The Man with the Clubfoot - Valentine Williams (top 100 books to read TXT) 📗

ten to twelve. That is all I know about it.... But Francis has planned something, and you and I have got to trust him. Now, listen ... I shall tell Clubfoot I have pleaded with you and that you show signs of weakening. Say nothing to-night, temporize with him when he comes for his answer in the morning, and then send for him at a quarter to ten, when he will be leaving the house with the others. The rest I leave to you. Good night, Des, and cheer up!"...

"But, Monica," I cried, "what about you?"

She reddened deliciously under her pallor.

"Des," she replied happily, "we are allies now, we three. If all goes well, I'm coming with you and Francis!"

With that she was gone. A few minutes after, a couple of soldiers arrived with Schmalz and took me downstairs to a dark cellar in the basement, where I was locked in for the night.

I was dreaming of the front ... again I sniffed the old familiar smells, the scent of fresh earth, the fetid odour of death; again I heard outside the trench the faint rattle of tools, the low whispers of our wiring party; again I saw the very lights soaring skyward and revealing the desolation of the battlefield in their glare. Someone was shaking me by the shoulder. It was my servant come to wake me.... I must have fallen asleep. Was it stand-to so soon? I sat up and rubbed my eyes and awoke to the anguish of another day.

The sergeant stood at the cellar door, framed in the bright morning light.

"You are to come upstairs!" he said.

He took me to the billiard-room, where Clubfoot, sleek and washed and shaved, sat at the writing-table in the sunshine, opening letters and sipping coffee. A clock on a bracket above his head pointed to eight.

"You wish to speak to me, I believe," he said carelessly, running his eye over a letter in his hand.

"You must give me a little more time, Herr Doktor," I said. "I was worn out last night and I could not look at things in their proper light. If you could spare me a few hours more...."

I put a touch of pleading into my voice, which struck him at once.

"I am not unreasonable, my dear Captain Okewood," he replied, "but you will understand that I am not to be trifled with, so I give you fair warning. I will give you until...."

"It is eight o'clock now," I interrupted. "I tell you what, give me until ten. Will that do?"

Clubfoot nodded assent.

"Take this man upstairs to my bedroom," he ordered the sergeant. "Stay with him while he has his breakfast, and bring him back here at ten o'clock. And tell Schmidt to leave my car at the door: he needn't wait, as he is to beat: I will drive myself to the shoot."

I don't really remember what happened after that. I swallowed some breakfast, but I had no idea what I was eating, and the sergeant, who was a model of Prussian discipline, declined with a surly frown to enter into conversation with me. My morale was very low: when I look back upon that morning I think I must have been pretty near the breaking-point.

As I sat and waited I heard the house in a turmoil of preparation for the shoot. There was the sound of voices, of heavy boots in the hall, of wheels and horses in the yard without. Then the noises died away and all was still. Shortly afterwards, the clock pointing to ten, the sergeant escorted me downstairs again to the billiard-room.

Grundt was still sitting there. A hot wave of anger drove the blood into my cheeks as I looked at him, fat and soft and so triumphant at his victory. The sight of him, however, gave me the tonic I needed. My nerve was shaken badly, but I was determined it must answer to this last strain, to play this uncouth fish for two hours. After that ... if nothing happened ...

Clubfoot sent the sergeant away.

"I can look after him myself now," he said, in a blithe tone that betrayed his conviction of success. So the sergeant saluted and left the room, his footsteps echoing down the passages like the leaden feet of Destiny, relentless, inexorable.

CHAPTER XIX WE HAVE A RECKONING WITH CLUBFOOT

I looked at Clubfoot.

I must play him with caution, with method, too.

Only by acting on a most exact system could I hope to hold him in that room for two hours. I had four points to argue with him and I would devote half an hour to each of them by the clock on the bracket above his head. If only I could keep him confident in his victory, I might hope to prevent him finding out that I was playing with him ... but two hours is a long time ... it would be a near thing.

One point in my favour ... my manner gave him the assurance of success from the start. There was nothing counterfeit about my tone of humility, for in truth I was very near despair. I was making this last effort at the bidding of my brother, but I felt it to be a forlorn hope: in my heart of hearts I knew I was down and out.

So I went straight to the point and told Clubfoot that I was beaten, that he should have his paper. But there were difficulties about the execution of both sides of the bargain. 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. To this Clubfoot replied that I might set my mind at ease: the moment the document was in his hands he would give orders for her release: I should be there and might see it done myself.

What guarantee was there, I asked, that she would not be detained before she reached the frontier?

