PROLOGUE.
It was at Madrid, in the month of April, 1880, that I first made the acquaintance of the extraordinary man, who, under the pseudonym of “Prado” met his fate beneath the Paris guillotine. I had just driven back into town from witnessing the execution by the “garrote” of the regicide Francisco Otero, and was in the act of stepping from my brougham, when suddenly the crowd assembled on the Puerto del Sol parted as if by magic to give place to a runaway carriage. I had barely time to note the frantic efforts of the coachman to stop the onward course of the frightened horses, when there was a terrible crash, and the victoria was shattered to splinters against one of the heavy posts on the square. The coachman, still clutching hold of the reins, was torn from the box, and dragged some hundred yards farther along the ground, before the horses were stopped and he could be induced to release his hold of the ribbons. To the surprise of all the spectators, he escaped with a few bruises. His master, however—the only other occupant of the carriage—was less fortunate. Hurled by the shock with considerable violence to the pavement, almost at my very feet, he remained unconscious for some minutes. When at length he recovered his senses, and attempted to rise with my assistance, it was found that he had broken his ankle, and was unable to stand upright. Placing him in my trap, I drove him to the address which he gave me—a house in the Calle del Barquillo—and on our arrival there, assisted the door porter and some of the other servants to carry him up stairs to a very handsome suite of apartments on the second floor. On taking my departure, he overwhelmed me with thanks for what he was pleased to call my kindness, and entreated me to do him the favor of calling, handing me at the same time a card bearing the name of Comte Linska de Castillon.
A couple of days later, happening to be in the neighborhood of the Calle del Barquillo, I dropped in to see how he was getting on. He received me with the greatest cordiality, and so interesting was his conversation that it was quite dark before I left the house. It turned out that he, too, had been present at the execution of the wretched Otero, and that he was on his way home when his horses became frightened and bolted. After discussing all the horrible details of the death of the regicide, the conversation took the direction of capital punishment in foreign countries—a theme about which he displayed the most wonderful knowledge.
From the graphic manner in which he described the strange tortures and cruel methods of punishment practiced at the courts of the native princes in India and China, it was evident that he was speaking of scenes which he had witnessed, and not from mere hearsay. He seemed equally well acquainted with the terrors of lynch law in the frontier territories of the United States, and with the military executions of spies and deserters in warfare. In short, it became clear to me that he was a great traveler, and that he was as well acquainted with America and Asia as he was with the ins and outs of almost every capital in Europe. His French, his Spanish, his German, and his English, were all equally without a trace of foreign accent. His manners were perfect, and displayed unmistakable signs of birth and breeding. Although not above the ordinary stature, he was a man of very compact and muscular build. Dressed in the most perfect and quiet taste, his appearance, without being foppish, was one of great chic and elegance. No trace of jewelry was to be seen about his person. His hands and feet were small and well shaped; his mustache was black, as were also his large and luminous eyes. His hair, slightly gray toward the temples, showed traces of age, or, perhaps, of a hard life. But the most remarkable thing about him was his smile, which seemed to light up his whole face, and which was singularly winning and frank. I confess I took a great fancy to the man, who at the time was exceedingly popular in Madrid society. He was to be seen in many of the most exclusive salons, was present at nearly all the ministerial and diplomatic receptions, and apparently enjoyed universal consideration. Our intimacy continued for about a couple of years, during the course of which I had the opportunity of rendering him one or two more slight services. Toward the end of 1882, I was obliged to leave Madrid rather suddenly, being summoned to Torquay by the dangerous illness of my mother, who is an English woman, and I did not return to Spain until several years later, when I found that Comte Linska de Castillon had meanwhile gone under—in a financial sense—and had disappeared from the surface.
It is unnecessary to describe here the horror and consternation with which I learned that “Prado,” the man charged with numerous robberies and with the murder of the demi-mondaine, Marie Aguetant, was no other than my former friend, Comte Linska de Castillon. Of course, I made a point of attending the trial. I confess, however, that I had some difficulty in recognizing in the rather unprepossessing individual in the prisoner's dock the once elegant viveur whom I had known at Madrid. His features had become somewhat bloated and coarse, as if by hard living, his dress was careless and untidy, his hair gray and his eyes heavy. It was only on the rare occasions when he smiled that his face resumed traces of its former appearance. Day after day I sat in court and listened to the evidence against him. The impression which the latter left on my mind was that, however guilty he undoubtedly had been of other crimes—possibly even of murder—he was, nevertheless, innocent of the death of Marie Aguetant, the charge on which he was executed. The crime was too brutal and too coarse in its method to have been perpetrated by his hand. Moreover, the evidence against him in the matter was not direct, but only circumstantial. Neither the jewelry nor the bonds which he was alleged to have stolen from the murdered woman have ever been discovered. Neither has the weapon with which the deed was committed been found, and the only evidence against him was that of two women, both of loose morals, and both of whom considered themselves to have been betrayed by him. The one, Eugenie Forrestier, a well-known femme galante, saw in the trial a means of advertising her charms, which she has succeeded in doing in a most profitable manner. The other, Mauricette Courouneau, the mother of his child, had fallen in love with a young German and was under promise to marry him as soon as ever the trial was completed, and “Prado's head had rolled into the basket of Monsieur de Paris.”
Shortly after the sentence had been pronounced upon the man whom I had known as “Comte Linska de Castillon” I visited him in his prison, and subsequently at his request called several times again to see him. He seemed very calm and collected. Death apparently had no terrors for him, and on one occasion he recalled the curious coincidence that our first meeting had been on our way home from the execution of the regicide Otero. The only thing which he seemed to dread was that his aged father—his one and solitary affection in the world—should learn of his disgrace. In answer to my repeated inquiries as to who his father was he invariably put me off with a smile, exclaiming, “Demain, demain!” (to-morrow). He appeared, however, to be filled with the most intense bitterness against the other members of his family, step-mother, half-brothers and sisters, who, he declared, had been the first cause of his estrangement from his father and of his own ruin.
