Having finished my dinner, the big Swiss porter came into the room and handed me a note, remarking in French: “This has just been brought by a boy, monsieur.”
Inside it I found a plain visiting-card of the size used by gentlemen. There was nothing else.
Here, indeed, was the call to action. That plain visiting-card was a signal from Madame Gabrielle that she was hot on the scent, but that either because she feared she might be under suspicion, or would not run the risk of her message falling into the wrong hands, she could not write a letter.
In any case it was an urgent call for urgent help. The hunt was up! Towards us, urged by the full power of her twin screws, a British liner was being driven at top speed by her giant engines; awaiting her, securely hidden in some sheltered spot I had yet to find, was one of the undersea assassins of our enemy. And the lives of two thousand men, women, and children were at stake. At last the hour for swift, dramatic action had come.
Certainly matters had now assumed a very critical aspect. I hurried out along the broad, tree-lined Paseo, where the moon was now shining brightly over the Bay of San Sebastian, to the Hôtel Continental. Here the gold-laced concierge told me that Madame Tavernier had left about an hour before.
“Did she say where she was going?” I inquired.
“Yes, to Santander,” replied the concierge; “the Hôtel Europa she gave as her address, so that we might forward her letters; she said she had not expected to leave so soon.”
The meaning of the visiting-card was now plain. Evidently the resourceful Madame Gabrielle had made some important discovery. She dared not communicate with me, but, of course, she knew I would make inquiries, and for this reason she had left her address with the hotel porter. But why had she gone to Santander? Cost what it might, I must find the answer to that question.
“What about the gentleman who was with her?” I asked the porter, making a blind shot to try to find out something.
“Gentleman?” he queried. “Madame was alone in the omnibus except for an Italian gentleman, who went to catch the same train to Bilbao.”
“An Italian gentleman!” I echoed. Here might be the key to the mystery. “He was about forty – pale, with a dark-cropped moustache and rather bald – eh?”
“Yes,” replied the man, “that is Signor Bruno.”
“What about his friend?” I asked.
“He left for Madrid by the early train this morning,” was the reply.
Matters were now becoming clear. Evidently the second “Italian” had cleared off, leaving “Signor Bruno” in charge of the developments of the plot. I had now to find “Bruno,” and through him to get on the track of “Fontan.”
Pleased with my success, I slipped a few pesetas into the willing hand of the concierge and left the hotel, directing my steps back to the Ezcurra. Why had Madame Gabrielle left for Santander when obviously San Sebastian was the real centre of the plot? The cryptic telegram I had received told us that. It was, in fact, a spy message sent from Holland, which had been intercepted by the French Secret Service and duplicated to me; the real message, of course, had been duly handed to “Fontan” at the post office in San Sebastian.
How to get to Santander was now the problem. The last train had gone. But after half an hour’s deliberation I hit upon a plan which at least held out a good promise of success. I returned to my hotel and gave strict orders that, as I was not feeling well, I was on no account to be disturbed until noon the following day.
It was just two o’clock in the morning when I rose and exchanged my Dutch-made clothes for another suit so glaringly redolent of the American tourist that no one, seeing me in them, would have associated me for a moment with the demure and retiring Dutch theological student, whose absorbed interest in old churches had been the source of many a friendly joke at the hotel. A false moustache helped further in the metamorphosis, and when I looked at myself in the glass I felt tolerably certain that I should pass even a close scrutiny without arousing suspicion. Still, I meant to take no chances.
The hotel was now profoundly silent. Here and there a single electric light glowed, left for the convenience of visitors who might be moving about late; but there was no night-porter, a fact which I had previously ascertained.
Carrying my boots in my hand, I stole noiselessly to a little side door, and, dropping a few spots of oil on the lock and bolts to obviate any sound of creaking, I opened it noiselessly and stepped out into the old-world courtyard. The moon was high and it was almost as light as day. But I had little fear of being observed; the courtyard could not be seen from the street, and at that hour there was little likelihood of anyone being about.
The hotel garage was my objective. I had noticed a day or two before that among the visitors staying at the house was a young fellow who possessed a swift and powerful “Indian” motor-cycle. I decided that the urgency of my business amply justified what might have looked like theft had I been detected.
Drawing from my pocket the bunch of skeleton keys which I usually carry, I succeeded after a few minutes of perplexity in opening the sliding door of the garage. With the help of my pocket flash-lamp, I picked out without difficulty the machine I wanted and filled up the ample petrol tank with spirit from one of the many tins lying about the garage. I was ready at last for my race to Santander.
After a hasty glance up and down the road to make sure no one was in sight, I wheeled the machine through the courtyard, under the old archway and out on to the broad roadway, closing and locking the door of the garage behind me to avoid suspicions being aroused. I knew the removal of the machine would probably not be noticed for a day, or perhaps two, as the young owner had gone off with a companion on a fishing excursion.
When I had reached some distance from the hotel I lit the headlamp, started the machine, mounted and rode away.
From the map I had carefully committed my route to memory, and I let the powerful machine “all out.” Travelling at considerably over fifty miles an hour, with the engine pulling as smoothly as a watch, I first went along the winding sea road, then away into the fertile valley of the Oria and by the village of Aguinaga, down to Zarauz, which was on the Biscayan beach again.
The early morning came, balmy and beautiful, as, covered with dust, I shot down the steep winding road into the chief centre of the life of Santander, that spacious promenade known as “The Muelle,” with its luxuriant gardens, from which I could see the blue mountain ranges of Solares, Valnera, and Tornos beyond.
Once in the gardens, I dismounted, and, watching for an opportunity when I was unobserved, I wheeled the motor-cycle into some low bushes, where I abandoned it. Thence I strolled down to the dock, where in a narrow, unclean street I soon found a dealer in second-hand clothes, of whom I purchased a most unsavoury rig-out. It was evident that the man was well used to proceedings of this kind, and, as his business quite clearly depended upon his knowing how to hold his tongue if he were paid for it, I paid him generously, and was quite assured my secret would be safe with him. He took me into a dark little den at the rear of his stuffy shop, where he helped me into my disreputable disguise, adding here and there a skilful touch which showed me plainly that he was no novice at the business.
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