CHAPTER XVII

THE MEETING

If, as the textbooks tell us, a successful retirement be the greatest test of strategy, then, indeed, Clubfoot can lay claim to be one of the most skilful of generals in the never-ending guerilla warfare that is the daily life of the Secret Service. No man can ensure himself against the surprises of fate; but in one respect Dr. Grundt’s foresight was never found wanting, and that was in the provision of a safe and inconspicuous line of retreat. Nothing is more devastating to the _moral_ of troops of pursuit than the knowledge that their enemy, after each successful raid, is able to retire in safety into ambush to select his own time for the next sortie.

My two friends frankly recognized the affair at the house in Pimlico as a serious reverse. Not only had Clubfoot made away with one of the Chief’s most expert and trusted agents, but he had also eluded the trap laid for him and arranged matters so as to leave in the hands of his pursuers not a single accomplice against whom anything more serious than a simple misdemeanour could be proved. In itself the check was bad enough, but its results were even more grave. The long list of unexplained crimes was beginning to sap at the _moral_ of the Service: there were resignations among the weaker vessels whom crises of this nature invariably expose; and even the Chief, most dogged and equable of mortals, who had his own private reasons for anxiety, began to look worried.

It therefore redounds the more to his credit that at this juncture, some three weeks after Clubfoot’s escape by river from the house of Pimlico, the Chief should have taken a decision that, it is safe to predict, in any walk of life other than the Secret Service, would have been denounced as sheer lunatic foolhardiness.

Once more Grundt had vanished away into the Ewigkeit. It was as though the vast bulk of the master spy had dissolved into thin air. One clue, and one clue only—and that nothing better than a report based on more than doubtful authority—was forthcoming pointing to his presence in Germany. A “double-cross”—one of those versatile gentlemen who carry on espionage for both sides—sent word that a friend of his had seen a burly lame man whose appearance answered the description of Clubfoot lunching at a small café on one of the islands in the Havel, the river outside Berlin. No corroboration was obtainable and nothing more was heard directly of the redoubtable German until one morning the Chief found in his mail a letter from Dr. Grundt, posted in the West Central postal district of London, asking for an interview.

This the Chief decided immediately to grant. By the rules of the game he knew that the meeting would be privileged. In according it he was aware that he undertook to allow his visitor to come and go unmolested. Such encounters are not uncommon in the Secret Service. The “double-crosses” form, as it were, an invisible bridge between the most inveterate adversaries and, within the limit of strange unwritten moral laws in this most immoral of avocations, there are pacts and understandings that not infrequently are laid down at meetings no whit less bizarre than the memorable interview between Clubfoot and the Chief.

With characteristic consideration the big man sent for my two friends and informed them of Dr. Grundt’s request.

“It’s . . . it’s incredible, sir,” said Desmond Okewood.

“He wouldn’t have the nerve,” his brother Francis put in.

“Clubfoot would,” grimly observed the Chief, and pitched a letter on the desk in front of them. “Read it for yourself!”

Strange and devious are the ways of the Secret Service. Old hands at the game, neither Desmond nor Francis Okewood had been astonished on being bidden, severally and secretly, to report at the office of Jacob Melchizedech, commission agent, Shaftsbury Avenue, to find the Chief installed in one of the three modest rooms which Mr. Melchizedech’s place of business comprised.

Bizarre folk often have the pressing need to unbosom themselves to those who pull the strings behind the façade of public affairs. But the social record of some of these mysterious gentlemen and ladies is not always one to inspire unquestioning confidence. So, in the first instance, a non-committal identity and a non-committal address are but an elementary safeguard against blackmail and the kindred practices of the “double-cross.” Seldom did the Chief, known to few only by sight and to fewer still by name, face the casual visitor save under the cloak of an unrevealing identity and an accommodation address.

Desmond picked up the letter and read it, while his brother looked over his shoulder.

Dr. Grundt [the bold, upright handwriting set forth] presents his compliments to his colleague, the Director of the British Secret Service, and requests the favour of a personal interview at a time and place most convenient to the latter. A reply by return in the Agony Column of _The Times_ would oblige.

“Well, I’m damned!” Desmond exploded violently. “You’re surely not going to receive the fellow, sir?”

“Mr. Melchizedech on my behalf,” the Chief retorted with a twinkle in his eye, “will be pleased to hear anything our friend wishes to lay before me!”

“We’ll be three to one, anyhow!” muttered Francis Okewood.

The Chief shook his head. “No, we shan’t,” he announced decisively. “You two will be in the farther room . . .”

“But, Chief,” Desmond broke in vehemently, “the man will be armed. He’s dangerous: he stops at nothing . . .”

