PAGE 2
The Spy
by
Briefly, it was a triangular fight between opponents each of whom was in the wrong, and each of whom, to gain his end, bribed, blackmailed, and robbed, not only his adversaries, but those of his own side, the end in view being the possession of those great deposits that lie in the rocks of Valencia, baked from above by the tropic sun and from below by volcanic fires. As one of their engineers, one night in the Plaza, said to me: “Those mines were conceived in hell, and stink to heaven, and the reputation of every man of us that has touched them smells like the mines.”
At the time I was there the situation was “acute.” In Valencia the situation always is acute, but this time it looked as though something might happen. On the day before I departed the Nitrate Trust had cabled vehemently for war-ships, the Minister of Foreign Affairs had refused to receive our minister, and at Porto Banos a mob had made the tin sign of the United States consulate look like a sieve. Our minister urged me to remain. To be bombarded by one’s own war-ships, he assured me, would be a thrilling experience.
But I repeated that my business was with Panama, not Valencia, and that if in this matter of his row I had any weight at Washington, as between preserving the nitrate beds for the trust, and preserving for his country and various sweethearts one brown-throated, clean-limbed bluejacket, I was for the bluejacket.
Accordingly, when I sailed from Valencia the aged diplomat would have described our relations as strained.
Our ship was a slow ship, listed to touch at many ports, and as early as noon on the following day we stopped for cargo at Trujillo. It was there I met Schnitzel.
In Panama I had bought a macaw for a little niece of mine, and while we were taking on cargo I went ashore to get a tin cage in which to put it, and, for direction, called upon our consul. From an inner room he entered excitedly, smiling at my card, and asked how he might serve me. I told him I had a parrot below decks, and wanted to buy a tin cage.
“Exactly. You want a tin cage,” the consul repeated soothingly. “The State Department doesn’t keep me awake nights cabling me what it’s going to do,” he said, “but at least I know it doesn’t send a thousand-dollar-a-minute, four-cylinder lawyer all the way to this fever swamp to buy a tin cage. Now, honest, how can I serve you?” I saw it was hopeless. No one would believe the truth. To offer it to this friendly soul would merely offend his feelings and his intelligence.
So, with much mystery, I asked him to describe the “situation,” and he did so with the exactness of one who believes that within an hour every word he speaks will be cabled to the White House.
When I was leaving he said: “Oh, there’s a newspaper correspondent after you. He wants an interview, I guess. He followed you last night from the capital by train. You want to watch out he don’t catch you. His name is Jones.” I promised to be on my guard against a man named Jones, and the consul escorted me to the ship. As he went down the accommodation ladder, I called over the rail: “In case they should declare war, cable to Curacoa and I’ll come back. And don’t cable anything indefinite, like ‘Situation critical’ or ‘War imminent.’ Understand? Cable me, ‘Come back’ or ‘Go ahead.’ But whatever you cable, make it clear.”
He shook his head violently and with his green-lined umbrella pointed at my elbow. I turned and found a young man hungrily listening to my words. He was leaning on the rail with his chin on his arms and the brim of his Panama hat drawn down to conceal his eyes.