‘You know it—no.’
I shrugged my shoulders and remained silent.
So commenced the most extraordinary journey I have ever taken, a journey which was destined to end only at Havana. Across France and Spain and the Atlantic Ocean we travelled side by side, each unwilling to lose sight of the other; I, resolved to find out and if possible thwart the designs of my companion; Kehler, unable to determine whether I was an opponent, a rival, or a spy set over him by those on whose behalf he was engaged.
On the frontier, at Hendaye, a despatch was handed in to me through the carriage window. It was from Stearine, and contained these words, whose terrible significance I was designed to learn later—
‘United States warship Maine arrived harbour Havana.’
The agent of the Sugar Trust had been too careful to say more. But it was clear that he regarded this event as a move in the game played by the great exporting Trusts.
From the moment of our arrival in Madrid I was no longer able to keep a close watch on Kehler, though by a sort of tacit agreement we stayed at the same hotel. I found out that he was paying visits to the Provincials of the Jesuit and Franciscan Orders, and had been admitted as a visitor to one or two convents, and for a time I was tempted to relax my suspicions, and to think that the Bavarian was engaged in some Catholic espionage. These doubts were suddenly dissipated by my meeting him one day in the courtyard of the hotel attired in the habit of a priest—the dress of which he had been deprived on account of his youthful misconduct.
I could not doubt that this dress was a mere disguise, and that it had been assumed for a political purpose. I went up to him and whispered—
‘Do we still recognise each other, or do you prefer that we meet as strangers?’
‘As fellow-travellers simply, I should prefer,’ he responded.