Isabel made no answer. She kept her eyes fixed on those of Máximo Roldán. His gaze did not waver. She extended her hand and took the card.
“Thank you. I trust you.”
The young man bowed and brushed Isabel’s hand with his lips. He murmured, “Why? Because you did it?”
The girl came slowly toward him, took both his hands in hers, and closed them over a bulky object.
“A notebook. Written by me. Read it. Goodbye.”
Máximo Roldán left the room on the run and entered the bedroom where the murder had taken place. There was no one there. He went to the night-table, opened the drawer, and took out the jewels. He wrapped them in a handkerchief and tied it up by its four corners. He thrust the small bundle into the rear pocket of his trousers, left the bedroom, and returned to the room where he had talked to the Chief of the Security Commission.
“Well?” the Chief demanded as soon as Máximo Roldán appeared. “Did you manage to learn anything?”
“I think so,” Máximo Roldán answered. He stood by the window, from which he could see the street door in the wall. “I think I can tell you who the murderer is.”
“All right,” the other said impatiently. “Let’s have it.”
Máximo Roldán kept his eyes on the garden. “You will recall, Chief, that in addition to the clues which belonged to the nephew and the chauffeur, there was one — the stickpin — which belonged to neither. You remember?”
“Yes.”
“Very well,” Máximo Roldán went on. His fingers drummed nervously against the windowpane. “The stickpin did not belong to the victim either.”
“So...?”
“So, since it did not belong to any of the three men in the household, the stickpin—”
“— must have come from outside,” the other interrupted.
A woman’s figure scurried across the garden, opened the street door, and disappeared. Máximo Roldán gave a little sigh and turned to the Chief of the Security Commission. “Exactly; it must have come from outside.”
“Then it was an outside job, and the murderer is a man after all.”
“Not at all. We established that it is a woman; I don’t need to go over that. There are three women here: the victim’s sister, his daughter Isabel, and the housekeeper. On the night of the murder all three had ready access to the rooms of the two men, since all three knew that the nephew and the chauffeur would be out all night. One of them is guilty. That one had in her possession a stickpin — an article of jewelry generally affected by young men who dandify themselves for one purpose: to please the girls.”
“Caramba! Then—”
“Yes, Chief. Neither the dead man’s sister nor the housekeeper is young enough to be in touch with such a youth, who might, say, give a girl such a stickpin as a memento or let her take it in a playful moment. There is only one woman in this house who fulfils the conditions: the youngest.”
“The daughter Isabel?”
“Excellent, Chief. The daughter Isabel, exactly.”
An impressive silence followed this announcement. The Chief had no comment. He seemed to balance the enormity of the unknown’s accusation against the inevitability of his reasoning. At last he opened the door, cast a glance along the empty hall, took a whistle from his pocket, and blew three blasts. Then he closed the door and returned to Máximo Roldán.
“There’s something I still don’t understand. Will you tell me why you asked me on the telephone if there was a dog in the house?”
“It’s very simple. The existence of a dog would have torn down all my structure of logic. Who could be sure that a playful puppy might not have dragged to the scene of the crime the garter, the necktie, the gloves, and even a stranger’s stickpin? This may seem a childish-hypothesis; but it had to be disproved. Once it could be struck out, my deductions were established as certain.”
The door opened and a man in uniform came in. “You want something, Chief?” he asked.
“Yes. Call together all the women in the house.”
“Very well.”
“Put a man on the street door with orders to stop any woman who tries to leave.”
“Very well.”
“That’s all.”
“Very well, chief.” The policeman left.
The Chief of the Security Commission walked up to Máximo Roldán. He contemplated him for a moment. Then he put his hands on Máximo Roldán’s shoulders and asked, “You still insist on not giving me your name?”
“No use, Chief. It won’t do you any good — at the moment.”
“And later?”
“Later...? You’ll know some day.”
“It’s up to you. But I should like to know now.”
They were silent a moment. Suddenly Máximo Roldán said, “Doesn’t it strike you as strange, Chief, that the daughter Isabel should be the murderer? Have you any idea what the motive could have been for... parricide?”
The Chief thought a moment. “You’re right,” he said, with a certain astonishment. “It’s terrible!” Then after another pause for thought, “It’s impossible!”
Máximo Roldán smiled. “I thought my reasoning seemed logical to you.”
“Yes, but...”
“But now you’re beginning to have your doubts. Is that it?”
“All right,” the Chief of the Security Commission demanded brusquely. “Can you explain the motive?”
“If you’ll allow me, I think I can.”
“I’m listening,” said the other.
Máximo Roldán took from his pocket the notebook which the girl had given him. “Always, at all times, from every source — in the newspaper articles, in the statement of the housekeeper, in the sister’s statement — you have heard that girl called the daughter Isabel, until finally you’ve grown so used to it that you call her that yourself; never once has she been mentioned as the daughter of the murdered man or simply his daughter. Everyone, including the newspapers, influenced by the manner in which the witnesses made their statements, has referred to the household as the sister, the nephew, and added: the daughter Isabel, the Chauffeur Alfredo. This omission of names in the first group, dealing with indisputable relatives — remember, this is all from the point of view of those who, like the house-keeper, knew the dead man and his relationships intimately — this omission of names in the first group indicates the necessity, in the second group, of adding their names to the title of the position which they held in the household: Alfredo held the position of chauffeur, Isabel held the position of daughter. The housekeeper, referring to each of them, says, ‘This lady is the dead man’s sister, this gentleman is his nephew,’ just like that, without having to add a name; but she comes to the others and says, ‘This man is the chauffeur Alfredo, this young lady is the daughter Isabel.”
The Chief of the Security Commission listened attentively. He neither moved nor breathed. He drank in the words that flowed from the lips of Máximo Roldán.
“The dead man himself calls our attention to it. Take a careful look at the account book which you found in his room and which you showed me when I arrived here. There he writes, to quote from memory, ‘Daily allowance to my sister...’ ‘Monthly allowance to my nephew...’ ‘Expenses of my daughter Isabel.’ And observe that he did not do so to distinguish between one daughter and another, because we know of no daughter other than the girl who passed as such, Isabel. You follow me, Chief?”
“Yes. But I still don’t see—”
“— the motive?”
“Yes. I should think, on the contrary, that Isabel would be deeply grateful to the dead man. Didn’t he take her in and educate her and love her as though she were his own daughter?”