“That is what I want to do.”

“I will arrange for it.  When?”

“To-night,” said Hillyard.

Lopez Baeza lifted his hands in deprecation.

“Yes.  I can take you to his house—­now.  But, senor, Ramon is a poor man.  He lives in a little narrow street.”

Hillyard looked quietly at Lopez Baeza.  He had found men on the Mediterranean littoral whom he could trust with his life and everything that was his.  But a good working principle was to have not overmuch faith in any one.  A noisome little street in the lower quarters of Barcelona—­who could tell what might happen after one had plunged into it?

“I will come with you,” he said.

“Good,” said Lopez.  “I will go on ahead.”  And once more Hillyard’s quiet eyes rested upon Baeza’s face.  “It is not wise that we should walk out together.  There is no one here, it is true, but in the chairs outside the cafes—­who shall say?”

“Yes.  You go on ahead,” Hillyard agreed.  “That is wise.”

Lopez rose.

“Give me five minutes, senor.  Then down the Rambla.  The second turning to the right, beyond the Opera House.  You will see me at the corner.  When you see me, follow!”

Hillyard rose and shook hands cordially with Lopez Baeza with the air of a man who might never see his friend again for years.  Baeza commended him to God and went out of the restaurant on to the lighted footway.

Hillyard read through the two creased letters again, though he knew them by heart.  They had reached him from William Lloyd, an English merchant at Barcelona, at two different dates.  The first, written six weeks ago, related how Pontiana Tabor, a servant of the firm, had come into Lloyd’s private office and informed him that on the night of the 27th June a German submarine had entered a deep cove at the lonely north-east point of the island of Mallorca, and had there been provisioned by Jose Medina’s men, with Jose Medina’s supplies, and that Jose Medina had driven out of Palma de Mallorca in his motor-car, and travelling by little-known tracks, had been present when the operation was in process.  The name of a shoemaker in a street of Palma was given as corroboration.

The second letter, which had brought Hillyard post-haste off the sea into Barcelona, was only three days old.  Once more Pontiana Tabor had been the bearer of bad news.  Jose Medina had been seen entering the German Consulate in Barcelona, between eleven and twelve o’clock of the morning of August 22nd.

Hillyard was greatly troubled by these two letters.

“We can put Jose Medina out of business, of course,” he reflected.  For Jose Medina’s tobacco factories were built at a free port in French territory.  “But I want the man for my friend.”

He put the letters back in his pocket and paid his bill.  As he went out of the Maison Doree, he felt in the right-hand pocket of his jacket to make sure that a little deadly life preserver lay ready to his hand.