. Where should Hillyard find his true image and
counterpart?

* * * * *

It is not the purpose of this narrative to describe how one Christobal
Quesada, first mate of the steamship _Mondragon_, utterly overreached
himself by sending in a report of a British hospital ship, sure to leave
the harbour of Alexandria with gun-carriages upon her deck; how the
report was proved to be a lie; how it was used as the excuse for the
barbarous sinking of the great ships laden with wounded, and ablaze from
stern to stern with green lights, the red cross glowing amidships like a
wondrous jewel; how Christobal Quesada was removed from his ship in a
French port, and after being duly arraigned for his life, met his death
against a prison wall. Fairbairn wrote to Martin Hillyard:

"_The execution of Quesada has put an end to the whole
wicked question. So long as the offender was only put in
prison with the certainty of release at the end of the war,
whilst his family lived comfortably on German money, the
game went merrily on. But the return of the "Mondragon,"
minus her executed mate, has altered the whole position.
Juan de Maestre has nothing whatever to do nowadays._"

Hillyard smiled with contentment. He could understand a German going to
any lengths for Germany. He was prepared to do the same himself for his
country. But when a neutral under the cloak of his neutrality meddles in
this stupendous conflict for cash, for his thirty miserable pieces of
silver, he could feel no inclination of mercy.

"Let the neutrals keep out!" he murmured. "This is not their affair. Let
them hold their tongues and go about their own business!"

He received Fairbairn's letter in the beginning of the year 1916. He was
still no nearer at that date to the discovery of B.45; nor were they any
better informed in London. Hillyard could only wait upon Chance to slip
a clue into his hand.

CHAPTER XV

IN A SLEEPING-CAR

The night express from Paris to Narbonne and the Spanish frontier was
due to leave the Quai d'Orsay station at ten. But three-quarters of an
hour before that time the platform was already crowded, and many of the
seats occupied. Hillyard walked down the steps a little before half-past
nine with the latest of the evening papers in his hand.

"You have engaged your seat, monsieur," the porter asked, who was
carrying Hillyard's kit-bag.

"Yes," said Martin absentl