“That is true,” said Baeza.  “Medina was in Palma on the 21st, and in Palma on the 23rd, and he did not cross to Barcelona on the night of the 21st, nor back again to Palma on the night of the 22nd.  Therefore he was not seen to visit the German Consulate on the morning of the 22nd, and, as Ramon says, Pontiana is lying.”

“Why should Pontiana lie?” asked Hillyard.

Ramon took his pince-nez from the bridge of his nose, and, holding them between his finger and thumb, tapped with them upon his knee.

“Because, senor, there are other contrabandists besides Jose Medina; one little group at Tarragona and another near Garucha—­and they would all be very glad to see Jose Medina get into trouble with the British and the French.  His feluccas fly the British flag and his factories are on French soil.  There would be an end of Jose Medina.”

The letters were put in front of Hillyard.  He read them over carefully, and at the end he said: 

“If Pontiana Tabor lied in this case of the Consulate—­and that seems clear—­it is very likely that he lied also in the other.  Yes.”

As a matter of fact, Hillyard had reasons of his own to doubt the truth of the story which ascribed to Medina the actual provisioning of a submarine—­reasons which had nothing whatever to do with Jose Medina himself.

The destruction of shipping by German submarines in this western section of the Mediterranean had an intermittent regularity.  There would be ten successive days—­hardly ever more than ten days—­during which ships were sunk.  Thereafter for three weeks, steamships and sailing ships would follow the course upon which they were ordered, without hurt or loss.  After three weeks, the murderous business would begin again.  There was but one explanation in Hillyard’s opinion.

“The submarines come out of Pola.  When they reach the line between the Balearics and the Spanish coast, they have oil for ten days’ cruising, and then return to their base,” he argued.

Now, if a submarine had been provisioned by Jose Medina in a creek of Mallorca, the ten days’ cruise would be extended to three weeks.  This had never happened.  Moreover, the date fixed by Pontiana Tabor happened to fall precisely in the middle of one of those periods of three weeks during which the terror did not haunt those seas.  Pontiana Tabor had not known enough.  He had fixed his date at a venture.

“Yes,” said Hillyard, rising from his chair.  “I agree with you, Senor Ramon.  Tabor is a liar.  What troubled me was that I had no clue as to why he should lie.  You have given me it, and with all my heart I thank you.”

He shook the stevedore’s hand and stood for a moment talking and joking with him upon other subjects.  Hillyard knew the value of a smile and a jest and a friendly manner.  Your very enemy in Spain will do you a good turn if you meet him thus.  Then he turned to Baeza.

“I shall be back, perhaps, in a week, but perhaps not.  I will let you know in the usual way.”