: Sant of the Secret Service: Some Revelations of Spies and Spying by Le Queux William - Spy stories; World War 1914-1918 Secret service Fiction

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so I slid into her hand a little parcel screwed up in brown paper. In it was a note containing certain instructions, together with her passport, bearing her photograph in the name of Gabrielle Tavernier, described as "variety artiste." So perfectly self-possessed was she that, although she had not seen me--I had pushed up behind her--she never even turned her head as the note slipped into her hand. It was this self-control which made her an invaluable helper; nothing ever seemed to take her by surprise, or to betray her into a hasty word or action.

I had just taken my first sip of coffee, when, glancing across the big restaurant, I caught sight, among the crowd of third-class passengers who were thirstily quaffing their bowls, of that same shabby little man whose presence on the platform in Paris had given me such an unpleasant shock. Evidently he had managed to elude my observation, and had joined the train without my seeing him.

I had been beaten at my own game! I had thought I had shaken him off, and his presence was an intensely disagreeable surprise.

There was, of course, no very obvious reason why he should not be a perfectly harmless fellow-traveller, but I was absolutely convinced in my own mind that his presence here in Bordeaux was in some way connected with my mission, and that it boded me no good.

Slipping from the station, I hurried across to the Place du Pont, where I knew there was a public telephone. I knew, of course, the password which "cleared the lines" for official messages, and in less than ten minutes I was in communication with Armand Hecq, at his house at St Germain, outside Paris. To him I briefly explained how matters stood.

Then I rang off and hurried back to the station, just in time to catch the train as it drew out for the "Cote d'Argent," "the Silver Coast," as the French call that beautiful Biscayan seashore between the estuary of the Gironde and the golden sands of Spain.

Through the miles of flat pine woods of that lovely marsh country called the Landes, where the shepherds stride on their high stilts and watch the trains go by, we sped ever south, by way of the ancient town of Dax and on to sun-blanched Bayonne.

Now we were rapidly approaching the Spanish frontier, and I wondered what was transpiring between Hecq, in Paris, and the officials at Hendaye, the last French station, where the agents of police were stationed to prevent German spies from entering France by that particular back door.

I was soon to learn that Hecq had not been idle. Late in the afternoon the train pulled up at Hendaye, and, as it seemed to me, had hardly halted at the platform when I caught sight of my shabby little man being escorted from the station in the relentless grip of a couple of stalwart French gendarmes. Evidently Hecq was taking no chances, and I breathed a sigh of relief at the removal of my incubus. It turned out later that the shabby little man was a clever German spy, and, of course, he paid the invariable penalty.

Very soon the train moved across the long bridge over the river to Irun, and beyond. Thus we arrived at length at San Sebastian, the Brighton of Spain, at that moment in the full height of the sea-bathing season, and crowded with a motley assembly of Europeans of all nationalities, with, of course, a liberal sprinkling of desperate adventurers ever on the look-out for any crooked undertaking that promised plunder and profit.

Our plan, of course, was to avoid the slightest appearance of hurry. Anything in the shape of undue eagerness and haste might well mean arousing the suspicions of the Spanish authorities, who, being neutral, might very easily arrest us both as secret agents of the Allies. I entered an open cab and drove to the old Hotel Ezcurra, where in past days I had eaten many a meal and drunk many a bottle of choice wine. Madame Gabrielle, in accordance with our arrangements, had gone to the Hotel Continental in the Paseo de la Concha, the establishment most patronised by the gay society of Madrid, who loved to show off their Paris gowns and to exhibit, too often in the most plebeian fashion, the wealth which had come to them as a result of the war.

For three days I remained at the Ezcurra, so pleasantly situated behind the lovely lime-trees in the Paseo de la Zurriola, and to which the smart, chattering officers of the unwarlike garrison, in their grey uniforms and peaked caps, resorted every evening. I had previously decided upon the character I would assume; it was that of a Dutch theological student. I gave out that I spoke no Spanish--of course I spoke Dutch--and pretended a vast interest in visiting the ancient churches--San Vincente in the old town, Santa Maria at the ascent of the Mont Urgull, and the beautiful old churches of Hernani and Azpeitia, as well as the prehistoric rock caves of Landarbaso. All the time, of course, I was keenly on the alert, my ears ready for any scrap of information that might chance to come my way.

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