“It was. He is the fourth victim of the most amazing campaign of vengeance directed against those who rendered our Secret Service notable aid in the war. And in each case—mark well my words, Okewood—a clubfooted or a lame man has lurked in the background, never very clearly seen, never precisely identified. When Sir Wetherby Soukes, the chemist, with whose work in detecting the German invisible inks you are familiar, committed suicide the other day, his callers, on the afternoon in question, included a certain Dr. Simon Nadon, stated to be a French scientist, _who had a clubfoot_! “Perhaps you read in the newspapers of the unexplained death of Colonel Branxe, who did so well in the counter-espionage. Poor Branxe, you remember, was found on the fifth green at Great Chadfold with a knife in his back. Well, in the sand of an adjacent bunker the police discovered the footprint of a _lame man_—you know, with one footprint turned almost at right angles to the other. And lastly, in the inexplicable affair of Fawcett Wilbur, who looked after our end in Rumania during the German occupation, his companion, when he jumped in front of a train at Charing Cross Station, was a Rumanian doctor _who was a clubfooted man_! But every time, mark you, the shadowy figure of this lame man has simply faded away without leaving a trace.” He broke off, and leaning back in his big chair, scrutinized the keen and resolute face that confronted him across the desk. “Like all Germans, old Clubfoot is a man of method,” he went on. “He is working upwards, Okewood. To-morrow it may be your turn, or perhaps he’ll have a shot at your brother, Francis; and ultimately it will be me!” His mouth had grown very grim. “It won’t do, my boy. We can’t take it lying down. But you realize it’s going to be a dangerous business?” Desmond Okewood nodded. “No clues, I take it?” “Nothing essential!” There was a little twinkle in the young man’s blue eye. “That settles it!” he remarked. “If we can’t go to him, we’ll have to bring him to us. This is my idea, sir . . .” For two hours thereafter the Chief’s door was barred to callers and a long list of engagements completely dislocated. Two evenings later, Vera Slade dined with Desmond Okewood at the corner table of the grill-room of the Nineveh Hotel, which was always reserved for Desmond when he was in town. In a high-necked pale-green gown fresh from Paris the girl looked most attractive. Eyebrows just aslant gave a charming suggestion of archness to her piquant face with its dark eyes, rather wistful mouth, and fine skin, framed in raven-black hair. Woman-like, her spirits rose to the interest which, as she clearly saw, she had aroused in her host. His pressure of her hand as he greeted her had lasted just long enough to tell her that her appearance was an undoubted success.