Clubfoot

“ I approached the table and found two flashily dressed bullies and a bedraggled drab from the streets talking in admiration of my exploit.
"Clubfoot met his match that time," the woman cried. "The dirty dog! But why didn't this English spy make a job of it and kill the scum? Pah!"
And she spat elegantly into the sawdust on the floor.
"I wouldn't be in that fellow's shoes for something," muttered one of the men. "No one ever had the better of Clubfoot yet. Do you remember Meinhardt, Franz? He tried to cheat Clubfoot, and we know what happened to him!" ”

“ Clubfoot angrily heaved his unwieldy bulk from his chair.
"Gott im Himmel!" he cried savagely. "It is incredible that I can never be left in peace. What the devil has the guard got to do with me? Will you understand that I have nothing to do with the guard! There is a sergeant somewhere ... curse him for a lazy scoundrel ... I'll ring ..."
He never finished the sentence. As he turned his back on my brother to reach the bell in the wall, Francis sprang on him from behind, seizing his bull neck in an iron grip and driving his knee at the same moment into that vast expanse of back. ”

“ That is my secret, Marjorie. If Clubfoot is to be told, I shall tell him myself. We are so near the end of our adventures that I'm willing to risk everything till the yacht appears.
"Clubfoot will never guess that you know unless you tell him. Remember he is a German and therefore has no opinion of women. He would never imagine that I have told you anything about the hiding-place of the treasure. Trust me, my dear! Our luck is in again! ”

“ Clubfoot held them out fanwise for me to see, but well out of my reach, and he kept a great, spatulate thumb over the top of the first sheet where the name of the addressee should have been.
"I trust you are now convinced, Herr Doktor," he said, with a smile that bared his teeth, and, putting the pieces together, he folded them across, tucked them away in the cigar-case again, and thrust it into his pocket.
I must test the ground further.
"Has it occurred to you, Herr Doktor," I asked, "that we have very little time at our disposal? The person whom we serve must be anxiously waiting. . . ." ”

“ From time to time Desmond had felt the tug at the heartstrings. Now and then in his room at the War Office, in the stay-at-home billet which the Chief had secured for him, an odd restlessness seized him when an Intelligence report came his way and he read that “X, a reliable agent, reports from Helsingfors,” or, “A trustworthy observer forwards a statement from Angora . . .”
But these were vague longings that a round of golf or a brisk game of tennis would dispel. The name of Clubfoot, however, was a definite challenge. ”

“ Smolensk, 13/26, July, 1919
“By Jove!” ejaculated Francis. “Four grammes of radium! Let’s see!—the market price stands somewhere about £12,000 a gramme, I think. That makes these four little tubes worth something like £50,000. No wonder old Clubfoot wanted that picture, Des.!”
“But,” remarked Patricia, perplexed, “I saw you give the ikon to the man Grundt!”
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Desmond laughed. “I had to finesse him,” he said. “Old Clubfoot never lets the grass grow under his feet, and I wanted to gain time to get your ikon into a safe place before he could seize it by force. ”

“ Clubfoot looked at his watch. “Midnight!” he said. “You did your work thoroughly, Max!”
“One does what one can, Herr Doktor!”
“You and Heinrich will take it in turns to guard the Englishman throughout the night. You can give him food. But watch him, he’s slippery. If he escapes . . .” He broke off and glared at the other. “Go now and remember what I say!”
Grundt turned to the Russian. “The Constantinople courier is expected to leave Calais for Dover by the afternoon boat. Everything is prepared. If all goes well he should be here soon after dark. Sleep well, Mandelstamm! ”

“ Six days must elapse, I reflected, before the yacht could return. For how many of these would I continue to enjoy my liberty? For as soon as Clubfoot realised that he had been fooled, I knew that he would once again stretch out that long arm of his to seize me. I should have to find a secure hiding-place—I thought of the high ground of the island, somewhere among those lofty volcanic peaks, in this connection—but the present need was for action. In the light of the fresh clue I had obtained, I must push on with my investigation at the grave itself and that without a moment's delay. ”

