Two men sat at a small table in an inferior restaurant in one of the lower quarters of Madrid.
One was dressed in the rough garb of a working-man. This was Andres Moreno, who, in his adventurous life, had played many parts. With his sardonic humour he was enjoying this particular rôle. The danger that he ran added a spice to his enjoyment.
The other man, Guy Rossett, was disguised also, but not quite so successfully. Moreno, due to his birth, could never be mistaken for anything but a Spaniard. On the other hand, Rossett could be easily recognised as a member of the bulldog race, a typical Englishman.
That morning, at the Embassy, a note had been delivered by a trusted messenger. It was a very brief one, and ran thus:
“Dear Mr Rossett,—You will remember a certain evening at the Savoy, when you were dining with your sister, a young lady whose name I will not mention, and her father. My host came over and spoke with you all for a few seconds. I am in Spain on important business. I should like to have a brief chat with you this afternoon.”
The writer had suggested the meeting in one of the unfashionable quarters of the town.
He had appended his initials in a scrawling fashion. But at once recollection had come to Guy Rossett. He remembered that evening distinctly, when Maurice Farquhar had come over to their table, when General Clandon had expressed his displeasure at his nephew’s associate, a man of whom Guy had some recollection.
The scrawling initials might have stood for anything. But Rossett deciphered them at once. The writer was Andres Moreno, a member of the Secret Service, also often in the pay of Scotland Yard.
Guy called for a bottle of wine. Not trusting to the cigars of the country, he produced his own case, and proffered it to the pretended working-man. Moreno waved it away.
“We will have cigarettes, if you please,” he said, in a low voice. “Very keen eyes are watching us here. If you dangle that case much longer, they will put you down as a rich English milord. We may have to meet here often, and we want to avoid that. You see, I pose as a humble and unprosperous working-man.”