The big man shrugged his broad shoulders.

“I always meet an adversary halfway,” he said. “And I would remind you that Grundt and I have never yet come face to face. I am inordinately interested, I must confess, in this cripple who, when he directed the ex-Kaiser’s personal secret service, exercised such power over his Imperial master that he was the most dreaded man in Germany. You and your brother have told me so much about his dominating personality. I like encountering dominating personalities!” he added reflectively.

Desmond and Francis Okewood exchanged a glance full of meaning. For months the figure of the gigantic cripple had haunted their thoughts. So deeply had their long duel with The Man with the Clubfoot impressed his figure on their brain that in their mind’s eye they could see him now, a simian silhouette with his vast girth, his immensely long arms, his leering, savage eyes beneath the shaggy brows—above all, his inevitable undisguisable trade-mark, the monstrous deformed foot.

“I know you would meet anything or anybody with your bare fists, sir,” Desmond pleaded, “but Clubfoot is beyond the pale. He has the profoundest contempt for our English notions of fair play and, though you may agree to this idea of his of an armistice meeting, on _his_ side you can bet your bottom dollar it’s a plant! He’s a treacherous devil, and the only way to treat him is to fall on him the moment he appears, tie him up, and lodge him as quickly and as securely as possible in the nearest jail.”

“Well,” said the Chief slowly, “there may be something in what you say. But in all my career I’ve never yet refused to meet an enemy who wrote and asked, fair and square, for an interview. I shall see Grundt!”

“But, sir,” urged Desmond, “look at the list of his victims since he started his campaign of vengeance against the Service—Branxe, Wetherby Soukes, Fawcett Wilbur, Törnedahl, Miss Bardale, Bewlay, Finucane! The man’s a wolf, a mad dog! He ought to be shot at sight!”

The Chief’s strong face had grown very stern. “I agree. But I want _my_ sight of him. Don’t worry, Okewood. I’ve got my tally against our clubfooted friend. He’ll get no change out of me . . .”

He looked at his watch. “Half-past six. He’ll be here any moment now! Away with the pair of you into the back room. If you’ll remove the map of the tube railways hanging on the partition wall you’ll find a trap which, provided you don’t turn up the light, will—ahem!—facilitate both seeing and hearing!”

“Sir, once more . . .” said Desmond.

The Chief shook his head.

“And I haven’t even got a gun!” muttered the young man forlornly as he accompanied his brother from the room.

A “buzzer” whizzed raspingly through Mr. Melchizedech’s office. Composedly the Chief rose from his chair and, crossing the outer room, opened the front door. An enormous man in a black wide-awake hat with a heavy caped ulster faced him. The visitor leaned heavily upon a crutch-handled stick.

“Mr. Melchizedech?” he wheezed, for the stairs had temporarily robbed him of his breath.

“That’s my name,” replied the Chief. “Please come in.”

He stood back to let the stranger pass, then led the way into the inner office.

“Won’t you take off your things?” he said, and, pointing to a chair, remained standing.

With slow, deliberate movements the visitor slid the ulster from his shoulders and cast it with his hat on a couch. Then he turned and faced the other, and, for a full minute, the two men measured each other in silence. They were something of the same type, both of big build, both masterly and virile, with iron determination shown in the proud jut of the nose, the massive cast of the jaw.

There was, however, a marked difference in their regard. The Englishman was suave, self-possessed, restrained, and his manner, though watchful and even suspicious, was placid and polite. But in his every trait the other, his visitor, was restless and provocative. The baleful glare in his dark and burning eyes was in itself a challenge, and his movements had something of the menacing deliberation of a wild beast. There was an indescribable air of primeval savagery about him with his bulging tufted brows, his enormous deep chest, his long and powerful arms, his short thick legs, as he confronted the other across the desk.

Presently his eyes left the Chief’s face as, with insolent deliberation, he let his gaze sweep slowly round the room. It took in the desk with its dusty bundles of papers, the safe in the wall behind, the office calendar, the clock, the hat-stand, and the filing-cabinet, before coming to rest again upon the impassive mask confronting him.

With a comprehensive wave of his stick he indicated their surroundings.

“Na,” he croaked, “as between colleagues was there really any necessity for this elaborate setting?” Shrewdly he watched the other’s face.

“My instructions from the gentleman to whom you wrote,” replied the Chief evenly, “are to hear what you wish to say. I was to add that, in according you this interview, my Chief in no way binds his liberty of future action, notably with regard to the punishment he proposes to inflict upon you.”

Anger flashed swiftly into the hard, dark eyes. “Punishment?” he exclaimed; then dropped chuckling into a chair. “Bold words!” he added. “So ist’s aber recht! As between man and man!”

