Enriquez induced a scullion in the royal kitchen to put more of the
powder in a basin of broth in Escovedo's own house. For this the poor
kitchenmaid who cooked the broth was hanged in the public square of
Madrid, _sin culpa_.

Pious Philip was demoralising his subjects at a terrible rate! But you
cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs. Philip slew that girl of
his kitchen as surely as if he had taken a gun and shot her, but
probably the royal confessor said that all was as it should be.

In spite of the resources of Spanish science, Escovedo persisted in
living, and Perez determined that he must be shot or stabbed. Enriquez
went off to his own country to find a friend who was an assassin, and
to get 'a stiletto with a very fine blade, much better than a pistol
to kill a man with.' Enriquez, keeping a good thing in the family,
enlisted his brother: and Martinez, from Aragon, brought 'two proper
kind of men,' Juan de Nera and Insausti, who, with the King's
scullion, undertook the job. Perez went to Alcala for Holy Week, just
as the good Regent Murray left Edinburgh on the morning of Darnley's
murder, after sermon. 'Have a halibi' was the motto of both gentlemen.

The underlings dogged Escovedo in the evening of Easter Monday.
Enriquez did not come across him, but Insausti did his business with
one thrust, in a workmanlike way. The scullion hurried to Alcala, and
told the news to Perez, who 'was highly delighted.'

We leave this good and faithful servant, and turn to Don John. When
he, far away, heard the news he was under no delusions about love
affairs as the cause of the crime. He wrote to his wretched brother
the King 'in grief greater than I can describe.' The King, he said,