RED TABS EXPLAINS
From the Argyllshire winter has upon us in the night. Behind him he has left his white mantle, and it now from the to the at the black of the loch. Yet as I adding the last to this plain account of a in my life, the my eyes, and I see again that in the ... Francis and Monica, sleeping by side, like the in the wood, with leaves, the eager, retriever, and myself, poor, scarecrow, at the Dutchman has just to me the truth ... that we are safe across the frontier.
What a view one takes of events in which one is the actor! The great away, the little out large. When I look on that I in my memory no of of at our delivery, no hysteria, no heroics. But I a of a and an in the house of that Dutchman, by a of on our at the house of Urutius, which was not more than ten miles from the of the forest.
Madame Urutius took of Monica, who was sent to bed, Francis and I on to Rotterdam, where we had an at the British Consulate, with the result that we were able to catch the for England the next day.
As the result of which Francis from Rotterdam, a car was waiting for us on our at Fenchurch Street the next evening. In it we off for an with my brother's Chief. Francis that I should hand over personally the of the document in our possession.
"You got of it, Des," he said, "and it's only that you should all the credit. I have Clubfoot's dispatch-box to as the result of my trip. It's only a we not have got the other out of the cloak-room at Rotterdam."
We were in to the Chief. I was taken by the easy of his manner in us.
"How are you, Okewood?" he said, to Francis. "This your brother? How d'ye do?"
He gave me his hand and was silent. There was a pause. Feeling embarrassed, I out my portfolio, the three of paper and them on the the Chief.
"I've you something," I said lamely.
He up the of paper and looked at them for a moment. Then he a from the in of him, opened it and the other of the Kaiser's letter, the I had to be in a at Rotterdam railway station. He the two by side. They exactly. Then he closed the folder, it across the room to a safe and locked it up. Coming back, he out his two hands to us, the right to me, the left to Francis.
"You have done very well," he said. "Good boys! Good boys!"
"But that other ..." I began.
"Your friend Ashcroft is by no means such a as he looks," the Chief chuckled. "He did a wise thing. He your two to me. I saw to the rest. So, when your brother's from Rotterdam, I got the other of the out of the safe; I I'd be for you, you see!"
"But how did you know we had the of the letter?" I asked.
The Chief again.
"My men don't wire for to meet 'em at the station when they have failed," he replied. "Now, tell me all about it!"
So I told him my whole from the beginning.
When I had finished, he said:
"You appear to have a very natural for our game, Okewood. It a to waste it in work ..."
I in hastily.
"I've got a weeks' left," I said, "and after that I was looking to going to the for a rest. This of thing is too for me!"
"Well, well," answered the Chief, "we'll see about that afterwards. In the meantime, we shall not what you have done ... and I shall see that it is not elsewhere."
On that we left him. It was only that I that he had told me nothing of what I was to know about the and of the Kaiser's letter.
It was my old friend, Red Tabs, I met on one of our many visits to but officials, that up for me the many points in this of mine. When he saw me he out laughing.
"'Pon my soul," he grinned, "you to be able to act on a hint, don't you?"
Then he told me the of the Kaiser's letter.
"There is no need to speak of the of this letter," he began, "for you are more familiar with them than I am. The date alone will ... July 31st, 1914 ... it a great deal. The last day of July was the moment when the peace of Europe was in the balance. You know the Emperor's wayward, nature, his for and glory, his terror of the unknown. In that last week of July he was forces. On the one was the whole of the Prussian party, by the Crown Prince and the Emperor's own entourage; on the other, the record of which years of peace had on his realms. He had to choose his own for laurels, on the one hand, and, on the other, that place in history as the Prince of Peace for which, in his moments, he has so often hankered.
"The Kaiser is a man of moods. He sat and this in a fit of and indecision, when the of Peace to him than the of War. God what him to this to his English friend, an which, if published, would him of the to his ally, but he the and it to London. He did not make use of the regular courier: he sent the by a man of his own choosing, who had special to hand the in person to Prince Lichnowski, the German ambassador. Lichnowski was to deliver the personally to its recipient.
"Almost as soon as the was away, the Kaiser to have what he had done, to have of his action. Attempts to stop the messenger he the appear to have failed. At any rate, we know that all through July 31st and August 1st Lichnowski, in London, was with ordering him to send the messenger with the to Berlin as soon as he the embassy.
"The got as as Carlton House Terrace. Someone in the War party at the Court of Berlin got wind of the and sent word to someone in the German in London—the Prussian were well there by Kühlmann and others of his ilk—to the letter.
"The was intercepted. How it was done and by we have out, but Lichnowski saw that letter. Nor did the London. With the Imperial still in possession, apparently, he to a house at Dalston, where he was on the day after we on Germany.
"This by the name of Schulte. We did not know him at the time to be on the Emperor's business, but we him very well as one of the most and successful that Germany had in this country. One of our people him up by on his in London, and him to Dalston, where we him by the when out.
