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By Root 1113 0

the commissariat. And he adjured him to reveal where he had been and what he had been doing the evening before during the hours when Sarita Huanca Salaverría swore that she had been raped and assaulted by him. Gumercindo Tello stated that he had spent the entire evening, as was his habit every night, alone in his room, absorbed in meditation on the Trunk and the fact that, contrary to what certain people maintained, it was not true that all men would be brought back to life on the day of the Last Judgment, a fact that proved the mortality of the soul. On being reprimanded a second time, the accused apologized and said he wasn’t deliberately disobeying the captain’s orders, but that he couldn’t keep himself from trying at every moment to bring a little light to others, inasmuch as it made him despair to see the utter darkness amid which other people lived. And he stated that he did not remember having seen Sarita Huanca Salaverría at any time that evening or later that night, and asked that the record show that despite his having been slandered by the girl he bore her no ill will and was even grateful to her because he suspected that, through her, God had been testing the strength of his faith. Seeing that it was not going to be possible to obtain from Gumercindo Tello any more precise details concerning the charges brought against him, Captain G. C. Enrique Soto brought his interrogation of him to an end and transferred the accused to the detention cell in the Palace of Justice, in order that the examining magistrate might proceed with his investigation of the case in due and proper form.

Dr. Don Barreda y Zaldívar closed the folder containing the dossier of the accused and, amid the morning din of justice being done, reflected. Jehovah’s Witnesses? He knew their kind only too well. Not many years before, a man making his way about the world on a bicycle had knocked at the door of his house and offered him a copy of The Watchtower, which, in a moment of weakness, he had accepted. From that moment on, with astral punctuality, the Witness had laid siege to his house, at all hours of the day and night, insisting on enlightening him, inundating him with pamphlets, books, magazines of all sizes and descriptions having to do with any number of subjects, until, finding himself incapable of putting a stop to the Witness’s unwelcome visits by virtue of such civilized methods as persuasion, earnest entreaties, and stern lectures, the magistrate had finally called the police. So the rapist was one of these irrepressible proselytizers. This case was beginning to be an interesting one, Dr. Don Barreda y Zaldívar said to himself.

It was only midmorning and the magistrate, distractedly fingering the long, sharp letter opener with the Tiahuanaco handle on his desk, a token of the affection of his superiors, colleagues, and subordinates (who had presented him with it on the day of his twenty-fifth anniversary in the legal profession), called his secretary into his chambers and told him to show in the deponents in the case.

The two Guardias Civiles, Cusicanqui Apéstegui and Tito Parinacocha, entered first, and in respectful tones confirmed the circumstances under which they had arrested Gumercindo Tello, noting also for the record that the latter, despite having denied the charges brought against him, had been altogether cooperative, though a bit tiresome due to his religious mania. Dr. Zelaya, his glasses sliding up and down the bridge of his nose, took down their testimony word for word as they spoke.

The parents of the minor entered next, a couple whose advanced age surprised the magistrate: how could this pair of doddering oldsters have engendered a daughter only thirteen years before? Toothless and rheumy-eyed, the father, Don Isaías Huanca, immediately confirmed the statements concerning him as set down in the police report and then inquired, in an urgent tone of voice, whether Señor Tello was going to marry Sarita. He had barely put this question to the magistrate when Señora Salaverría de Huanca, a little woman with a wizened