“You wished to see me, senor,” and Hillyard turned with curiosity.

Twelve years had passed since he had seen Jose Medina, but he had changed less than Hillyard expected.  Martin remembered him as small and slight, with a sharp mobile face and a remarkable activity which was the very badge of the man; and these characteristics he retained.  He was still like quick-silver.  But he was fast losing his hair, and he wore pince-nez.  The dress of the peasant and the cautious manner of the peasant, both were gone.  In his grey lounge suit he had the look of a quick-witted clerk.

“You wished to see me, senor,” he repeated, and he laid the card upon the table.

“For a moment.  I shall hope not to detain you long.”

“My time and my house are yours.”

Jose Medina had clearly become a caballero since those early days of adventure.  Hillyard noted the point for his own guidance, thanking his stars meanwhile that the gift of the house was a meaningless politeness.

“I arrived at Palma this morning, in a yacht,” said Hillyard.

Jose Medina was prepared for the information.  He bowed.  There had been neither smile nor, indeed, any expression whatever upon his face since he had entered the room.

“I have heard of the yacht,” he said.  “It is a fine ship.”

“Yes.”

Jose Medina looked at Hillyard.

“It flies the English flag.”

Hillyard bowed.

“As do your feluccas, senor, I believe.”

A mere twitch of the lips showed that Medina appreciated the point.

“But I,” continued Hillyard, “am an Englishman, while you, senor——­”

Jose Medina was not, if he could help it, to be forced to cry “a hit” again.

“Whereas I, senor, am a neutral,” he answered.  The twitch of the lips became a smile.  He invited Hillyard to a chair, he drew up another himself, and the two men sat down over against one another in the middle of that bare and formal room.

That one word neutral, so delicately emphasised, warned Hillyard that Jose Medina was quite alive to the reason of his visit.  He could, of course, have blurted it out at once.  He could have said in so many words, “Your tobacco factories are on French soil, and your two hundred feluccas are nominally owned in Gibraltar.  Between French and English we shall close you down unless you help.”  But he knew very well that he would have got no more than fair words if he had.  It is not thus that delicate questions are approached in Spain.  Even the blackmailer does not dream of bluntly demanding money, or exposing his knowledge that he will get it.  He pleads decently the poverty of his family and the long illness of his mother-in-law; and with the same decency the blackmailed yields to compassion and opens his purse.  There is a gentlemanly reticence to be observed in these matters and Hillyard was well aware of the rules.  He struck quite a different note.