Well, it stopped raining during the night, and the next morning it was a fine, bright, cold early winter day and at twelve forty-five I pushed open the revolving doors at Chicote’s to try a little gin and tonic before lunch. There were very few people there at that hour and two waiters and the manager came over to the table. They were all smiling.

“Did they catch the murderer?” I asked.

“Don’t make jokes so early in the day,” the manager said. “Did you see him shot?”

“Yes,” I told him.

“Me too,” he said. “I was just here when it happened.” He pointed to a corner table. “He placed the pistol right against the man’s chest when he fired.”

“How late did they hold people?”

“Oh until past two this morning.”

“They only came for the fiambre,” using the Spanish slang word for corpse, the same used on menus for cold meat, “at eleven o’clock this morning.”

“But you don’t know about it yet,” the manager said.

“No. He doesn’t know,” a waiter said.

“It is a very rare thing,” another waiter said. “Muy raro.”

“And sad too,” the manager said. He shook his head.

“Yes. Sad and curious,” the waiter said. “Very sad.”

“Tell me.”

“It is a very rare thing,” the manager said.

“Tell me. Come on tell me.”

The manager leaned over the table in great confidence.

“In the flit gun, you know,” he said. “He had eau de cologne. Poor fellow.”

“It was not a joke in such bad taste, you see?” the waiter said.

“It was really just gaiety. No one should have taken offense,” the manager said. “Poor fellow.”

“I see,” I said. “He just wanted everyone to have a good time.”

“Yes,” said the manager. “It was really just an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

“And what about the flit gun?”

“The police took it. They have sent it around to his family.”

“I imagine they will be glad to have it,” I said.

“Yes,” said the manager. “Certainly. A flit gun is always useful.”

“Who was he?”

“A cabinet maker.”

“Married?”

“Yes, the wife was here with the police this morning.”

“What did she say?”

“She dropped down by him and said, ‘Pedro, what have they done to thee, Pedro? Who has done this to thee? Oh Pedro.’”

“Then the police had to take her away because she could not control herself,” the waiter said.

“It seems he was feeble of the chest,” the manager said. “He fought in the first days of the movement. They said he fought in the Sierra but he was too weak in the chest to continue.”

“And yesterday afternoon he just went out on the town to cheer things up,” I suggested.