The Man with the Clubfoot Part 32

Clubfoot stood on the threshold and listened to my halting speech.

"You can bring your things in when you come to-morrow ..." Monica said.

"The keeper will tell you what time you must be here."

Then she dismissed me, but as I went I heard her say:

"Herr Doktor! Can I have a word with you?"

CHAPTER XVIII

I GO ON WITH THE STORY

I was in the billiard-room of the Castle, a dusty place, obviously little used, for it smelt of damp. A fire was burning in the grate, however, and on a table in the corner, which was littered with papers, stood a dispatch box.

Clubfoot wore a dinner-coat and, as he laughed, his white expanse of shirt-front heaved to the shaking of his deep chest. For a moment, however, I had little thought of him or the ugly-looking Browning he held in his fist. My ears were strained for any sound that might betray Francis' presence in the garden. But all remained silent as the grave.

Clubfoot, still chuckling audibly, walked over to me. I thought he was going to shoot me, he came so straight and so fast, but it was only to get behind me and shut the door, driving me, as he did so, farther into the room.

The door by which he had entered stood open. Without taking his eyes off me or deflecting his weapon from its aim, he called out:

"Schmalz!"

A light step resounded, and the one-armed lieutenant tripped into the room. When he saw me, he stopped dead. Then he softly began to circle round me with a mincing step, murmuring to himself: "So! So!"

"Good evening, Dr. Semlin!" he said in English. "Say, I'm mighty glad to see you! Well, Okewood, dear old boy, here we are again. What? Herr Julius Zimmermann ..." and he broke into German, "_es freut mich!_"

I could have killed him where he stood, maimed though he was, for his fluency in the American and English idiom alone.

"Search him, Schmalz!" commanded Clubfoot curtly.

Schmalz ran the fingers of his one arm over my pockets, flinging my portfolio on the billiard-table towards Clubfoot, and the other articles as they came to light ... my pistol, watch, cigarette-case and so forth ... on to a leather lounge against the wall. In his search he brushed me with his severed stump ... ugh, it was horrible!

Clubfoot had s.n.a.t.c.hed up the portfolio and hastily examined it. He shook the contents out on the billiard-table and examined them carefully.

"Not there!" he said. "Run him upstairs, and we'll strip him," he ordered; "and let not our clever young friend forget that I'm behind him with my little toy!"

Schmalz gripped me by the collar, spitefully digging his knuckles into my neck, and propelled me out of the room ... almost into the arms of Monica.

She screamed and, turning, fled away down the pa.s.sage. Clubfoot laughed noisily, but I reflected mournfully that in my present sorry plight, unwashed and unshaven, in filthy clothes, haled along like a common pickpocket, even my own mother would not have recognized me.

There was a degrading scene in the bedroom to which they dragged me, where the two men stripped me to the skin and pawed over every single article of clothing I possessed. Physically and mentally, I cowered in my nudity before the unwholesome gaze of these two sinister cripples. Of all my experiences in Germany, I still look back upon that as almost my worst ordeal.

Of course, they found nothing, search as they might, and presently they flung my clothes back at me and bade me get dressed again, "for you and I, young man," said Clubfoot, with his glinting smile, "have got to have a little talk together!"

When I was once more clothed--

"You can leave us, Schmalz!" commanded Clubfoot, "and send up the sergeant when I ring: he shall look after this tricky Englishman whilst we are at dinner with our charming hostess."

Schmalz went out and left us alone. Clubfoot lighted a cigar. He smoked in silence for a few minutes. I said nothing, for really there was nothing for me to say. They hadn't got their precious doc.u.ment, and it was not likely they would ever recover it now. I feared greatly that Francis in his loyalty might make an attempt to rescue me, but I hoped, whatever he did, he would think first of putting the doc.u.ment in a place of safety. I was more or less resigned to my fate. I was in their hands properly now, and whether they got the doc.u.ment 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.... I a.s.sure you it will cause me serious concern to be the instrument of severing your really extraordinary strain of good luck. I don't mind telling you, as man to man, that I have not yet entirely decided in my mind what to do with you now that I've got you!"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"You've got me, certainly," I replied, "but you would vastly prefer to have what I have not got."

