Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 5, No. 19, November 1944

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?”

“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.