“ And very soon after crashing down into the cave I had understood that our chances of escape were reduced almost to the vanishing-point.
We had no food, only water and air. Death by slow starvation awaited us unless we could attract attention and secure help. Clubfoot and his people might be willing enough, in their own interest, to rescue us. But what chance had we, immured in the bowels of the earth as we were, of letting him know where we were? And how was Garth to find us when the Naomi came back?
Marjorie had risen to her feet. ”

“ We had deceived one another. What mutual guarantees could we exchange that would give each of us the assurance of fair play?
Clubfoot settled this point in characteristic fashion. He protested his good faith elaborately, but the gist of his remarks was that he held the cards and that, consequently, it was he who must be trusted, whilst I furnished the guarantee.
Whilst we were discussing this point the clock chimed the half-hour.
I switched the conversation to Monica. I was not at all concerned about myself, I said, but I must feel sure in my mind that no ill should befall her. ”

“ May they live long to enjoy the fruits of their cleverness!”
In his mouth the wish became an imprecation, with such glowing vehemence did he utter it. He spoke with a snarl that for a moment lent his features a positively tigerish expression.
But the Chief had stood up. “Is that all?” he demanded, and came round the desk.
Clubfoot, his hairy hands crossed above the crutch of his stick, leaned back in his chair and looked up at his interrogator. ”

“ Still Clubfoot was silent, but I noticed a bead of perspiration tremble on his forehead, then trickle down his ashen cheeks and drop splashing to the floor.
Francis continued in the same deep, relentless voice.
"I never thought I should have to soil my hands by ridding the world of a man like you, Grundt, but it has come to it and you have to die. I'd have killed you in hot blood when I first came in but for Jack and Herbert and the others . . . for their sake you had to know who is your executioner." ”

“ For many years I have lived my life intensely, working early and late, contriving, combining, braving danger and defeating intrigues, for the greater glory of my people. But the world is changing—was ich sage! has changed, Herr Kollege, and the hour has almost struck for old Clubfoot, as they call me, to take his retirement. ”

“ He drew for her a picture of the man, ruthless, resourceful, vigilant, with the strength of an ox, the courage of a lion, and the cunning of a rogue elephant.
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“If he wants a thing,” said Francis, “he’ll stop at nothing to get it. There’s only one man who has ever got the better of him, and that’s my brother Des. He’s a crazy devil, that brother of mine. He simply can’t live without taking risks. Ever since he left the Secret Service he’s been perfectly miserable. The reappearance of Clubfoot has made another man of him. But I’m haunted by the fear that Clubfoot will get him one day. ”

“ For my thoughts had flown back to another "lame man" who had dominated the most thrilling episode in the whole of my life, the giant and ape-like cripple, head of the Kaiser's personal Secret Service in the days of Germany's greatness, who had dogged my brother Francis and myself until he had met his end at our hands in the château on the German-Dutch frontier. Old Clubfoot, as men called him in his heyday, had been in his grave these four years past; yet once again I found the path of adventure barred at its outset by a great lame man. ”

“ The man in front of Clubfoot, a small, dark man, doffed his panama to sponge his face. To my amazement it was Custrin.... Custrin, whom I had last seen, at the side of Marjorie Garth, standing at the head of the Naomi's ladder waving us farewell as the launch took us ashore....
Now I had the solution of something that had greatly puzzled me—Clubfoot's exact knowledge of where I kept the cipher message, his allusion to my "Government survey work" on Cock Island. Then Custrin was one of El Cojo's spies! With a little shiver I thought of that hocussed drink. ”

“ So I unfolded to him the extraordinary series of adventures that had befallen me since the night I had blundered upon the trail of a great secret in that evil hotel at Rotterdam.
Francis did not once interrupt the flow of my narrative. He listened with the most tense interest but with a growing concern which betrayed itself clearly on his face. At the end of my story, I silently handed to him the half of the stolen letter I had seized from Clubfoot at the Hotel Esplanade.
"Keep it, Francis," I said. "It's safer with a respectable waiter like you than with a hunted outcast like myself!" ”

