, I was up against it now. In vain my memory protested against the credibility of the evidence which my eyes could not repudiate. Grundt was dead these four years: had I not seen him, dimly through the blue haze of smoke from my brother's automatic, sink back lifeless on the carpet in the billiard-room of that frontier Schloss? Had I not even read his obituary in the German newspapers?
Yet here he stood before me again, the man as I had known him in the past, ruthless-looking, formidable, sinister, in his clumsy, ill-fitting suit of black. Again I noticed the immense bulk which, with the over-long sinewy arms, the bushy eyebrows, and the black-tufted cheek bones, irresistibly suggested some fierce and gigantic man-ape. Beneath the right eye a red and angry scar, a deep indentation in the cheek-bone, solved at a glance the mystery which had almost paralyzed my brain. My brother's aim had failed. That hideous cicatrice, accentuating the leer of the bold, menacing eyes and of the cruel mouth, told me, beyond all possibility of doubt, that, out of the dim, dark past, Clubfoot had arisen again to confront me.
A sort of cold despair settled down upon me. That Clubfoot would, in his good time, shoot and shoot to kill I made no doubt; for we had been mortal enemies, and quarter did not ever come into Grundt's reckoning. All kinds of odd scenes from my crowded life swarmed into my mind: dear old Francis serving in the tennis-court at Prince's: a juggler on the Maidan at Calcutta, when I was a subaltern in India: Doña Luisa standing in Bard's gardens, rolling her white eyeballs at me...
Then Clubfoot laughed—a dry, mirthless chuckle. The sound was forbidding enough, but it braced me like a tonic. I had beaten this man before: I would beat him again. I dropped my eyes, seeking to locate my pistol.
“Five paces back, if you please, Herr Major!” rang out a commanding voice from the rock. “And, to save misunderstanding, let me say that it would add to the decorum of the proceedings if you renounced any attempt to find your weapon...” He spoke in German in accents of deadly suavity. “On the occasion of our last meeting, you—or was it your brother?—showed that your hand is the prompt servant of your brain, an invaluable asset (let me add in parenthesis) to the big-game hunter, but disconcerting in civilized society....”
What a commanding presence this man had! Again I was conscious of it as, before his slow and searching gaze, I fell back as ordered. He seemed to fill that narrow glen. This effect was not produced by his bulk (which was considerable), but by his amazing animal vitality, the mental and physical vigour of some great beast of prey.
Keeping me covered with his pistol, he lowered himself to a sitting position on the rock and, with surprising agility in one crippled as he was, dropped heavily onto the slab. In a lightning motion he stooped and whipped up my automatic which, with a whirling motion of the left hand, he sent flying away into the bush.
“Now, Okewood,” he remarked, “you can sit down! But be good enough to keep your hands above your head!”
He gave me the lead by seating himself on the rocky slab. I followed his example and dropped on to the ground.
“Would you mind?” I asked, “if I clasped my hands behind my head? Otherwise the position is fatiguing...”
“Not in the least,” retorted Clubfoot, baring his teeth in a gleam of gold, “as long as you remember that I shoot quickly—and straight!”
He measured the distance between us with his eye, and then, as though in deliberate challenge, laid down his pistol on the rock beside him. He produced a cigar-case from his pocket.
“I seem to recollect that you are a cigar smoker!” he began.
“Thanks,” I retorted, remembering the holder I had picked up, “I don't smoke German cigars!”
Clubfoot chuckled amiably.
“Nor do I!” he rejoined. “I believe you will find these as good as any that ever came out of Havana. Not long ago I was a highly respected member of the Club there!”
And he tossed his case across at me, after selecting a cigar for himself. I let it lie. I was not taking favours from this man.
Grundt raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. But he made no comment on my ungraciousness.
“Herr Major!” he said as he bit off the end of his cigar, “I must once more congratulate you on the supreme excellence of your country's Secret Service! The Intelligence system which located this remote island as the hiding-place, real or imaginary, of treasure, is remarkable! The resource you displayed in acquiring the document which now rests in your letter-case in your pocket does credit both to the service and yourself. My congratulations!”