The Summons Part 32

"That's all right," said Hillyard; and Fairbairn gently slid the sheet into the dish in front of Hillyard. And for a while nothing happened.

"It's a clever trick, isn't it?" Hillyard used the words again, but now with a note of nervousness. "No unlikely paraphernalia needed. Just a copying pencil and some vinegar, which you can get anywhere. Yes, it's a clever trick!"

"If it works," Fairbairn added bluntly.

Both men watched the dish anxiously. The paper remained blank. The solution did not seem to work. It was the first time they had ever made use of it. The coast slid by unnoticed.

"Lopez was certain," said Fairbairn, "quite certain that this was the developing formula."

Hillyard nodded gloomily, but he did not remove his eyes from that irresponsive sheet.

"There may be some other ingredient, something kept quite secret--something known only to one man or two."

He sat down, hooking his chair with his foot nearer to the table.

"We must wait."

"That's all there is to be done," said Fairbairn, and they waited; and they waited. They had no idea, even if the formula should work, whether the writing would flash up suddenly like an over-exposed photographic plate, or emerge shyly and reluctantly letter by letter, word by word.

Then, without a word spoken, Fairbairn's finger pointed. A brown stain showed on the whiteness of the paper--just a stroke. It was followed by a curve and another stroke. Hillyard swiftly turned the oblong developing dish so that the side of it, and not the end, was towards him now.

"The writing is across the sheet," he said, and then with a cry, "Look!"

A word was coming out clear, writing itself unmistakably in the middle of the line, at the bottom of the sheet--a signature. Zimmermann!

"From the General Staff!" said Hillyard, in a whisper of excitement. "My word!" He looked at Fairbairn with an eager smile of grat.i.tude. "It's your doing that we have got this--yours and Lopez Baeza's!"

Miraculously the brown strokes and curves and dots and flourishes trooped out of nothing, and fell in like sections and platoons and companies with their due s.p.a.ce between them, some quick and trim, some rather slovenly in their aspect, some loitering; but in the end the battalion of words stood to attention, dressed for inspection. The brown had turned black before Hillyard lifted the letter from the solution and spread it upon a sheet of blotting paper.

"Now let us see!" and they read the letter through.

One thousand pounds in English money were offered for reliable information as to the number of howitzers and tanks upon the British front.

A second sum of a thousand pounds for reliable information as to the manufacture of howitzers and tanks in England.

"So far, it's not very exciting," Hillyard remarked with disappointment, as he turned the leaf. But the letter progressed in interest.

A third sum of a thousand pounds was offered for a list of the postal sections on the British front, with the name, initials and rank of a really good and reliable British soldier in each section who was prepared to receive and answer correspondence.

Fairbairn chuckled and observed:

"I think Herr Zimmermann might be provided with a number of such good and reliable soldiers selected by our General Staff," and he added with a truculent snort, "We could do with that sum of a thousand pounds here.

You must put in a claim for it, Hillyard. Otherwise they'll snaffle it in London."

Fairbairn, once a mild north-country schoolmaster, of correct phraseology and respectable demeanour, had, under the pressure of his service, developed like that white sheet of notepaper. He had suffered

"A sea-change Into something rich and strange"

and from a schoolmaster had become a buccaneer with a truculent manner and a mind of violence. London, under which name he cla.s.sed all Government officials, offices, departments, and administrations, particularly roused his ire. London was ignorant, London was stupid, London was always doing him and the other buccaneers down, was always snaffling something which he ought to have. Fairbairn, uttering one snort of satisfaction, would have shot it with his Browning.

"Get it off your chest, old man," said Hillyard soothingly, "and we'll go on with this letter. It looks to me as if----" He was glancing onwards and checked himself with an exclamation. His face became grave and set.

"Listen to this," and he read aloud, translating as he went along.

"_Since the tubes have been successful in France, the device should be extended to England. B45 is obviously suitable for the work. A submarine will sink letters for the Emba.s.sy in Madrid and a parcel of the tubes between the twenty-seventh and the thirtieth of July, within Spanish territorial waters off the Cabo de Cabron. A green light will be shown in three short flashes from the sea and it should be answered from the sh.o.r.e by a red and a white and two reds._"

Hillyard leaned back in his chair.

