which perched the pavilions and casino of the Strangers’ Club was his property.  Still more significant, to Blanco’s reasoning, was the fact that Reebeler, though Puntal-born, was of British parentage and that over his house, in the Ruo do Consilhiero, floated both British and American flags, while the double coat-of-arms above his balcony proclaimed him the consular agent of both governments.  Here, reasoned Blanco, was a man shielded behind the devices of two nations, neither of which was engaged in petty Mediterranean intrigue.  He would be the last man in Puntal to challenge a suspicious glance from the Palace, yet as a man of moneyed enterprise his wish for concessions might well give a political coloring to his thoughts.  Somewhere he had heard that the Strangers’ Club aspired to the establishment of a gambling Mecca which should rival Monte Carlo in magnitude and that the present impediment was the frown of the government upon such a wholesale gambling enterprise.  It was quite unlikely that the Delgado government would discourage a syndicate which could turn a munificent revenue into its taxing coffers.

Through a shaded courtyard where a small fountain tinkled, Blanco strolled to the Consular office and rapped on the door.  He was conducted by a native servant to an inner room.  Here, while a great blue-bottle fly droned and thumped, Reebeler, a heavy Briton with mild eyes, sprawled his length in a wicker chair and poured brandy and soda.  First Blanco represented himself as an adoptive American, touring the world and interested in natural resources.  When his host had exhausted the subject of the wine-grower’s battle against the ravages of “oidium Tuckeri” and “phyloxera,” Blanco picked up a stick of sealing-wax from the table and commenced toying with it in a manner of aimlessness.  He struck match after match and melted pellet after pellet of wax, then absently he took from his pocket a gold seal-ring and made, with its shield, several impressions on the wax.  Reebeler’s eyes were half-closed as he gazed vacantly at the pigeons cooing and strutting in his courtyard.

“See, I have at last got a good impression.”  The Spaniard idly tossed over the scrap of paper upon which he had stamped a half-dozen of Louis Delgado’s crests from the die of the Comptessa Astaride’s ring.

The Consul took the fragment of paper with the manner of one forced by politeness to assume an interest in trivialities which bore him.

“See how clearly the device of His Grace stands out in the last impression,” casually suggested Blanco, then with eyes narrowly bent on the other he saw the astonished start as his vis-a-vis realized what device had been imprinted on the paper.  It was the sign for which he had played.  When Reebeler’s eyes came up questioningly to his own, he, too, was looking off through the raised window where the limp curtain barely trembled in the light breeze.

“The ring is interesting,” suggested the Consul.