“Had there been,” said Alicia.

“Still, one could say that although there was no justice, there was at least a spot of irony. Such is heaven. They say that shortly after returning from Cuba, the Sugar Cube Emperor began to lose his mind thanks to a poison supplied during his last tropical dinner by a resentful mulatto cook, pregnant with malice and goodness knows what else. The loaded colonial ended up blowing his brains out in the attic of the house he’d only just moved into, convinced that there was something living in the house, something that crept along the walls and the ceiling and smelled like a serpent’s nest. . . . Something that slid nightly into his bedroom and nestled up beside him in his bed, to suck away his soul.”

“Impressive,” said Alicia. “Are the theatrical touches yours?”

“I borrowed them from Mataix, who included the anecdote, with some operatic embellishments, in one of the Labyrinth novels.”

“What a shame.”

“Reality never beats fiction, at least not quality fiction.”

“And reality in this case was . . .”

“In all probability something more mundane. The most reliable theory was already put forward on the day of Ernesto the nabob’s funeral, a huge event that took place in the cathedral in the presence of the bishop, the mayor, and all the menagerie of the city council. Not to mention all those to whom Uncle Ernesto had lent money, there to make quite sure he was dead so they wouldn’t have to give it back to him. But, as I was saying, the gossip of the day was that the only thing that slid between the sugar tycoon’s sheets was the housekeeper’s daughter, a seventeen-year-old girl not to be messed around with, who later in life acquired fame and fortune as a cabaret artist in the Paralelo theaters, calling herself Doris Laplace, and that what she sucked every night was not precisely his soul.”

“So, the suicide . . .”

“Assisted, it would appear. Everything seems to suggest that the magnate’s long-suffering new wife—and they say Nordic women are cold!—after putting up with years of marriage and serial infidelity, finally flipped her lid. One midsummer’s night she shot him in the face, the rumor goes, with the hunting gun he always kept next to his bed in case the Anarchists arrived.”

“An exemplary tale.”

“The lives of saints and sinners, a classic Barcelona genre. Whatever the true version of events, the fact is that the mansion was abandoned for years. Its reputation for spells and curses linked to it since the wealthy colonial baron placed the first stone never went away, not even when the newlyweds Mataix and his wife, Susana, settled there. Admittedly, the house was quite something. Once Mataix offered me a deluxe tour that sent shivers up my spine—though I have to admit I’m someone who prefers musical comedies and light romance. There were stairs that led nowhere, a corridor with mirrors placed to make you think someone was following you, and a cellar where a mosaic on the bottom of a swimming pool depicted the face of the mogul’s first Cuban wife, Leonor, who at nineteen, convinced that she was pregnant by a snake, had committed suicide by sticking a hairpin into her heart.”