"B45," he cried in exasperation. "We get no nearer to him."

"Wait a bit!" Fairbairn interposed. "We are a deal nearer to him through Zimmermann's very letter here. What are these tubes which have been so successful in France? Once we get hold of them and understand them and know what end they are to serve, we may get an idea of the kind of man obviously suitable for handling them."

"Like B45," said Hillyard.

"Yes! The search will be narrowed to one kind of man. Oh, we shall be much nearer, if only we get the tubes--if only the Germans in Madrid don't guess this letter's gone astray to us."

Hillyard had reflected already upon that contingency.

"But why should they? The sleeping-car man is held _incomunicado_. There is no reason why they should know anything about this letter at all, if we lay our plans carefully."

He folded up the letter and locked it away in the drawer. He looked for a while out of the window of the saloon. The yacht had rounded the Cabo San Antonio. It was still the forenoon.

"This is where Jose Medina has got to come in," he declared. "You must go to Madrid, Fairbairn, and keep an eye on Mr. Jack Williams.

Meanwhile, here Jose Medina has got to come in."

Fairbairn reluctantly agreed. He would much rather have stayed upon the coast and shared in the adventure, but it was obviously necessary that a keen watch should be kept in Madrid.

"Very well," he said, "unless, of course, you would like to go to Madrid yourself."

Hillyard laughed.

"I think not, old man."

He mounted the ladder to the bridge and gave the instructions to the Captain, and early that evening the _Dragonfly_ was piloted into the harbour of Alicante. Hillyard and Fairbairn went ash.o.r.e. They had some hours to get through before they could take the journey they intended.

They sauntered accordingly along the esplanade beneath the palm trees until they came to the Casino. Both were temporary members of that club, and they sat down upon the cane chairs on the broad side-walk. A military band was playing on the esplanade a little to their right, and in front of them a throng of visitors and townspeople strolled and sat in the evening air. Hillyard smiled as he watched the kaleidoscopic grouping and re-grouping of men and children and women. The revolutions of his life, a subject which in the press of other and urgent matters had fallen of late into the background of his thoughts, struck him again as wondrous and admirable. He began to laugh with enjoyment. He looked at Fairbairn. How dull in comparison the regular sequences of his career!

"I wandered about here barefoot and penniless," he said, "not so very long ago. On this very pavement!" He struck it with his foot, commending to Fairbairn the amazing fact. "I have cleaned boots," and he called to a boy who was lying in wait with a boot-black's apparatus on his back for any dusty foot. "Chico, come and clean my shoes." He jested with the boy with the kindliness of a Spaniard, and gave him a shining peseta.

Hillyard was revelling in the romance of his life under the spur of the excitement which the affair of the letter had fired in him. "Yes, I wandered here, pa.s.sing up and down in front of this very Casino."

And Fairbairn saw his face change and his eyes widen as though he recognised some one in the throng beneath the trees.

"What is it?" Fairbairn asked, and for a little while Hillyard did not answer. His eyes were not following any movements under the trees. They saw no one present in Alicante that day. Slowly he turned to Fairbairn, and answered in voice of suspense:

"Nothing! I was just remembering--and wondering!"

He remained sunk in abstraction for a long time. "It can't be!" at grips with "If it could be!" and a rising inspiration that "It was!" A man had once tried him out with questions about Alicante, a man who was afraid lest he should have seen too much. But Hillyard had learnt to hold his tongue when he had only inspirations to go upon, and he disclosed nothing of this to Fairbairn.

Later on, when darkness had fallen, the two men drove in a motor-car southwards round the bay and through a shallow valley to the fishing village of Torrevieja. When you came upon its broad beach of shingle and sand, with its black-tarred boats hauled up, and its market booths, you might dream that you had been transported to Broadstairs--except for one fact. The houses are built in a single story, since the village is afflicted with earthquakes. Two houses rise higher than the rest, the hotel and the Casino. In the Casino Hillyard found Jose Medina's agent for those parts sitting over his great mug of beer; and they talked together quietly for a long while.