Impressively he laid one hairy palm downwards upon the desk.

“You have had ample warning of my power,” he said. “I have decimated your Service, Herr Kollege; its _moral_ is profoundly shaken; and, after the series of sanguinary reverses you have sustained at my hands, I can only suppose that a form of puerile _amour-propre_ prevents you from recognizing the futility of continuing the struggle. So I have come to you, frankly and openly, as is our German way, to lay my cards upon the table.”

Not by so much as the flutter of an eyelid did the Chief interrupt the flow of this harangue. He listened quietly, composedly, his keen grey eyes fixed on his visitor’s face.

“My work here is almost done,” the other resumed. “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. One last mission remains to be fulfilled and then old Clubfoot retires to his vineyard in Suabia, and politics will know no more the greatest man in our profession since Fouché!”

He seemed to swell up as he uttered his boast and his deep voice thrilled warmly to the fire of his egotism. Then his mood changed. With a crash he brought his fist down upon the desk.

“This Bliss mission must not go through, Herr Kollege,” he commanded.

For the first time a new light crept into the steady grey eyes that watched him so closely from across the table. The expression was involuntary and vanished almost as soon as it appeared. But, mere flicker though it was, it did not escape Grundt.

“I surprise you, I see,” the cripple remarked softly. “Nothing is withheld from me, lieber Herr. Shall I tell you about Mr. Alexander Bliss, senior partner of Haversack and Mayer, brokers to the British Government, and his mission to . . .”

An instinctive gesture from the other interrupted him.

“Discretion above all things,” Grundt acquiesced. “To the capital of a certain State contiguous to Russia, shall we say? You are doubtless aware that its new-found liberty has brought this ambitious Staatchen to the verge of financial disaster. A brand-new, spick-and-span army, costly missions abroad, banquets to fête the promise of to-morrow (but never the achievement of to-day), injudicious speculation in the exchanges of its neighbours have, as you undoubtedly know, played such havoc with the national resources that bankruptcy is the inevitable corollary. The British Government, with the altruism that has always distinguished its foreign policy (I would not suggest for a moment that the heavy commitments of British capital in this quarter influence its actions in the least!), has come to the rescue of . . . of this State. Your Mr. Bliss, after a number of most secret interviews with the Finance Minister, has concluded a satisfactory arrangement for the secret pledging in London of the State jewels, the glories of the nation’s past. I think I have summed up the situation correctly.”

He leant forward across the desk, tapping the blotter with stub forefinger.

“You will recall Mr. Bliss,” he said, “and cancel the arrangement he has made. A group of German financiers is prepared to take such action as will avert the disaster that threatens . . . this State. You will recall Bliss!”

Very quietly the Chief shook his head.

“If the British Government declines assistance,” Grundt resumed, “this Government will be bound to fall back upon the offer of the German group. The withdrawal of the Bliss mission will enable the German syndicate to arrange a loan on its own terms. I observe that you are already familiar with the existence of this German consortium. You see I am perfectly candid with you. I will push my frankness a step farther. This Bliss affair will be my last case. The matter satisfactorily adjusted, I retire, Herr Kollege, and enable you to reorganize your shattered and nerve-destroyed Service!”

Reflectively the Chief stabbed at his blotter with his reading-glass.

“Don’t be too hard on us, Herr Doktor,” he remarked. “The two Okewoods are in excellent health!”

A warm flush crimsoned the pallid cheeks of the cripple. Hot anger suddenly gleamed in his dark and restless eyes. But he controlled himself. He ran one hand over the close iron-grey stubble that thatched the bony head and his fleshy lips bared his yellow teeth in a forced smile.

“Clever, clever young men, Herr Kollege!” he murmured. “I congratulate you upon your Okewoods. 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.

“Yes,” he replied. “And now you know what you’ve got to do!”

The Chief plucked open the door. “Get out of here and go to hell!” he said without raising his voice, with the same dogged composure he had maintained throughout the interview.

Like some great animal heaving itself erect, Grundt struggled cumbrously to his feet.

“You . . . you refuse?” he blustered.

The Chief ignored the question. “If you’re not out of here in one minute,” he retorted with deadly calm, “cripple though you are, I . . . shall . . . kick . . . you . . . downstairs!”

Leaning heavily on his stick, The Man with the Clubfoot hobbled slowly to the door. On the threshold he stopped and, in a gesture of sudden ferocity, thrust his face into the other’s.

“You have passed sentence of death on Bliss,” he said in a voice that fury rendered hoarse and almost inarticulate, “and sentence of death on yourself as well!”

Then he passed out and they heard his heavy footstep pounding down the stairs.