"Let us not forget to be always content with small mercies,"

answered the other, smiling with a gleam of his golden teeth,... "that is a favourite maxim of mine. As you truly remark, I would certainly prefer the ... the jewel to the infinitely less precious and ... interesting ... casket. But what I have, I hold. And I have you ... and your accomplice as well."

"I have no accomplice," I denied stoutly.

"Surely you forget our gracious hostess, our most charming Countess? Was it not thanks to the interest she deigned to take in your safety that I came here? Had it not been for that circ.u.mstance, I should scarcely have ventured to intrude upon her widowhood...."

"Her widowhood?" I exclaimed.

Clubfoot smiled again.

"You cannot have followed the newspapers in your ... retreat, my dear Captain Okewood," he replied, "or surely you would have read the afflicting intelligence that Count Rachwitz, A.D.C. to Field-Marshal von Mackensen, was killed by a sh.e.l.l that fell into the Brigade Head-quarters where he was lunching at Predeal. Ah, yes," he sighed, "our beautiful Countess is now a widow, alone ..." he paused, then added, "... and unprotected!"

I understood his allusion and went cold with fear. Why, Monica was involved in this affair as much as I. Surely they wouldn't dare to touch her....

Clubfoot leaned forward and tapped me on the knee.

"You will be sensible, Okewood," he said confidentially. "You've lost.

You can't save yourself. Your life was forfeit from the moment you crossed the threshold of his Majesty's private apartments ... but you can save _her_."

I shook his huge hand off my leg.

"You won't bluff me," I answered roughly. "You daren't touch the Countess Rachwitz, an American lady, niece of an American amba.s.sador, married into one of your leading families ... no, Herr Doktor, you must try something else."

"Do you know why Schmalz is here?" he asked patiently, "and those soldiers?... You must have pa.s.sed through the cordon to come here. Your little friend is in preventive arrest. She would be in gaol (she doesn't know it), but that His Majesty was unwilling to put this affront on the Rachwitz family in their great affliction."

"The Countess Rachwitz has nothing whatever to do with me," ... rather a foolish lie, I thought to myself too late, as I was in her house.

But Clubfoot remained quite unperturbed.

"I shall take you into my confidence, my dear sir," he said, "to show that I know you to be stating an untruth. The Countess, on the contrary, is, to use a vulgar phrase, in it up to the neck. Thanks to the amazing imbecility of the Berlin police, I was not informed of your brief stay at the Bendler-Stra.s.se, even after they were called in by the invalid American gentleman in the matter of your hasty flight when asked to have your pa.s.sport put in order. But we are systematic, we Germans; we are painstaking; and I set about going through every possible place that might afford you shelter.

"In the course of my investigations I came across our mutual friend, Herr Kore. A perusal of his very business-like ledgers showed me that on the day following your disappearance from the Esplanade he had received 3,600 marks from a certain E. 2 ... all names in his books were in cipher. Under the influence of my winning personality, Herr Kore told me all he knew; I pursued my investigations and then discovered what the asinine police had omitted to tell me, namely, that on the date in question an alleged American had made a hurried flight from the Countess Rachwitz's apartment in the Bendler-Stra.s.se. An admirable fellow ... Max or Otto, or some name like that ... anyhow, he was valet to Madame's invalid brother, was able to fill in all the lacunae, and I was thus enabled to draw up a very strong case against your well-meaning but singularly ill-advised hostess. By this time the lady had left Berlin for this charming old-world seat, and I promptly took measures to have her placed in preventive arrest whilst I tracked _you_ down.

"You got away again. Even Jupiter nods, you know, my dear Captain Okewood, and I frankly admit I overlooked the silver badge which you had in your possession. I must compliment you also on your adroitness in leaving us that false trail to Munich. 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.