The Sentry Box Answers the King's Query

Through a shaded courtyard where a small fountain tinkled, Blanco
strolled to the Consular office and rapped on the door. He was conducted
by a native servant to an inner room. Here, while a great blue-bottle
fly droned and thumped, Reebeler, a heavy Briton with mild eyes,
sprawled his length in a wicker chair and poured brandy and soda. First
Blanco represented himself as an adoptive American, touring the world
and interested in natural resources. When his host had exhausted the
subject of the wine-grower's battle against the ravages of "oidium
Tuckeri" and "phyloxera," Blanco picked up a stick of sealing-wax
from the table and commenced toying with it in a manner of aimlessness.
He struck match after match and melted pellet after pellet of wax, then
absently he took from his pocket a gold seal-ring and made, with its
shield, several impressions on the wax. Reebeler's eyes were half-closed
as he gazed vacantly at the pigeons cooing and strutting in his
courtyard.

"See, I have at last got a good impression." The Spaniard idly tossed
over the scrap of paper upon which he had stamped a half-dozen of Louis
Delgado's crests from the die of the Comptessa Astaride's ring.

The Consul took the fragment of paper with the manner of one forced by
politeness to assume an interest in trivialities which bore him.

"See how clearly the device of His Grace stands out in the last
impression," casually suggested Blanco, then with eyes narrowly bent on
the other he saw the astonished start as his vis-a-vis realized what
device had been imprinted on the paper. It was the sign for which he had
played. When Reebeler's eyes came up questioningly to his own, he, too,
was looking off through the raised window where the limp curtain barely
trembled in the light breeze.