Clubfoot was getting a little restless. With his eye on the clock but in a placid voice he again protested that his word was the sole guarantee he could offer.

We discussed this too. My manner was earnest and nervous, I know, and I think he enjoyed playing with me. I told him frankly that his reputation belied his protestations of good faith. At this he laughed and cynically admitted that this was quite possibly the case.

"Nevertheless, it is I who give the guarantee," he said in a tone that brooked no contradiction.

The clock struck eleven.

One hour to go!

"Come, Okewood," he added good-naturedly, "we waste time. Up to this you've had all the sport, you know. You wouldn't have me miss the first day's shooting I've had this year. Where have you got this letter of ours?"

He was an extraordinary man. To hear him address me, you would never have supposed that he was sending me to my death. He appeared to have forgotten this detail. It meant so little to him that he probably had.

I turned to my third point. He made things very hard for me, I said, but I was the vanquished and must give way. The trouble was that the document was still in two portions and neither half was here.

"You indicate where the halves are hidden," said Clubfoot promptly. "I will accompany you to the hiding-places and you will hand them to me."

"But they are nowhere near here," I replied.

"Then where are they?" answered Clubfoot impatiently. "Come, I am waiting and it's getting late!"

"It will take several days to recover both portions," I muttered unwillingly.

"That does not matter," retorted the other; "there is no particular hurry ... now!"

And he smiled grimly.

I dared not raise my eyes to the clock, for I felt the German's gaze on me. An intuitive instinct told me that his suspicions had been awakened by my reluctance. I was very nearly at the end of my resources.

Would the clock never strike?

"I tell you frankly, Herr Doktor," I said in a voice that trembled with anxiety, "I cannot leave the Countess unprotected whilst we travel together to the hiding-places of the document. I only feel sure of her safety whilst she is near me...."

Clubfoot bent his brows at me.

"What do you suggest then?" he said very sternly.

"You go and recover the two halves at the places I indicate," I stammered out, "and ... and ..."

A faint whirr and the silver chime rang out twice.

Half an hour more!

How still the house was! I could hear the clock ticking—no, that thudding must be my heart. My wits failed me, my mind had become a blank, my throat was dry with fear.

"I've wasted an hour and a half over you, young man," said Clubfoot suddenly, "and it's time that this conversation was brought to a close. I warn you again that I am not to be trifled with. The situation is perfectly clear: it rests with you whether the Countess Rachwitz goes free or is court-martialled this afternoon at Cleves and shot this evening. Your suggestion is absurd. I'll be reasonable with you. We will both stay here. I will wire for the two portions of the letter to be fetched at the places you indicate, and as soon as I hold the entire letter in my hands the Countess will be driven to the frontier. I will allow her butler here to accompany her and he can return and assure you that she is in safety."

He stretched out his hand and pulled a block of telegraph forms towards him.

"Where shall we find the two halves?" he said.

"One is in Holland," I murmured.

He looked up quickly.

"If you dare to play me false...."

He broke off when he saw my face.

The room was going round with me. My hands felt cold as ice. I was struggling for the mastery over myself, but I felt my body swaying.

"Ah!" exclaimed Clubfoot musingly, "that would be Semlin's half.... I might have known.... Well, never mind, Schmalz can take my car and fetch it. He can be back by to-morrow. Where is he to go?"

"The other half is in Berlin," I said desperately. My voice sounded to me like a third person speaking.

"That's simpler," replied Clubfoot. "Ten minutes to twelve now ... if I wire at once, that half should be here by midnight.... I'll get the message off immediately...."

He looked up at me, pencil in hand.

It was the end. I had kept faith with Francis to the limit of my powers, but now my resistance was broken. He had failed me ... not me, but Monica, rather.... I could not save her now. Like some nightmare film, the crowded hours of the past few weeks flashed past my eyes, a jostling procession of figures—Semlin with his blue lips and livid face, Schratt with her bejewelled hands, the Jew Kore, Haase with his bullet head, Francis, sadly musing on the café verandah ... and Monica, all in white, as I saw her that night at the Esplanade ... my thoughts always came back to her, a white and pitiful figure in some dusty courtyard at lamplight facing a row of levelled rifles....

"I am waiting!"

Clubfoot's voice broke stridently upon the silence.

Should I tell him the truth now?

It was three minutes to the hour.

"Come! The two addresses!"

I would keep faith to the last.

"Herr Doktor!" I faltered.

He dashed the pencil down on the table and sprang to his feet. He caught me by the lapels of my coat and shook me in an iron grip.

"The addresses, you dog!" he said.

The clock