“Which is it to be?” I repeated.
“I’ll do what you wish.” The words came slowly as if the utterance of each one of them was a torture.
I returned to my seat. “In the first place, you have a confession of Lieutenant de Linto’s. Give it me.”
With shaking fingers he unlocked a drawer of the desk and from a secret recess in it took out a paper and held it out.
I pushed a chair half-way between us. “Put it there.” He obeyed. “Now write an admission that you incited this young fool to take the money having won large amounts from him by cheating at cards.”
“I didn’t.”
“I haven’t forgotten Jean Dufoire’s reputation. Write what I say—and sign it Jean Dufoire, now known as Major Francisco Sampayo.”
He fought against this, but in the end yielded.
“Now a confession that you wrote the letter in my name giving information about the house in the Rua Catania.”
Against this he fought more stubbornly than before, but I showed him the papers I had taken from his desk, vowing I would take them straight to Barosa, and then he gave in. The sweat was standing in great beads on his forehead as he placed the papers on the chair.