Having made his complaint, he pa.s.sed out. A police doctor examined him, recommended a good night's sleep."

Fielding held his finger under the word _sleep_. "Hah," he roared. "d.a.m.n clever, the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Now then, where was my place? Oh, yes, good night's sleep. Yes."

"In the morning, Jimenez awoke, vomited, and started to yell for the jailer. He wanted to know what he was doing in a cell, and when shown his complaint, he expressed innocent amazement. He could not recall a thing. The warden gave him a hearty breakfast and sent him on his way.

Jimenez joined his ship, which sailed for Spain that afternoon with a cargo of beef."

The case of Eduardo Jimenez was the last in the report. Fielding put the copy aside and leaned back in his chair. "Was this worth your while, Hall?" he asked.

Hall grinned. "You have the necessary proof?"

"Absolutely. To the last word, old man. To the last word."

"May I have a copy of your report?"

"Of course. I hope you will get better results, though."

"May I ask an impertinent question, sir?"

"Be as impertinent as you wish. I'm sixty-four years old, Hall, and if I can't put up with Yank impertinence in this late stage, I deserve no sympathy."

"Well then, and don't answer if you think me too brash, Fielding, it's simply ..."

"Hold on!" Fielding held up a restraining hand. "Let me write your question out on this slip of paper and after you ask it, I'll show you what I've written." He scribbled a few words on the paper, covered them with his left hand.

"Are you British Intelligence?" Hall asked him.

Fielding handed Hall the slip of paper. On it was written: _Q. Fielding, old man, are you a British agent? A. No, my fine impertinent friend.

Believe it or not, I am not a British agent._

He was not smiling when he put a lighted match to the slip of paper and watched it burn to ashes in the bronze tray. "As a matter of fact," he said, soberly, "I am not in very good repute at the British Emba.s.sy. I organized a dinner of the more sensible people in the British colony here in '38 and, after I'd made a blistering speech against Munich and non-intervention in Spain we all signed a row of a cable to Nellie Chamberlain. They have me down as a sort of an eccentric and a Red.

Perhaps I am eccentric, but I'm no more a Red than poor Professor Tabio or your own Mr. Roosevelt."

"I've been called both things before myself."

"I'll bet you have, Hall. I'll bet you have. Let's have another jug of coffee and look through some more reports. Can you stay awake for an hour or so?"

"I can stay up all night."

"Well, maybe you can. But I'm not as young as I used to be. We'll finish the reports in this folder and call it a night. But first--the coffee."

The aroma from the jug warmed Hall's senses. In the cell at San Sebastian he would awake at night dreaming that he was smelling the sweet vapors of a fresh pot of coffee boiling away near his pallet.

"G.o.d," he said, "I must tell you about what this smell means to me some day."

"There's nothing like it," Fielding agreed. "Now let me see, here's a photostat of a letter from the Emba.s.sy acknowledging the receipt of the report I just read, and here ... Ah...." He started to turn the next letter over, but Hall, reading the letter-head, laid a hand on the sheet.

"May I?" he asked.

Fielding handed him the letter. It was on the stationery of the International Brigade a.s.sociation in London, dated January, 1938.

"The action on the Jarama front ... bitter ... your son Sergeant Harold Fielding leading squad of volunteer sappers ... missing in action ...

thorough check on records of hospitals and field stations on that front ... no record of Sergeant Fielding ... we therefore regret ... must be presumed dead...."

The father of Sergeant Fielding held the picture of the boy in front of Hall. "This photograph," he said, heavily. "It was taken a year before he went to Spain. You didn't, by any chance, happen to know the lad, did you, Hall? He was my only child. Completing work on his Master's in biochemistry at Cambridge when the Spanish show started. You didn't happen to know him, eh, Hall?"

Hall studied the photograph.

"He fought with the British Battalion," Fielding offered.

"I was with them in the fighting for Sierra Pedigrosa," Hall said.

"There was Pete Kerrigan, and a boy named Patterson I knew pretty well.

