According to the testimony of the neighbors, Senor Romeral was a young and rich landowner who originally came from Madrid, where he had married a beautiful wife; four months before the death of the husband, his wife had gone to Madrid to pass a few months with her family; the young woman returned home about the last day of April, that is, about three months and a half after she had left her husband’s residence to go to Madrid; the death of Senor Romeral occurred about a week after her return.  The shock caused to the widow by the sudden death of her husband was so great that she became ill and informed her friends that she could not continue to live in the same place where everything recalled to her the man she had lost, and just before the middle of May she had left for Madrid, ten or twelve days after the death of her husband.

The servants of the deceased had testified that the couple did not live amicably together and had frequent quarrels; that the absence of three months and a half which preceded the last eight days the couple had lived together was practically an understanding that they were to be ultimately separated on account of mysterious disagreements which had existed between them from the date of their marriage; that on the date of the death of the deceased, both husband and wife were together in the former’s bedroom; that at midnight the bell was rung violently and they heard the cries of the wife; that they rushed to the room and were met at the door by the wife, who was very pale and greatly perturbed, and she cried out:  “An apoplexy!  Run for a doctor!  My poor husband is dying!” That when they entered the room they found their master lying upon a couch, and he was dead.  The doctor who was called certified that Senor Romeral had died of cerebral congestion.

Three medical experts testified that death brought about as this one had been could not be distinguished from apoplexy.  The physician who had been called in had not thought to look for the head of the nail, which was concealed by the hair of the victim, nor was he in any sense to blame for this oversight.

The judge immediately issued a warrant for the arrest of Dona Gabriela Zahara del Valle, widow of Senor Romeral.

“Tell me,” I asked the judge one day, “do you think you will ever capture this woman?”

“I’m positive of it.”

“Why?”

“Because in the midst of all these routine criminal affairs there occurs now and then what may be termed a dramatic fatality which never fails.  To put it in another way:  when the bones come out of the tomb to testify, there is very little left for the judge to do.”

In spite of the hopes of my friend, Gabriela was not found, and three months later she was, according to the laws of Spain, tried, found guilty, and condemned to death in her absence.

I returned home, not without promising to be with Zarco the following year.

IV