Arranging with him to keep my own clothes until I called again, I sallied forth, quite confident that I had effectually destroyed all traces of my identity, and evaded the men who had been watching me at San Sebastian. To further my plans I bought in the market a basket such as street hawkers carry and a quantity of oranges.
Having done this, I sought out a quiet corner, and, sitting down on the pavement, began eating some bread and olives I had bought, just as any other equally disreputable Spanish pedlar might have done. I could hardly help laughing at the incongruity of my surroundings—Gerald Sant, to whom pretty well every fashionable hotel in Europe was intimately familiar, taking his breakfast of bread and olives seated on the pavement in a Santander slum.
But my breakfast was only a part of the work I had to do. Taking a cigarette from my case, I carefully slit it open, threw away the tobacco, and wrote a message upon the paper. Then, rolling the thin scrap, I placed it within a quill toothpick, plugging the sharpened end with a scrap of orange peel. Afterwards I inserted the quill into the centre of one of the oranges, carefully covering up the puncture and drying it. Inside the quill was the translation, for Madame Gabrielle’s benefit, of the “Fontan” cable.
Then, in the guise of a poor fruit-seller, I sought out the hotel in the Calle Mendez where I knew that Madame Gabrielle had arrived. I knew, of course, that she would be eagerly on the look-out for me, and that, as she would guess I should be disguised, she would station herself in some prominent place, where I could see her at once.
Evidently, however, she did not expect me so soon. No doubt she had looked up the trains, and, knowing that I must have missed the last one the previous night, would naturally conclude that I would arrive about midday. The stratagem of the bicycle had evidently not occurred to her.
I drifted slowly backwards and forwards in front of the hotel, and after a time had the intense satisfaction of seeing the “Italian,” Signor Bruno, come lazily out and seat himself in a comfortable chair in the ample porch. It was obvious that he was expecting someone, for his eyes constantly searched the long, straight roadway.
A moment later Madame Gabrielle, daintily attired in the latest Parisian mode and carrying a sunshade, strolled leisurely into the porch. She was accompanied by a lady, obviously Spanish, with whom she had no doubt scraped a breakfast-table acquaintance.
Despite the need for hurry, I could not help being amused at her evident failure to recognise me. Twice or three times I slouched past the hotel. The next time I caught her eye, and, as I made the almost imperceptible signal, I saw the answering flash of intelligence in her eyes.
“What lovely oranges!” I heard her say to her companion. “I really must have some.”
And she rose indolently and came down the steps to me. As if I had heard and understood nothing, I placed myself directly in her path, saying in a loud, whining voice in Spanish: “Buy some Naranjàs, lady—do buy some. Very fine Naranjàs.”