“The German secret-service agent.  The best in the world, they say.”  A sort of reluctant admiration showed in Van Blarcom’s face.  “There isn’t any one that can get him; he does what he wants, goes where he likes—­the United States, England, France, Russia—­and always gets away safe.  You’d think he was a conjurer to read what he does sometimes.  A whole country will be looking for him, and he takes some one else’s passport, puts on a disguise, and good-by—­he’s gone!  That’s Franz von Blenheim.  No; that’s just an outline of him.  And on pretty good authority, he’s in Washington now.”

Mr. Van Blarcom, I reflected, was surely coming out of his shell; this was quite a monologue with which he was favoring me.  It was dark now; our lights were flaring.  Being in a friendly port’s shelter, we burned electricity to-night.

“You seem to know a whole lot about this fellow,” I remarked idly in the pause.

“Yes, I do.”  He smiled a trifle grimly.  “In fact, I once came near getting him; it would have made my fortune, too.  But he slipped through my fingers at the last minute, and if I ever—­You see, I’m in the secret-service myself, Mr. Bayne.”

I turned to stare at him.

“The United States service?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I nodded.  All that had puzzled me was fairly clear in this new light.  Not at all the type of the star agents, those marvelous beings who figure so romantically in fiction and on the boards, he was yet, I fancied, a good example of the ruck of his profession, those who did the every-day detective work which in such a business must be done.  But—­Franz von Blenheim?  What was my association with the name?  Then I recalled that in the extra I had read as we left harbor there had been some account of the man’s activities in Mexico.

“What I wanted to say was this,” Van Blarcom continued in his usual manner—­the manner that I now recognized to be a subtler form of the policeman’s, respectful to those he held for law-abiding, alert and watchful to detect gentry of any other kind.  “This line we’re traveling on now is one the spies use quite a bit.  They used to go to London straight or else to Bordeaux and Paris; but the English and French got a pretty strict watch going, and now it’s easier for them to slip into France through Italy, by Modane.  They sail for Naples mostly, do you see?  And—­you won’t repeat this?—­it’s fairly sure that when Franz von Blenheim sends his government a report of what he’s done in Mexico against us, he’ll send it by an agent who travels on this line and lands in Italy and then slips into Germany by way of Switzerland.”

We were drifting slowly into the harbor of Gibraltar, the rock looming over us through the blackness, a gigantic mountain, a mass of tiered and serried lights.  Search-lights, too, shot out like swords, focused on us, and swept us as we crept forward between dimly visible, anchored craft.  The throbbing of our engines ceased.  A launch chugged toward us, bringing the officers of the port.  I watched, pleased with the scene, and rather taken with my companion’s discourse.  It was not unlike a dime novel of my youth.