“ I heard the chairs scrape in the corner of the hall where the dinner-party was breaking up.
"The Frau Gräfin has only to command," I said. "The Frau Gräfin knows I have been waiting for years. . . ."
Clubfoot was crossing towards the open door.
". . . I never expected to find the Frau Gräfin so gracious. . . . I had never hoped that the Frau Gräfin would be willing to do so much for me . . . the Frau Gräfin has made me very happy."
Clubfoot stood on the threshold and listened to my halting speech.
"You can bring your things in when you come to-morrow . . ." Monica said. ”

“ His work was of so delicate, so confidential a nature, that he rendered an account of his services only to his Imperial master. There was none to stay his hand, to check him in his courses, save only this neurotic, capricious cripple who is always open to flattery...."
Red Tabs thought for a minute and then went on.
"No one may catalogue," he said, "the crimes that Clubfoot committed, the infamies he had to his account. ”

“ It took me in to the extent that I dispatched an emissary to hunt you down in that delightful capital, but, for myself, I have a certain flair in these matters, and I thought you would sooner or later come to Bellevue. You will admit that I showed some perspicacity?"
"You're wasting time with all this talk," I said sullenly.
Clubfoot raised a hand deprecatingly.
"I take a pride in my work," he observed half-apologetically. Then he added:
"You must not forget that your pretty Countess is not an American. She is a German. She is also a widow. ”

“ Clubfoot continued, "to be entrusted with the important task of fetching the document and of handing it back to the writer. But the gentleman was in a hurry; the gentleman always is; he could not wait for that old slowcoach of a Clubfoot to mature his plans for getting into England, securing the document, and getting out again. ”

“ And he lifted his hideous and deformed foot.
"That is scarcely sufficient guarantee," I answered, "in a matter of this importance. A detail like that could easily be counterfeited, or otherwise provided for."
"My badge," and the man produced from his waistcoat pocket a silver star identical with the one I carried on my braces, but bearing only the letter "G" above the inscription "Abt. VII."
"That, even," I retorted, "is not conclusive."
Clubfoot's mind was extraordinarily alert, however gross and heavy his body might be. ”

“ I was in their hands properly now, and whether they got the document or not, my doom was sealed.
"I will pay you the compliment of saying, my dear Captain Okewood," Clubfoot remarked in that urbane voice of his which always made my blood run cold, "that never before in my career have I devoted so much thought to any single individual, in the different cases I have handled, as I have to you. As an individual, you are a paltry thing: it is rather your remarkable good fortune that interests me as a philosopher of sorts. ”

“ Of Clubfoot I never heard again, and to this day I do not know whether, weak as he was and single-handed in that little launch, he ever made the land. Garth, inclined to be difficult at first, resigned himself at the last with a good grace to our matrimonial projects. I think the argument that my share of Captain Roberts' treasure would remain in the family made a distinct appeal to his Lancashire horse-sense. Carstairs is with us still and is developing into an excellent butler. ”

“ This explained the single shot we had heard in the forest when we were on the rock.
"And the doctor murdered by this verdammt Engländer!" shouted a voice from the rear.
"Three days we've waited here and not a sign of the treasure," said von Hagel, looking round the group. "What have you to say to that, Grundt?"
Clubfoot, who had remained impassive under all this abuse, now staggered to his feet. No man lent a hand to help him. He stood and faced them, towering above them all. Ill though he was, his personality dominated every man in that place. ”

“ Yet there were only Clubfoot's men on the island now. Was Grundt asserting his authority?
The girl had dropped to her knees, and now seated herself cross-legged on the ground.
"If you and I are partners," said she, "don't you think the time has come to take me into your confidence?"
She invited me with a gesture to seat myself by her side. I glanced down at the valley. Below us and to the left the ascending path twice wound into view. From our coign of vantage one might infallibly pick off anyone who tried to push our position from the path. ”

“ Monica saw it and it sobered her.
They got up in front, and I sat in the body of the car.
"Hang on to that!" said Francis, handing me over a leather case. I recognized it at a glance. It was Clubfoot's dispatch-box. Francis was thorough in everything.
Once more we dashed out along the desolate country roads. We saw hardly a soul. Houses were few and far between and, save for an occasional greybeard hoeing in the wet fields or an old woman hobbling along the road, the countryside seemed dead. In the cold air the engine ran splendidly, and Francis got every ounce of horse-power out of it. ”