Had the Italian Admiral been able to send a torpedo-boat or two after
the fugitives they would no doubt soon have been overhauled, yet
circumstances had prevented this and the _Lola_ had consequently
escaped.
For purposes of their own the police kept the affair out of the papers,
and when Frank Hutcheson stepped out of the sleeping-car from Paris on
to the platform at Pisa a few nights afterwards, I related to him the
extraordinary story.
"The scoundrels wanted these, that's evident," he responded, holding up
the small, strong, leather hand-bag he was carrying, and which contained
his jealously-guarded ciphers. "By Jove!" he laughed, "how disappointed
they must have been!"
"It may be so," I said, as we entered the midnight train for Leghorn.
"But my own theory is that they were searching for some paper or other
that you possess."
"What can my papers concern them?" exclaimed the jovial, round-faced
Consul, a man whose courtesy is known to every skipper trading up and
down the Mediterranean, and who is perhaps one of the most cultured and
popular men in the British Consular Service.
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