"'A few days subsequent to this ill success, secretary Antonio Perez gave another dinner in what is called Cordon House, which belonged to the count of Punon Rostro, where secretary Escovedo, Dona Juana Coello, the wife of Perez, and other guests, were present. Each of them was served with a dish of milk or cream, and in Escovedo's was mixed a powder like flour. I gave him, moreover, some wine mixed with the water of the preceding dinner. This time it operated better, for secretary Escovedo was very ill, without guessing the reason. During his illness, I found means for one of my friends, the son of captain Juan Rubio, governor of the principality of Melfi, and formerly Perez's major-domo (which son, after having been page to Dona Juana Coello, was a scullion in the king's kitchens), to form an acquaintance with secretary Escovedo's cook, whom he saw every morning. Now, as they prepared for the sick man a separate broth, this scullion, taking advantage of a moment when nobody saw him, cast into it a thimble-full of a powder that Diego Martinez had given him. When secretary Escovedo had taken some of this food, they found that it contained poison. They subsequently arrested one of Escovedo's female slaves who must have been employed to prepare the pottage; and, upon this proof, they hung her in the public square at Madrid, though she was innocent. "'Secretary Escovedo having escaped all these plottings, Antonio Perez adopted another plan, viz., that we should kill him some evening with pistols, stilettoes, or rapiers, and that without delay. I started, therefore, for my country, to find one of my intimate friends, and a stiletto with a very thin blade, a much better weapon than a pistol for murdering a man. I travelled post, and they gave me some bills of exchange of Lorenzo Spinola at Genoa, to get money at Barcelona, and which, in fact, I received on arriving there.'