heart. There were other wounds, too, and the room bore unmistakable evidences of a terrible life and death struggle.

The dainty little note was found. Several articles of feminine apparel were strewn around. There was an empty champagne bottle and two glasses, as if two persons--the count and a woman--had been drinking together. The most expert detectives in Europe were put on the mystery. But they found nothing that would bring a solution.

Then all Italy was startled a days ago by the announcement of Professor Murri, the famous Italian scholar and father of the countess, that his son, Tullius Murri. was the assassin of Count Bonmartini. The young man's motive was accredited to deep hatred born of his brother-in-law's ill treatment of his sister.

Professor Murri said that his son had written to him from his retreat in Servia confessing the details of the murder. He said that he had decided to take his own life rather than face a tribunal of justice.

But this confession was accepted with reservations by the police. They clung to the belief that the real instigator of the murder was a woman and that woman none other than the countess. Finally they secured warrants for her and the maid, Rosina Bonetti. The latter was speedily ensnared. She at last made a partial confession disclosing the part that she and her mistress had taken in the assassination of the count.

There was a deep seated motive in the heart of this countess - a scion of Bolognese society. It was hatred, and the police say it was born of her own depravity. Shocking disclosures have been made concerning her private life, the details of which brand her as a woman of fearful character, one who more than typifies Shakespeare's picture of Lady Macbeth. They know that the man whose murder she so cunningly plotted stood in deadly fear of her.

To his friends the count had many times said that he knew she was bent on giving him a deadly drug. He found poison in her possession and divined that the fatal poison was intended for him. Foiled then in this Borgia-like plot, the countess took into her confidence the trusty maid, the brother and another accomplice who is supposed to be her sometime sweetheart, Carlo Sacchi. She took on the mantle, too, of Lady Macbeth.

But what of this woman? Here is a study of her in a few words. She is about thirty years old, but appears several years younger. She has a certain type of beauty that comes more from expression than contour. Her face, otherwise unimpressive, is lit up wonderfully by a pair of eyes that are strangely fascinating. They sparkle like gems and laugh and twinkle in their mysterious depths, but they are the lights of a soul that stolidly conceived a murder.

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Cunning Crocodiles Of the Zambezi River

In that mystic land between the Zambezi and the Saba Country, Africa, the jungle has come to its own again, covering mighty ancient fortresses and walls with growth that looks as if it never had been disturbed by man since the world began.

And in that jungle the wild beasts rule. There the lions and leopards truly are man eaters, not waiting to be attacked, but carrying the war into the camps and into the very tents of the invaders.

As if they were matching their wits against man, the crocodiles and hippopotami are becoming more daring and dangerous every year in that country. Two black men belonging to the Peers expedition were killed by crocodiles at one time. The creatures lay in wait under the bank of the river, and when the men stooped to wash the immensely powerful tails of the amphibians were swung at them and whipped them into the water, where the crocodiles seized them and carried them away to an island in the middle of the river. Dr. Peters' men saw the whole tragedy. They could see the bodies of the men clearly as they were being dragged along just under the surface. Another favorite trick of the man killing crocodiles along the Zambezi is to lie perfectly still under grasses near the shore and seize passersby by the leg. Sometimes they are so fearless that they do not even hide, but lie on the shore, with eyes shut, mimicking sleep.

The hippopotami, says Dr. Peters, seem to have learned that there is a connection between canoes and explosive bullets. Certainly they have come to treat boats as enemies every time, and it is dangerous now to cross the river in any light craft.