A jingle of keys answered him, and rising from the step of another house the watchman of the street crossed the road.  He put a key into the door, opened it, and received the usual twopence.  Baeza and Hillyard passed in.

“Ramon is on the top floor.  We have to climb,” said Baeza.

He lit a match, and the two men mounted a staircase with a carved balustrade, made for a king.  Two stories up, the great staircase ended, and another of small, steep and narrow steps succeeded it.  When Baeza’s match went out there was no light anywhere; from a room somewhere above came a sound of quarrelling voices—­a woman’s voice high and shrill, a man’s voice hoarse and drunken, and, as an accompaniment, the wailing of a child wakened from its sleep.

At the very top of the house Baeza rapped on a door.  The door was opened, and a heavy, elderly man, wearing glasses on his nose, stood in the entrance with the light of an unshaded lamp behind him.

“Ramon, it is the chief,” said Baeza.

Ramon Castello crossed the room and closed an inner door.  Then he invited Hillyard to enter.  The room was bare but for a few pieces of necessary furniture, but all was scrupulously clean.  Ramon Castillo set forward a couple of chairs and asked his visitors to be seated.  He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he wore the rope-soled sandals of the Spanish peasant, but he was entirely at his ease.  He made the customary little speech of welcome with so simple a dignity and so manifest a sincerity that Hillyard could hardly doubt him afterwards.

“It is my honour to welcome you not merely as my chief, but as an Englishman.  I am poor, and I take my pay, but Senor Baeza will assure you that for twenty-five years I have been the friend of England.  And there are thousands and thousands of poor Spaniards like myself, who love England, because its law-courts are just, because there is a real freedom there, because political power is not the opportunity of oppression.”

The little speech was spoken with great rapidity and with deep feeling; and, having delivered it, Ramon seated himself on the side of the table opposite to Hillyard and Baeza and waited.

“It is about Pontiana Tabor,” said Hillyard.  “He is making a mistake?”

“No, senor; he is lying,” and he used the phrase which has no exact equivalent in the English.  “He is a sin verguenza.”

“Tell me, my friend,” said Hillyard.

“Pontiana Tabor swears that Jose Medina was seen to enter the German Consulate before noon on August the 22nd.  But on August the 21st Medina was in Palma, Mallorca; he was seen there by a captain of the Islana Company, and a friend of mine spoke to him on the quay.  If, therefore, he was in the German Consulate here on the 22nd, he must have crossed that night by the steamer to Barcelona.  But he did not.  His name was not on the list of passengers, and although he might have avoided that, he was not seen on board or to come on board.  I have spoken with officers and crew.  Jose Medina did not cross on the 21st.  Moreover, Senor Baeza has seen a letter which shows that he was certainly in Palma on the 23rd.”