gh wire from there to Marseille. Thence it goes to
Valencia, by which time it has been overhauled by at least three
telegraph clerks and all their intimate friends. One cable crosses to
Ivica, another continues on to Mallorca, and a third crosses to this
island. Knowing the weakness of the Spaniard for making his work as
cumbersome as possible, it's a small estimate to say that the message
is--or ought to be--fingered by at least six more men before it gets to
the delivering office. And do you suppose that out of all those poor
devils of telegraph clerks there wouldn't be at least one who would
forswear his vows and pocket the information? No, no; 'tisn't good
enough. If your man was smart enough to eavesdrop, you can lay to it he
wasn't a sufficiently stupendous idiot to shout his secret down a
telegraph wire."

"There's such a thing as cipher, though."

"There is," said Haigh dryly; "but I think we can make bold to leave
that out of the calculations. The odds are piled up star-high, as it
is, against Mr. Spectacles having a confidential agent here at all whom
he would be inclined to trust with such a job. But when you suppose
that the pair of them have a ready-arranged cipher in full working
order, why, then, infinity is a small figure for the chances against
it. Cabling is out of the question, old chappie. In fact, set alongside
of that the idea of flying across carries ordinary probability with
it."

"And as," I added, "the port captain at Ciudadella wires that he has
had no single incoming vessel during the last ten days, and we know
that none have come into Port Mahon except the fleet and the _Antiguo
Mahones_ and ourselves, we've arrived at the most unpickable
deadlock that two grown men ever scratched their heads over."

"That," said Haigh, "is about the size of it; and so I vote we just let
the Recipe slide, and enjoy ourselves on the other goods the gods have
kindly provided. Come across to the next room. The conductor of the
opera company's staying there, and if the opera company's rank bad, the
conductor, at any rate, is a musician."

CHAPTER XII.

A PROFESSIONAL CONSPIRATOR.

Up till that time I knew nothing of Haigh's gifts in the musical line,
and a bit of a revelation was in store for me. It did not come all at
once. The conductor of the opera company ("_reputado maestro D.
Vincente Paoli_" the lean handbills styled him) opened the concert, and
it was not until he and Haigh had some diff