"I met him in Sevilla when he was visiting Jerez for his company."
A slow smile of deep contentment touched the Saint's lips, and he put his torch away with an inaudible sigh. If he had known all the inside geography of the house and had moreover been gifted with second sight he couldn't have organized his entrance more accurately and appropriately. It was one of those moments when his guardian angel seemed to have hooked him bodily onto the assembly line of adventure and launched him onto an unerringly triumphant sequence of developments like the routine of some supernal mass-production factory.
In a few swift noiseless steps he was at the door with his ear close to the panels, in time to hear the first thin grumbling voice say: "In a case like this you should have more sense. You say you work for what you think is good for your country, but you are as stupid as a little child. I am only working for money for myself, but even I am more careful. Or is that the reason why I cannot afford to be stupid?"
"My dear Urivetzky!" The second voice was conciliatory. "It was not so easy as you think. We had to find agents quickly, and at a time when we could take no risks, when everything had to be done in secret, when, if we made a mistake, we could have been imprisoned or even executed. Ingleston had many friends in Sevilla, expropriated aristocrats, and they assured me that he was in sympathy with our cause. I heard the highest recommendations of him before I spoke to him, and we wished to use foreigners whenever possible because they would arouse no suspicion. But every man can be tempted—"
"It is the business of a leader to choose men who are difficult to tempt," Urivetzky retorted sourly. "Anyone who was not stupid would know that when you entrust a man with bearer bonds which are not traceable, which can be used for any purpose by the man who possesses them, that you must take care how you choose him."
"I am not so experienced in these matters as yourself." The other's voice had an edge to it. "Unfortunately all the gold of Spain is held by the Banco de Espana, in Madrid, which is held by the Reds, and we shall never know what they have done with it. I regret the necessity for these tricks, but we have no choice."
"Pah! You have choice enough. How many thousand Germans and Italians are fighting on your side?"
"They are in sympathy with us, but even they would not help us for nothing."
Urivetzky grunted.
"I also regret your necessities, if they are necessities," he said. "And I shall regret them more if your other agents have been as badly chosen."