By the side of his horse trotted a breathless man in a tattered coat, his cropped head bare.
"I will show you where to stand," Baggin said. "There is a curtain that covers a door. The man will pass by that curtain, and I shall be with him. I will hold his arm--so. Then I will say, 'Count Poltavo, I do not trust you,' and then----"
The ragged man swept the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, for the path was steep.
"I shall not fail," he said significantly.
They disappeared into the great house--it is worthy of note that Baggin opened the door with a key of his own--and darkness fell upon the hill and upon the valley.
Far away, lights twinkling through the trees showed where Jerez lay.
The room in which the Nine Men sat was large, even as rooms go in Spain. It had the appearance of a small lecture hall. Heavy curtains of dark blue velvet hid the tall windows, and electric lights, set at intervals in the ceiling, provided light.
The little desks at which the men sat were placed so as to form a horseshoe.
Of the nine, it is possible that one knew the other, and that some guessed the identity of all. It was difficult to disguise Grayson, who in his life of inactivity had grown exceedingly stout, and yet with all the trickery of the black cloaks they wore and the crêpe masks that hid their faces, it was hard enough to single even him from his fellows.
The last man had reached his seat when one who sat at the extreme end of the horseshoe on the president's right, rose and asked: "What of Poltavo, brother?"
"He has not yet arrived," was the muffled reply.
"Perhaps, then, it is well that I should say what I have to say before his return," said the first speaker.
He rose to his feet, and eight pairs of eyes turned towards him.
"Gentlemen," he began, "the time has come when our operations must cease."
A murmur interrupted him, and he stopped.
"Let us have more light," said a mask at the end of the horseshoe, and pointed to the ceiling where only half of the lights glowed.
Baggin nodded, and the man rose and made his way to the curtained recess where the switches were.
"No, no, no!" said Baggin quickly--for he suddenly realised that there was something hidden by the curtain, a sinister figure of a man in convict shirt, fingering the edge of a brand-new knife. So Baggin pictured him.