He folded up the letter and locked it away in the drawer.  He looked for a while out of the window of the saloon.  The yacht had rounded the Cabo San Antonio.  It was still the forenoon.

“This is where Jose Medina has got to come in,” he declared.  “You must go to Madrid, Fairbairn, and keep an eye on Mr. Jack Williams.  Meanwhile, here Jose Medina has got to come in.”

Fairbairn reluctantly agreed.  He would much rather have stayed upon the coast and shared in the adventure, but it was obviously necessary that a keen watch should be kept in Madrid.

“Very well,” he said, “unless, of course, you would like to go to Madrid yourself.”

Hillyard laughed.

“I think not, old man.”

He mounted the ladder to the bridge and gave the instructions to the Captain, and early that evening the Dragonfly was piloted into the harbour of Alicante.  Hillyard and Fairbairn went ashore.  They had some hours to get through before they could take the journey they intended.  They sauntered accordingly along the esplanade beneath the palm trees until they came to the Casino.  Both were temporary members of that club, and they sat down upon the cane chairs on the broad side-walk.  A military band was playing on the esplanade a little to their right, and in front of them a throng of visitors and townspeople strolled and sat in the evening air.  Hillyard smiled as he watched the kaleidoscopic grouping and re-grouping of men and children and women.  The revolutions of his life, a subject which in the press of other and urgent matters had fallen of late into the background of his thoughts, struck him again as wondrous and admirable.  He began to laugh with enjoyment.  He looked at Fairbairn.  How dull in comparison the regular sequences of his career!

“I wandered about here barefoot and penniless,” he said, “not so very long ago.  On this very pavement!” He struck it with his foot, commending to Fairbairn the amazing fact.  “I have cleaned boots,” and he called to a boy who was lying in wait with a boot-black’s apparatus on his back for any dusty foot.  “Chico, come and clean my shoes.”  He jested with the boy with the kindliness of a Spaniard, and gave him a shining peseta.  Hillyard was revelling in the romance of his life under the spur of the excitement which the affair of the letter had fired in him.  “Yes, I wandered here, passing up and down in front of this very Casino.”

And Fairbairn saw his face change and his eyes widen as though he recognised some one in the throng beneath the trees.

“What is it?” Fairbairn asked, and for a little while Hillyard did not answer.  His eyes were not following any movements under the trees.  They saw no one present in Alicante that day.  Slowly he turned to Fairbairn, and answered in voice of suspense: 

“Nothing!  I was just remembering—­and wondering!”

He remained sunk in abstraction for a long time.  “It can’t be!” at grips with “If it could be!” and a rising inspiration that “It was!” A man had once tried him out with questions about Alicante, a man who was afraid lest he should have seen too much.  But Hillyard had learnt to hold his tongue when he had only inspirations to go upon, and he disclosed nothing of this to Fairbairn.