And--but that was after the Jarama fighting."

"The boy is not alive," Fielding said. "I checked with the International Red Cross after the war, and he was not taken prisoner by the fascists.

I just wanted to find someone who could tell me--who could tell me how my boy died."

Hall returned the red-leather frame. "I wish from the bottom of my heart I could help you. But I just can't. I'm afraid I never did meet the boy."

Roger Fielding read the letter from London for perhaps the thousandth time, sighed, and placed it face down on top of the pile to the left of the letters and reports in the folder. "Ah, well," he said. "Now for the living. Now here's a report I made three weeks ago. Some day those young stuffed shirts in the Emba.s.sy will have to read my reports seriously, Hall. Perhaps this is the report that will do it."

The second report bore the heading: "Neutrality or Belligerence: Gamburdo or Tabio."

Hall started. "What's this?" he asked.

"Let's look it over, old man." Fielding cleared his throat and began to read aloud.

"It is no secret, or it should be no secret to our vigilant intelligence services, that President Anibal Tabio is a warm friend of the cause for which the United Nations are fighting. It is no secret that Tabio, before being stricken with his present tragic illness, was planning to go before the Havana Conference himself to lead the continental campaign to declare war on the Axis powers.

"However, the views of Vice-President Gamburdo, who now has a.s.sumed the control of the government, are less well known. Gamburdo's views, however, are not among the best kept secrets of this war." Fielding chuckled, waved his pipe in the direction of the Presidencia, and added the comment, "I should say not! They are far from secret.

"Gamburdo's ties to the Cross and the Sword are very discreet. I have reason to believe that Gamburdo believes his link with the ATN is not known by anyone except a few chosen fascist leaders."

Fielding looked up at Hall. "Oho," he laughed. "That must have been hard to swallow. They don't like to call the Cross-and-Sword bandits 'fascists.' Oh, no. Not the Emba.s.sy. They've got them tabbed as 'conservatives' opposed to the extremes of the Red Tabio regime. The fools!

"Well, now, to continue. Ah--chosen fascist leaders. Oh, yes. But twice within the past two weeks, for three hours on the twelfth and for a full day on the fourteenth, Gamburdo was at the ranch of his brother Salvador in Bocas del Sur conferring with Cross and Sword leaders Jorge Davila, Segundo Vardenio, Carlos Antonio Montes, and Jose Ignacio del Llano. The second meeting was also attended by Ramos, the Spanish Consul General in San Hermano."

"Ramos," Hall commented. "I know something about him. Two years ago Batista gave him twelve hours to get the h.e.l.l out of Cuba before the diplomatic courtesies were forgotten and a cot reserved for Ramos in the concentration camp for Axis nationals on the Isle of Pines."

"He did come to San Hermano from Havana," Fielding said. "So I'm not so crazy after all."

"You're not crazy at all."

"h.e.l.lo!" Fielding exclaimed. "If you know that Ramos was kicked out, then the Emba.s.sy crowd must know it too. Now I begin to see why Commander New has invited me to have dinner at the Emba.s.sy tomorrow." He took a deep breath, straightened his tie with elaborate mock ceremony.

"Mr. Hall," he said, speaking like an announcer at a royal court, "I have the pleasure of informing you that Roger Fielding, Esquire, is about to be released from the insane asylum to which His Majesty's Amba.s.sador consigned him in September, 1938."

Hall laughed and helped himself to another pipeful of Fielding's tobacco. "Let's finish this report," he said. "I can't tell you how important it is to me."

"Here you are, old man." Fielding handed the report to Hall. "I was reading them aloud to keep you from falling asleep. But I think you're wide awake now."

Hall smiled warmly at the old man and read the rest of the report. It was very brief. It described how Gamburdo had shifted nearly the entire customs staff at San Hermano to other ports or to desk jobs on land, and replaced them with new customs men who were in many cases proven members of the Falange or the ATN or both. This move, the report stated, opened the gates to Axis arsonists a.s.signed to cross the seas on Spanish liners.