This confession, made in gasps and groans, built up by question and answer, and cut short by death, showed clearly that the abduction had been long planned, and that the daughter of the Marquis de la Torre had been chosen as the victim of the Interaymi at least two months before the festival. That was as clear as the wonderful tropical night without.
Two months before, Libertad had first been sounded, and he had not long resisted the temptation of the money offered him. All he was asked to do was to drive the motor to a certain spot on a certain day, without looking to see what was happening behind him. For this, he was to receive two hundred silver soles, of which fifty were paid to him in advance.
“And who did you make the bargain with?” demanded Natividad.
“With a clerk from the Franco-Belgian bank who sometimes came to see the señorita. His name was Oviedo.”
Don Christobal started. Oviedo Huayna Runtu, the intruder of the Cajamarca trip! If he had planned to kidnap Maria-Teresa at Callao, that voyage must have been particularly disagreeable to him. That would explain his close watch over them, and perhaps also the hint to the police at Cajamarca, which resulted in their hasty return to Lima.
“When did you first know the date chosen?” questioned Natividad, holding up the negro, who was choking.
“This morning. Oviedo came to see me. He told me that a man would say to me, ‘Dios anki tiourata’ (‘good-day,’ in Aimara), and that I was to obey that man. I was to take the wheel, not turn my head, and drive where I was told to go.”
Libertad’s story, told in jerky sentences, showed that he did not really know until the evening what had been plotted. Though he did not move or look, the sound of the struggle at the open window told him what was happening. It was then too late to draw back, and, when the order came, he drove the car to the calle San Lorenzo, where they stopped for a minute before a low door. Huascar came out, exchanged a few words with the occupants of the machine, and ordered him to take the Chorillos road, and not to stop until he had reached Ondegarda’s hacienda. There was not a sound behind him throughout the journey.
At the hacienda, when his passengers got out, he had instinctively glanced sideways, and had seen the señorita, unconscious, being lifted out by three dwarfs with horribly-shaped heads. They took her into the casa, while he, more dead than alive, waited where he was, anxious only to be paid and to get away.
Then they were overtaken by a troop of mounted Indians, all wearing red ponchos, and led by Oviedo. Huascar was also with them, and ordered Libertad to come into the house. To his surprise, he found there half a dozen women, veiled in black, and guarding the door to another room.