a
sword-stick. On the table was a simple meal of cold meat, salad,
goats'-milk cheese, and fresh fruit; but to my starved eyes it seemed a
feast. There was also a bottle half-full of red Spanish wine; and I did
not wait for Dick's suggestion to sit down. I must get back my strength if
I were to be of any use to Monica or myself, and I hardly listened to
Dick's warning that a starved man must not satisfy his first hunger.

"Eat slowly, and not too much," he said, with anxious eyes on my face,
which must have been frightful, though he was too tactful to make
comments. As I obeyed, he told me his story, briefly and disjointedly, as
the points came back to him.

"Didn't hear from you," he said, "and began wondering what was up. Wired
twice; no answer; was a bit taken up with my own affairs just then, I'm
afraid. Yes, I mean Pilar. After five days, wired the landlord. He
answered you'd left with a friend. I thought that queer, and set out for
Granada by next train, Ropes with me. At the Washington Irving I found
both my telegrams to you and a letter. Landlord said he got a note from
you, dated Motril, telling him you'd met a friend and gone off
unexpectedly in his automobile. You enclosed more than enough money to pay
bill and tips, and asked him to have your luggage packed and kept till
your return, which might be in a few days or not for some time. Naturally,
he hadn't worried; and as he'd destroyed the letter, I couldn't tell if it
was your handwriting.

"Well, I thought you _might_ have rushed off suddenly on account of some
lark of Carmona's; but I soon found out he was still in Granada, slowly
getting better; and the guests hadn't gone. By the way, I called, but
nobody in the house was seeing visitors. Ropes discovered that your car
was in a stable down in the town, where you'd left it, without saying for
how long. He and I were getting scared, and I went to the police, but
didn't dare give your real name without your permission, especially as the
authorities had a kind of prejudice against it. Fired off my best Spanish,
though, and insinuated that Carmona wasn't very fond of you; but when I
began hinting that it might be convenient for his plans that you should
disappear, they wouldn't take me seriously, were polite, and all that,
promised to look you up, as if you were a stray kitten, but intimated that
most people who vanished had private reasons for doing so.

"After that, I didn't expect them to find out anythi