Cesar nodded as if what was being considered were not his actions but those of a third party about whose fate he cared nothing.

“You also realised,” he said, “that the enemy was not the king but the black queen.”

Munoz shrugged.

“That wasn’t difficult. The connection with the murders was obvious: only those pieces taken by the black queen symbolised real murders. I applied myself to studying the moves of that one piece and I drew some interesting conclusions. For example, her protective role as regards Black’s play in general, which extended even to the white queen, her main enemy, and which she nevertheless respected as if the latter were sacred. The proximity of the white knight, myself, the two pieces on adjacent squares, almost like good neighbours, yet the black queen chose not to use her poisonous sting on him until later, when there would be no alternative.” He was looking at Cesar with opaque eyes. “At least I have the consolation of knowing that you would have killed me without hatred, even with a certain finesse and fellow feeling, with an apology on your lips, asking for my understanding. That you were driven purely by the demands of the game.”

Cesar made a theatrical, eighteenth-century gesture with his hand and bowed his head, grateful for the apparent precision of Munoz’s analysis.

“You’re absolutely right,” he said. “But tell me, how did you know you were the knight and not the bishop?”

“Thanks to a series of clues, some minor and others more important. The decisive one was the symbolic role of the bishop, which, as I mentioned before, is the piece that enjoys the trust of both king and queen. You, Cesar, played an extraordinary role in all this: white bishop disguised as black queen, acting on both sides of the board. And that very condition is what brought about your downfall, in a game which, curiously enough, you started precisely for that reason, to be beaten. And you received the coup de grace from your own hand: the white bishop takes the black queen, Julia’s antiquarian friend betrays the identity of the invisible player with his own game, like the scorpion stinging itself with its own tail. I can assure you that it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever witnessed a suicide on the chessboard carried out to such perfection.”

“Brilliant,” said Cesar, and Julia couldn’t tell if he was referring to Munoz’s analysis or to his own game. “But tell me something. In your judgment, how would you interpret that identification of mine with both the black queen and the white bishop?”

“I imagine that a detailed explanation would take us all night and the ensuing discussion several weeks. I can only speak now of what I saw revealed on the chessboard, and that was a split personality: evil, Cesar, in all its blackness. Your feminine side, do you remember? You asked me once for an analysis: someone hemmed in and oppressed by his surroundings, defiant in the face of authority, hostile and homosexual impulses. All of that was embodied beneath the black dress of Beatrice of Burgundy, in other words, the queen of chess. And in opposition to that, as different as day from night, was your love for Julia. Your other side which is just as painful to you: the masculine side, with certain modifications; the aesthetic side embodied in your chivalrous attitudes; what you wanted to be and were not. Roger de Arras embodied not in the knight but in the elegant white bishop. What do you think?”

Cesar was pale and motionless, for the first time in her life, Julia saw him paralysed by surprise. Then, after a few moments that seemed an eternity, filled only by the ticking of a wall clock marking the passing of that silence, Cesar finally managed a faint smile, at one corner of his bloodless lips. But it was mechanical, a way of confronting the implacable dissection of his personality that Munoz had cast into his face, like someone throwing down a gauntlet.

“Tell me about the bishop,” he said in a hoarse voice.

“Since you ask me to, I will.” Munoz’s eyes were lit now by the decisive brilliance of his moves. He was repaying his opponent for all the doubts and uncertainties the latter had put him through at the board; it was his professional revenge. And when she realised this, Julia knew that at some point in the game Munoz must have thought he was going to lose. “The bishop, with its deep, diagonal movement,” he said, “is the chess piece that best embodies homosexuality. Yes, you gave yourself another magnificent part as the bishop protecting the helpless white queen, the bishop who, in the end, in a moment of sublime resolution planned right at the start, deals a mortal blow to his own obscure condition and offers up to his adored white queen a masterly and terrifying lesson. I saw all that only gradually, as I slowly put my ideas together. But you didn’t play chess. At first that prevented my suspicions from centering on you. And even when I was almost certain, that was what disconcerted me. The game plan was too perfect for a normal player, and inconceivable even in a keen amateur. In fact, that still troubles me.”

“There’s an explanation for everything,” replied Cesar. “But I didn’t mean to interrupt you, my dear. Go on.”

“There’s nor much more to say. At least not here, tonight. Alvaro Ortega was killed by someone he perhaps knew, but I wasn’t completely sure about that. However, Menchu Roch would never have opened the door to a stranger, especially in the circumstances described by Max. In the cafe the other night, you said there were almost no suspects left, and you were right. I tried to approach it analytically, in successive stages. Lola Belmonte wasn’t my opponent; I knew that as soon as I met her. Nor was her husband. As for Don Manuel Belmonte, his odd musical paradoxes gave me plenty of food for thought… But the suspect was someone unbalanced. His chess-playing side, if I may put it like that, was not up to it. Besides, he was an invalid, which ruled out the violent actions perpetrated against Alvaro and Menchu. A possible combination of uncle and niece, bearing in mind the blonde woman in the raincoat, didn’t stand up to detailed analysis either: why would they steal something that was theirs already? As for Montegrifo, I made some enquiries, and I know that he has no links with chess whatsoever. Besides, Menchu would never have opened the door to him either that morning.”

“So that left only me.”

“As you know, when one has eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

“Of course I remember, my dear. And I congratulate you. I’m glad to see that I did not misjudge you.”

“That’s why you chose me, isn’t it? You knew that I would win the game. You wanted to be beaten.”

With an obliging little smile, Cesar indicated that it was now a matter of no importance.

“I did indeed expect to be beaten. I called on your good offices because Julia needed a guide in her descent into hell… Because this time I had to concentrate on playing the role of the Devil. She needed a companion. So I gave her one.”

Julia’s eyes flashed when she heard that. Her voice sounded metallic.

“You weren’t playing at being the Devil, but at being God. Dealing out good and evil, life and death.”

“It was your game, Julia.”

“You’re lying. It was yours. I was just a pretext.”

Cesar gave her a reproving look.

“You haven’t understood anything, my dear. But that doesn’t matter any more. Look in any mirror; perhaps you’ll agree with me then.”

“You can keep your mirrors, Cesar.”

He was genuinely hurt, like a dog or a child unjustly treated. The dumb reproach, overflowing with absurd loyalty, gradually faded from his eyes, and all that remained was an absorbed, almost tearful gaze, staring into space. Slowly he moved his head and looked again at Munoz.

“You haven’t yet told me,” he said, and he seemed to have difficulty recovering the tone he had used before when talking to Munoz, “how you set the trap that finally made your inductive theories fit the facts. Why have you come to see me with Julia tonight, and not yesterday, for example?”