The true author of the crime of Tijuco confessed of his own free
will, and described the circumstances under which it had been
perpetrated!
By means of the number Judge Jarriquez interpreted the whole of the
cryptogram.
And this was what Ortega confessed.
He had been the colleague of Joam Dacosta, employed, like him, at
Tijuco, in the offices of the governor of the diamond arrayal. He had
been the official appointed to accompany the convoy to Rio de
Janeiro, and, far from recoiling at the horrible idea of enriching
himself by means of murder and robbery, he had informed the smugglers
of the very day the convoy was to leave Tijuco.
During the attack of the scoundrels, who awaited the convoy just
beyond Villa Rica, he pretended to defend himself with the soldiers
of the escort, and then, falling among the dead, he was carried away
by his accomplices. Hence it was that the solitary soldier who
survived the massacre had reported that Ortega had perished in the
struggle.
But the robbery did not profit the guilty man in the long run, for, a
little time afterward, he was robbed by those whom he had helped to
commit the crime.
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