The Other Man in the Wall

On July 12, 1845, a letter appeared in a New York newspaper. The letter writer was describing his recent travels in Italy. He said that he had an amazing experience in the little town of San Giovanni when he visited the church of San Lorenzo. He was shown a niche covered with a sort of trapdoor in the wall of the church. Inside the niche was an upright human skeleton. The writer examined the skeleton and concluded that the victim had been walled in alive and suffocated. The writer supposed that the motive had been revenge. He guessed that the man had been tied securely and then walled in, brick by brick. The writer also guessed that the men involved were nobles (like Fortunato and Montresor)—no one else, he figured, could have gotten control of a church to perform the gruesome deed.

The year after this letter was published, Poe wrote his famous revenge story “The Cask of Amontillado.”