“But that was not the case. Isabel was not taken in by the old man, nor did she have any cause for gratitude. The surface picture was simply contrived to conceal the true facts.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Here the true drama begins, Chief. Some ten or twelve years ago a certain Procurator of Justice issued an edict authorizing crimes passionels as ‘the legitimate defense of honor.’ In accordance with this edict, a man could kill his wife and her lover with impunity. He was not punished, he was not even tried. Rather he was all but urged to commit the crime. And murderers, in the name of ‘the legitimate defense of honor’ increased. You remember?”
“Perfectly. But why should you? Surely you were only a little boy then.”
“I was indeed. But of late I’ve been looking through the newspapers of those days for reports of famous crimes. And around that time there occurred one of these crimes passionels, endorsed by the edict of the honorable Procurator. It was on this street, in this house. Instead of the large wall there was then a railing around the garden. The master of the house came home one night unexpectedly and found his wife in the arms of another man, under one of those orange trees in the garden. He did not lose his equanimity, he did not get excited. With complete control of his nerves, with astonishing sangfroid, he took a revolver from his pocket and fired. The first to fall was his wife. The lover tried to climb the railing and flee, but a second shot brought him down. Later the master of the house had the railing torn down and this wall erected to protect him from the curiosity-seekers who gathered around the place to make their comments on the site where the lovers fell.
“That’s as much of the story as you can learn from the newspapers. But it seems that the husband managed to find out that the little girl, whom he had always considered his daughter, was not his. Partly to avoid even more scandal than he was already enduring, partly to continue his revenge, he kept this fact secret from the public. And thus it was that he had living at his side the daughter Isabel, whom he humiliated and tortured, little by little slaking his thirst for revenge.”
“Anyone would say you’d seen it all happen,” the Chief of Security observed.
“The girl slowly became aware that that man was not her father. She began to hate him. Even when she was a child she felt that she was unjustly treated. And once she knew that she was not obliged to feel for him the natural affection which a child owes its father, she was filled with such a fierce joy that she could find only one means of expressing her emotion without danger: she wrote over and over again in her little notebook:
My daddy isn’t my daddy
as when children discover a particular way of jumping that delights them and go on jumping until they’re exhausted.”
The Chief of the Commission of Security fixed his gaze on the little notebook which Máximo Roldán had taken out of his pocket when he began to talk.
Máximo Roldán nodded. “This is the notebook, Chief. You may observe the development that was going on in the girl as the years went by. That first phrase was followed by another:
I don’t love him because
he’s not my daddy
and then others that indicate progressively the state of her spirit:
He is not my father
That man is not my father
Not my father
and later on these others, still more terrible, marking a new discovery:
He filled my father
and mother
I must hate him
until we reach the last, which decided the old man’s fate:
I must kill him
All these phrases constantly reiterated, taking possession of the girl, flowing through her very being, ever feeding her hatred and intensifying her decision to kill the man who had murdered her parents and was mistreating her — And then came the dénouement.”
“Where did you find this notebook?” the Chief asked.
“In the girl’s room, when I went to question her.”
“You managed to take it without her noticing?”
“She wasn’t there.”
“What?” the Chief of the Security Commission exclaimed.
“She wasn’t there,” Máximo Roldán repeated.
The Chief of the Security Commission leaped for the door. Máximo Roldán held him back for a moment.
“Just a minute, Chief. I meant to tell you something else: the jewels have disappeared.”
“What!”
“Yes. They aren’t in the night-table any more.”
This time the Chief of the Commission waited no longer. He opened the door and started running down the hall.
Máximo Roldán left in his turn. Tranquilly he descended the stairs, reached the garden, strolled across it, and stopped before the policeman who was stationed at the street door.
“The Chief says you’re not to leave this spot for a single moment.”
“Very well, sir.”
“Under penalty of arrest, you’re not to let any woman leave, for any reason.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. And if you need it, call for help. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fine. Oh — as soon as you see the Chief, tell him not to worry.”
“Not to worry, sir?”
“Everything’s all right. I have the jewels with me.”
“Oh. Yes, sir.”
“See you later.”
And Máximo Roldán went on to the corner, turned it, and vanished.