sides of the Pyrenees, occupying both the whole of Catalonia and a considerable area of southern France including Marseilles, and that at one time they had been one nation. They therefore claimed that as an individual race, neither French nor Spanish, they were entitled to independence. That their language was still a live one was true, although much more so in the Spanish area than the French, and in Barcelona several papers printed in Catalan were among those with the largest circulation. They had also clung most tenaciously to their racial customs and to certain regional rights extracted through the centuries from their Spanish rulers, and on these they based their case for being given self-government.
The opposite view was that since very ancient times the Catalans never had been independent. Those to the north of the Pyrenees had in Roman times been absorbed into the provinces of Nar-bonensis and Provence and later became subjects of the Kings of France; while those to the south had been absorbed into the province of Hither Baetia and later become subjects of the Kings of Aragon. Therefore, from the time of the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon to Isabella of Castile in 1469, Catalonia had become an integral part of Spain, and should so remain.
The same arguments applied to the Basques, who were also agitating for independence. On the Atlantic coast their stock had from time immemorial occupied large areas both to the north and south of the Pyrenees, and they even had a language of their own which resembled no other in Europe; but they too had never been a nation and, for many centuries, while those to the north had owed allegiance to the Kings of Navarre, those to the south had owed allegiance to the Kings of Castile.
One might almost as well endeavour, reasoned the anti-separatists, to make a case for the peoples of Brittany and Cornwall becoming one nation with self-government, for they too come of the same stock and had a root language in common, and Brittany at least was - for a long period - a Sovereign State; yet the English Channel has separated them hardly less effectively than the Pyrenees has both the Catalans and the Basques.
For the Spanish Catalans and Basques, union with the French elements of their race could obviously be only a long-term aim, but the agitation by both for Home Rule had in recent years greatly increased. This was especially so among the Catalans as they were the most vigorous and industrious of the Spanish peoples, and much fuel was added to the fire of their unrest by the knowledge that the hard work they put into their commercial ventures led to their having to contribute far more per head in taxation to the central government than did the lazier populations in other parts of Spain.
Since the aim of the Somaten was to throw off the yoke of the monarchy and that of the anarchists to abolish government of any kind - and Dona Gulia had told the Count that Barcelona was the stronghold of Spanish anarchy - he had good grounds for assuming that, both being subversive organizations, many members of the Somaten were also anarchists. In consequence he spared no pains to make himself pleasant to those members of the Club to whom Pelayo introduced him.
In their grave Spanish way they responded readily, and when they learned that he was a refugee from Tsarist persecution they eagerly crowded round pressing him to tell them about conditions in Russia. He willingly obliged, purposely exaggerating the situation by implying that the whole nation, except for a handful of aristocrats, went about in constant terror of having something pinned uPon them by the Secret Police, and that every political exile was condemned to the horror of the Siberian salt mines.
Naturally, when the question arose, he declared himself heartily in favour of Catalonian independence, and 'Nicolai Chirikov' was obviously so much a man with the right ideas that by midnight he had been proposed and accepted as a member of the Puerto branch of the Somaten.
His original plan had been to join one of the Barcelona Lodges of Freemasons; since once a Mason always a Mason, and having been initiated in Paris two years earlier he would have had only to find, through the secret hand-grip, a Brother Mason to introduce him. Unlike British Masonry, Continental Masonry had for long been the principal breeding-ground of atheism and revolt. It had originated in Germany and in the mid-eighteenth century been brought by the mystic Illuminatii to France. There it had spread rapidly, so that there were soon Lodges of the Grand Orient in every town of any size; and its inner council had undoubtedly organized the French Revolution. Its ramifications spread all over Europe and it had later been responsible for all those bloody upheavals that overturned half a dozen governments in the years 1848 and '49. Fifty years later it was still a great secret power capable of bringing about revolts in most countries at any time.
In 1904, in collaboration with the atheist War Minister of France, it had launched a great campaign to undermine the strength of the French Army, and de Quesnoy had become a Freemason with the object of exposing this evil combination. Under the name of Vasili Petrovitch, and posing as a Russian political refugee, he had succeeded in doing so; and now, feeling certain that the Spanish Masonic Lodges would be the natural meeting places for anarchists, he had been contemplating on his way to Barcelona an attempt to repeat the process. Unfortunately, however, having exposed the War Minister he had, at the eleventh hour, been exposed himself; and the Freemasons had learned that their betrayer, Vasili Petrovitch, was in fact Colonel the Count de Quesnoy.
Thus, though remote, there was a slight element of risk in his plan; for although he was using a different Russian name and background, if in a Barcelona Lodge it chanced that he came face to face with a visiting French Mason who had known him in Paris, he would be identified, with results that he did not care to contemplate. In consequence, having had the luck to be made a member of the Somaten, which he felt would serve his purpose equally well, he decided there and then to abandon his idea of again becoming a member of a Masonic Lodge.
To stimulate and direct the political activities of its members was only a part of the Club's function. It was also a social meeting-ground for the officers of merchant ships, Customs officers and other minor officials of the great port. Drinks could be had there at a bar and cold snacks at a buffet. Cards and dice could be played. It also had a library and a small gymnasium; so, quite apart from his special reason for cultivating the company who frequented it, de Quesnoy found it a useful place in which to kill time. And after Modesto Pelayo's return to duty in his ship on the Monday the Count found time hang heavily on his hands.
He dared not appear too curious and could only leave it to time to develop his acquaintance with several regular frequenters of the Club, whom he suspected might be anarchists, until one of them either took him into his confidence or, inadvertently, made some incriminating admission. As the Club did not open until after the siesta hour, he was reduced in the mornings to taking long solitary walks or strolling aimlessly along the Ramblas among the colourful crowd that always thronged this principal shopping street of the old town.
The old town appealed to him, but it formed only a small part of the great modern city. Of Barcelona the Spaniards, even in other cities, were intensely proud, as it had made almost their only contribution to twentieth- century architecture and town-planning. There were many fine blocks of offices and apartments in it, with electric light, lifts, telephones and other up-to-date innovations, and it was laid out like an American city, in blocks intersected by scores of parallel streets. But de Quesnoy found their sameness both confusing and dreary, and he would have much preferred it had his quest taken him back to the picturesque alleyways of Cordoba or the tranquil, irregular side-streets of Seville.
For him to have spent a pleasant hour or two in any of the better hotels or restaurants would have been to risk being seen going in or out by some members of the Somaten and so, probably, ruining his build-up of himself as a Russian schoolmaster of very limited means. In consequence, as the only alternative to walks in the woods and gardens on the slopes of Montjuich, which lay at the end of the street in which his
Yet, strange as he afterwards thought it to be, it was not there that he picked up his first real lead to the militant anarchists of Barcelona, but through Doctor Luque.
The Infernal Machine
De quesnoy had taken the Luques' having asked him to let them know how he was getting on as no more than a casual politeness, but being by habit good-mannered himself, instead of ignoring it he had, on Tuesday, sent the Doctor a line saying that he had found quite comfortable quarters suitable to his modest means, and hoped they had found all well on their arrival home; but he did not really expect that they had taken sufficient interest in a poor refugee to wish to pursue his acquaintance.
However, on the Thursday he received a reply asking him to dine with them on the Saturday. It came from the Senora Luque, whom he had judged to be a good-natured motherly woman and, as he rightly guessed, had been inspired by a kind thought for a lonely foreigner in a strange city.
Their apartment was in one of the new blocks of flats some way to the north of the Plaza de Las Glorias, and on arriving there he found that they had staying with them a Lieutenant Aguilera of the Spanish Navy, who was a nephew of the Doctor.
