Chapter 1 Summary

Chapter 1 - Senor Quevedo's Difficult Moment: On the day of the festival bull fights in the Plaza Mayor, a woman is found dead outside the church of San Gines. Constable Martin Saldana is called to investigate. The woman is perhaps fifty, and has the look of a high class servant, perhaps a duenna. She has been strangled with a silk cord. In her hands she clutches 50 escudos and a note reading "For masses for your soul." No one can identify the woman. She carries nothing else remarkable. In her purse are a rosary, a key, and a religious icon. Her golden chain of Saint Agueda is around her neck. She bears no sign of trauma other than the marks left in her neck by the cord.

Saldana arrives late to the bullfights. By way of explaining his tardiness, he tells his friend Diego...