evil-doing, and to-day
he is but an adventurer without a name, who lives by blackmail, and by
ruining women that he may rob them at his leisure. Give me those books
from the strong box yonder, and I will tell you of this de Garcia.'

I did as he bade me, bringing the heavy parchment volumes, each bound in
vellum and written in cipher.

'These are my records,' he said, 'though none can read them except
myself. Now for the index. Ah! here it is. Give me volume three, and
open it at page two hundred and one.'

I obeyed, laying the book on the bed before him, and he began to read
the crabbed marks as easily as though they were good black-letter.

'De Garcia--Juan. Height, appearance, family, false names, and so on.
This is it--history. Now listen.'

Then came some two pages of closely written matter, expressed in secret
signs that Fonseca translated as he read. It was brief enough, but such
a record as it contained I have never heard before nor since. Here, set
out against this one man's name, was well nigh every wickedness of which
a human being could be capable, carried through by him to gratify his
appetites and revengeful hate, and to provide himself with gold.

In that black list were two murders: one of a rival by the knife, and
one of a mistress by poison. And there were other things even worse, too
shameful, indeed, to be written.

'Doubtless there is more that has not come beneath my notice,' said
Fonseca coolly, 'but these things I know for truth, and one of the
murders could be proved against him were he captured. Stay, give me ink,
I must add to the record.'

And he wrote in his cipher: 'In May, 1517, the said de Garcia sailed to
England on a trading voyage, and there, in the parish of Ditchingham, in
the county of Norfolk, he murdered Luisa Wingfield, spoken of above as
Luisa de Garcia, his cousin, to whom he was once betrothed. In September
of the same year, or previously, under cover of a false marriage, he
decoyed and deserted one Donna Isabella of the noble family of Siguenza,
a nun in a religious house in this city.'

'What!' I exclaimed, 'is the girl who came to seek your help two nights
since the same that de Garcia deserted?'

'The very same, nephew. It was she whom you heard pleading with him last
night. Had I known two days ago what I know to-day, by now this villain
had been safe in prison. But perhaps it is not yet too late. I am
ill, but I will rise and see to it. Leave it to me, nephew