“I want to tip you off that those fellows are a pair of shrewd birds,” said the police agent.
“Gee! You don’t say!”
“Uf! It would be better if they were out of sight! The Cripple, especially, is as crooked as they make them. Don’t get mixed up with him, for he’s likely to do anything.”
“Is that how wild he is?”
“You just bet. I know his history, all right, though he doesn’t know that I do. His name is Marcos Calatrava, and he comes of good family. Only two years ago he was studying medicine.”
El Garro related the entire life story of Marcos. At first he had been an excellent student. Then all at once he became a habituée of dives and dens, in one of which he once stole a cape. He was unfortunate enough to be caught red-handed; they took him off to the Model Prison and he stayed there two months. The following year he made up his mind to give up studying, and since they no longer sent him money from home he began a life of bullying around gambling resorts and joints. During a fight he was stabbed, and for a while this cooled his enthusiasm for swaggering. When he got well he went to see the Mother Superior of the San Carlos Sisters of Charity and asked her for some money. He wished to become a monk, he said; he had been touched by the divine grace. With his honeyed speech he convinced the woman; he not only got the money from her, but also a letter to the prior of a monastery of Burgos.
Calatrava squandered the money and within two or three months was at the point of starvation. Hereupon he organized a company of strolling players whom he exploited in the most conscienceless manner, and about a year or so after he had received the letter from the Mother Superior, during a period of terrible famine, he came upon it at the bottom of a trunk and made up his mind to use it. As he was a man of rapid decisions, he did not hesitate, took the train without a ticket, and arrived at Burgos amongst the freight. He presented himself at the monastery and entered as a novice. Within a short time he requested them to send him among the towns collecting alms. At first he was excellent, even distinguishing himself for his zeal. Soon, however, he began to commit barbarities, scandalizing the pious inhabitants of the villages. When the prior, who had been apprised of his exploits, sent him an order to return to the monastery, Calatrava, paying no attention to the command, continued to swindle the townsfolk. When they were about to apprehend him, he returned to Madrid. After three or four months in the capital he exhausted all his money and his credit, and decided to enlist in the medical section of the army and go off to the Philippines.
An army physician, seeing how clever and ready to assist this Marcos was, tried to help him complete his course and placed him as an interne in the military hospital at Manila.
At once Calatrava set about robbing the hospital pharmacy of medicines, bandages, apparatus,—whatever he could lay hands upon to sell. He was discharged; he asked for permanent papers and gave himself up to exploiting the gamblers in the Manila dives. As he was so fastidious, life there soon became impossible for him, whereupon he fell back upon a military club and succeeded in having them raise a collection for him. With that money he returned to Spain.
Once in Madrid he was soon out of funds again, but as he was not of the kind who drown in a little water, he enlisted in a battalion of volunteers en route to Cuba. Marcos won distinction through his bravery in many a battle, rose soon to a sergeantcy, when a bullet entered his leg and they had to amputate it in the Havana Hospital. The fellow now returned to Spain, with no future ahead of him and only a ridiculous pension to fall back upon.