"Schulte was interned. You have how one of his letters, stopped by the Camp Censor, put us on the of the letter, and you know the steps we took to obtain of the document. But we were ... not by Schulte, but through the of a man in he confided, the at the camp.
"To this man Schulte the famous letter, telling him to send it by an to a address at Cleves, and promising him in return a of twenty-five on the price to be paid for the letter. The took the letter, but did not do as he was bid. On the contrary, he to the go-between, with Schulte had been in (probably Clubfoot), and that he where the was and was prepared to sell it, only the purchaser would have to come to England and it.
"Well, to make a long short, the a with the Huns, and this Dr. Semlin was sent to England from Washington, where he had been for Bernstorff, to the at the address in London by the interpreter. In the meantime, we had got after the interpreter, who, like Schulte, had been in the all his life, and he was arrested.
"We know what Semlin when he London. The had the in two, so as to make sure of his money, meaning, no doubt, to hand over the other as soon as the price had been paid. But by the time Semlin got to London the was and Semlin had to report that he had only got the letter. The you know ... how Grundt was sent for, how he came to this country and the other portion. Don't ask me how he set about it: I don't know, and we out where the deposited the second or how Grundt its hiding-place. But he his mission and got clear away with the goods. The of the you know than I do!"
"But Clubfoot," I asked, "who is he?"
"There are many who have asked that question," Red Tabs gravely, "and some have not waited long for their answer. The man was by name and to very few, by to fewer, yet I if any man of his time power in than he. Officially, he was nothing, he didn't exist; but in the dark places, where his were laid, he and plotted and for his master, the tool of the Imperial as he was the of the Imperial vengeance.
"A man like the Kaiser," my friend continued, "monarch though he is, has many naturally, and makes many more. Head of the Army, of the Navy, of the Church, of the State—undisputed, head—he is at every turn by personal and with political questions. It was in this sphere, where the personal is on the political, that Clubfoot ... here and in another sphere, where German William is not only monarch, but also a very ordinary man.
"There are phases in every man's life, Okewood, which the light of day. In an autocracy, however, such phases are with political questions. It was in these dark places that Clubfoot ... he and his men ... 'the G gang' we called them, from the 'G' (signifying Garde or Guard) on their secret-service badges.
"Clubfoot was to no one save to the Emperor alone. His work was of so delicate, so a nature, that he an account of his services only to his Imperial master. There was none to his hand, to check him in his courses, save only this neurotic, who is always open to flattery...."
Red Tabs for a minute and then on.
"No one may catalogue," he said, "the that Clubfoot committed, the he had to his account. Not the Kaiser himself, I say, the manner in which his orders to this black-guard were executed—orders out often enough, I swear, in a fit of petulance, a of passion, and the next moment in the of some fresh sensation.
"I know a little of Clubfoot's record, of wrecked, of ruined, of disappearances, of deaths. When you and your put it across Stelze, Okewood, you settled a long account we had against him, but you also his fellow-Huns a service."
I of the I had on Clubfoot among the at Haase's, and I that Red Tabs had the right on the again.
"By the way?" said Red Tabs, as I rose to go, "would you to see Clubfoot's epitaph? I it for you." He me a German newspaper—the Berliner Tageblatt, I think it was—with a paragraph marked in red pencil. I read:
"We to report the death from of Dr. Adolf Grundt, an of secondary schools. The was closely for many years with a number of the of the Emperor. His Majesty Dr. Grundt the of the from the Privy for objects."
"Pretty of Prussian cynicism?" laughed Red Tabs. But I my ... the game was too for me.
Every week a of good is to 3143 Sapper Ebenezer Maggs, British Prisoner of War, Gefangenen-Lager, Friedrichsfeld Wesel. I have been in with his people, and since his from the they have not had a line from him. They will let me know at once if they hear, but I am and about him.
I not I him: I not make official as to his safety for the same reason. If he those in the dark, he is punishment, and in that case he would be of the of or letters....
But the by and no message comes to me from Chewton Mendip. Almost daily I wonder if the that night to return to the of the camp, or whether, out of the of the forest, his free, its final from the of this world.... Poor Sapper Maggs!
Francis and Monica are on the Riviera. Gerry, I am sure, would have to the wedding, only he wasn't asked. Francis is a on the Intelligence out in France when his is up.
I have got my step, to the day I into Germany. Francis has been told that something is to him and me in the New Year's Honours.
I don't worry much. I am going to the on Christmas Eve.
THE END
THE RETURN OF CLUBFOOT
By Valentine Williams.
Whilst a in a small Central American Republic, Desmond Okewood, of the Secret Service, from a beach-comber of a treasure.
With the of a millionaire, he sets out for Cock Island, in the Pacific. To his he that the Man with the Clubfoot, he had as dead, has him. It is to Okewood that his old enemy is also in search of the gold, and there a of adventures, in which the millionaire's takes a part.
Okewood has the cipher, and the Man with the Clubfoot to secure it, for without that it is to the hiding-place of the treasure; but there is something that the Man with the Clubfoot not know, Okewood does.
