An ex-police inspector, he’d been convicted for embezzlement. He claimed to be related to a cardinal who was, in his turn, a friend of the king and queen. Thus, day after day, he expected a pardon, not only for himself, but he also promised a pardon for any convict who gave him cigarettes, money, or other things. Employed in the clerk’s office and thus able to communicate with the outside world, he promoted a secret correspondence between the convicts and their families and managed to smuggle in money, tobacco, stamps, and alcohol, thereby profiting greatly. He at once offered Costantino every favour and asked him if he wanted to send any letters home.

‘Yes,’ said the young man, ‘but I have nothing to give you. I’m poor.’

‘Never mind, we’re fellow countrymen,’ said the other man generously. He thereupon told Costantino tales of his gallantry as a police inspector, of how he had killed more than ten bandits, and how he had ten medals and had once been to Rome, where the king invited him into his box at the theatre. He was a hero. But he never spoke of his crowning feat. He only said he was in prison because of the machinations of certain jealous enemies. At the start, Costantino believed him and gave him every sympathy despite his ungainly appearance. Then, day by day, as the inspector’s stories changed and became ever more exaggerated, Costantino – like the other convicts who despised the King of Spades but played up to him for their own ends – became sceptical.

It was soon obvious that all the prison inmates, including the warders, were liars and felons. The convicts had to hide their real selves and to make up fantastic stories about the past and the future that would enhance them in the eyes of their companions. Costantino noted with surprise that the convicts with the longest sentences were the least wicked, though the vainest and the biggest liars. Some of the lesser convicts bore grudges among themselves. They were mean and they spied on each other. The long-term convicts made use of these petty criminals, betraying them as soon as they had served their purpose, betraying their friends without hesitation.

‘Corruption gnaws deep into almost all convicts, many of whom are dyed-in-the-wool criminals familiar with every form of vice,’ the King of Spades told Costantino. ‘The very air we breathe is contaminated. If a man is cut off from society, deprived of his freedom, instead of suffering punishment he becomes completely sodden, loses what remains of his moral sense, turns into a liar so violent and so corrupt that he is no longer even aware of his own depravity.

‘In my opinion,’ he went on, ‘the only honest men here are us two, Gooseneck and the Delegate. All the others are criminals. Watch out for them, Costantino, old fellow. This clutch of bandits is worse than those I’ve sent to the gallows.’