The Man Who Loved Dogs

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London, August 22, 1940 (TASS) — London radio has today announced: “In a Mexico City hospital, Leon Trotsky died as a result of a fractured skull sustained in an attack perpetrated the previous day by a person in his innermost circle.”

LEANDRO SÁNCHEZ SALAZAR: Wasn’t he suspicious?

DETAINEE: No.

L.S.S.: Didn’t you think that he was a defenseless old man and that you were acting with cowardice?

D: I wasn’t thinking anything.

L.S.S.: You were walking over from where he fed the rabbits, what were you talking about?

D: I don’t remember if I was talking or not.

L.S.S.: He didn’t see when you took out the ice axe?

D: No.

L.S.S.: Immediately after you stabbed him, what did the gentleman do?

D: He jumped as if he had gone mad, he screamed like a madman, the sound of that scream is something I will remember for the rest of my life.

L.S.S.: Tell me what he did, let’s see.

D: A. . a. . a. . ah. .! But he was very loud.

(From Mexico City’s chief of secret police Colonel Leandro Sánchez Salazar’s interrogation of Jacques Mornard Vandendreschs, or Frank Jacson, the presumed killer of Leon Trotsky, the night of Friday, August 23, and the early hours of Saturday, August 24, 1940.)