A Barcelona Heiress Read Free Page B

Civil who I had met at a few social functions, greeted me with the detached cordiality that was typical of him.
    “Your singer’s attackers are in a safe place,” he announced brusquely. “And we know everything about them.”
    The jewels. The whole drama had its origins in the jewelry that María Nilo de Togores sought, collected, and received as gifts, as self-made women often do. These gems shone as a testament to her rise from a Tarragona slum without electricity or running water to the spotlights and flower bouquets of Barcelona’s stages; heavy and showy jewelry that hung from her ears, her neck, her wrists, her fingers, and even her ankles; jewels displayed in the city’s shopwindows such as the Joyería Cabot jewelry store in Plaza de Cataluña where María had been so imprudent as to visit with the accused men, who the jewelers at the fine establishment still remembered due to the conspicuous interest they had shown in the prices of the pieces on display.
    “The men under arrest, Misan and Zaccar,” Beastegui explained ceremoniously, “are part of this cosmopolitanism of delinquency that characterizes the times we’re living in. They have left a trail through various countries and we don’t know exactly how they ended up in our country, but both are wanted for swindling a local company, Eusebio Miquel, out of five thousand pesetas, with which they were able to live in a most dissolute and licentious manner for a time. When they met Sebastiana Togores at the Alcázar Español they realized that she had the habit of wearing rather expensive jewelry. Misan and Zaccar introduced María to our third man.”
    “Albert Blum?”
    “His real name is Cándido Fagés, and he is originally from Tarrasa. He maintains that he changed his given name and surname to distance himself from his father, who he hates. He has been associated with the Greeks for months. When the three individuals squandered all the money from their fraud, they were thrown out of the hotel where they had been staying, and had to start pawning their clothing and personal effects in order to satisfy their most immediate needs. It was then that they concocted their plot to con Sebastiana, kill her, and make off with her jewels. Their plan was to escape abroad using passports they had prepared, disguised with fake mustaches and monocles.”
    “Fake mustaches?” It sounded comical.
    “Indeed. They had initially planned to throw her into the sea, hence their inviting her on a pleasure cruise. On that trip Abraham carried a revolver, and Fagés, a knife. It seems clear thatthey lost the nerve to carry out their criminal plan, and the singer never realized the true intentions of her companions, who treated her with the utmost kindness, nor did she give any importance to the fact that at times they talked among themselves in a foreign language.
    “The criminals then hatched a new plan, and in order to carry it out they installed themselves as guests in room 2 of the Hotel París. David Misan invited Sebastiana to dinner at the Alcázar Español, asking her to first accompany him to his hotel, where Zaccar and Fagés were waiting, supposedly in order to give her a dress they had bought for her. An unsuspecting Sebastiana followed him, wearing jewelry worth 5,400 pesetas, according to our expert’s estimation.”
    “You already arranged that?”
    “We caught them red-handed,” Beastegui replied curtly. “When Sebastiana reached the room, she was the victim of the assault you already know about. The arrested individuals, however, were unable to carry off their plan because the singer managed to remove her gag and started shouting, at the same time upsetting the washbasin, which made quite a racket. The hotel’s manager and a waiter heard the ruckus, and proceeded to pound repeatedly on the door, to no avail, at which point they called the authorities. During this time, Fagés dragged Sebastiana under one of the beds in an attempt to hide her, while