Cæsar was in Madrid at the time of the crime. Some days later a committee from the Club came to see him; it was necessary to have a charge pushed and for Cæsar to be the private attorney.
According to the Club people, the Clericals wanted to save “Driveller” Juan, and if he was not disposed of completely, he would begin his performances again.
Cæsar could see nothing for it but to accept the duty which the town put upon him.
Because of the crime, the history of “Driveller’s” family came to be public property. He had a mother and two sisters who were seamstresses, whom he exploited, and he lived with a tavern-keeper nicknamed “The Cub-Slut,” a buxom, malicious woman, who said horrible things about everybody.
LIFE OF “THE CUB-SLUT”
There were reasons for “The Cub-Slut’s” being what she was. Her parents being dead when she was a baby, having no relatives she had been left deserted. A farrier they called “Gaffer,” who seemed to have been a kind person, took in the infant and brought her up in his house. It was “Gaffer” who had given the nickname to the child, because instead of calling her by her name, he used to say:
“Hey, ‘Cub-Slut!’ Hey, little ‘Cub-Slut!’” and the appellation had stuck.
When the girl was fourteen, “Gaffer” ravished her, and afterwards, being tired of her, took her to a house of prostitution in the Capital and sold her. “The Cub-Slut” left the brothel to go and live with an old innkeeper, who died and made her his heiress. Six years later she went back to Castro. Those that had seen her come back maintained that when she reached the town and was told that “Gaffer” had died a few months before, she burst into tears; some said it was from sentiment, but others thought, very plausibly, that it was from rage at not being able to get revenge. “The Cub-Slut” set up a tavern at Castro.
“Driveller” and “The Cub-Slut” got along well, although, by what any one could discover, “The Cub-Slut” treated the bully more like a servant than anything else.