“Last rites,” Father Montseny said, shaking water off his cassock.

“Ah, that poor woman upstairs,” the man made the sign of the cross. “It’s a dirty night,” he said.

“We’ve had worse, my son, and this will pass.”

“True,” the man said. He went into the courtyard and climbed the stairs to the first-floor balcony. “You’re Catalonian, Father?”

“How did you know?”

“Your accent, Father.” The man took out his key and unlocked his front door and the priest appeared to edge past him toward the steps climbing to the second floor.

The man opened his door, then pitched forward as Father Montseny suddenly turned and gave him a push. The man sprawled on the floor. He had a knife and tried to draw it, but the priest kicked him hard under the chin. Then the front door swung shut and they were in the dark. Father Montseny knelt on the fallen man’s chest and put his own knife at his victim’s throat. “Say nothing, my son,” he ordered. He felt under the trapped man’s wet cloak and found the knife, which he drew and tossed up the passageway. “You will speak,” he said, “only when I ask you questions. Your name is Gonzalo Jurado?”

“Yes.” Jurado’s voice was scarce above a breath.

“Do you have the whore’s letters?”

“No,” Jurado said, then squealed because Father Montseny’s knife had cut through his skin to touch his jawbone.

“You will be hurt if you lie,” the priest said. “Do you have the letters?”

“I have them, yes!”

“Then show them to me.”

Father Montseny let Jurado rise. He stayed close as Jurado went into a room that overlooked the street where the priest had waited. Steel struck flint and a candle was lit. Jurado could see his assailant more clearly now and thought Montseny must be a soldier in disguise because his face did not have the look of a priest. It was a dark, lantern-jawed face without pity. “The letters are for sale,” Jurado said, then gasped because Father Montseny had hit him in the belly.