The twitch of the lips became a smile.

He invited Hillyard to a chair, he drew up another himself, and the two men sat down over against one another in the middle of that bare and formal room.
That one word neutral, so delicately emphasised, warned Hillyard that Jose Medina was quite alive to the reason of his visit.

He could, of course, have blurted it out at once.

He could have said in so many words, "Your tobacco factories are on French soil, and your two hundred feluccas are nominally owned in Gibraltar.

Between French and English we shall close you down unless you help." But he knew very well that he would have got no more than fair words if he had.