CHAPTER III THE MAN WITH THE CLUBFOOT The room was lighted only by a green-shaded reading-lamp, which, standing on the desk between Desmond Okewood and Grundt, threw a dim, mysterious light on the saturnine visage of the cripple. The bristling iron-grey hair and low forehead, the hot and fearless eyes under the beetling brows, were in shadow; but a band of yellow-greenish light, falling athwart the face, revealed clearly the heavy clipped moustache, baring the discoloured teeth, and the massive jaw. From the cigar grasped in the great hairy fist clenched, as though in defiance, on the desk, a thin spiral of blue smoke rose aloft. The monstrous right boot was concealed from view. He had changed but little, Desmond reflected as he looked at him. The gross body was a little fuller, the iron-grey bristles were perhaps more thickly sprinkled with white; but there was nothing in the hostile, challenging attitude of the man that told of the misfortunes that had overcome his race. He was as before the Prussian beast, unchanging, unchangeable, revelling in his strength, glorying in his power, ferocious, relentless, unpardoning. For a full minute he did not speak. Obviously he gloated over the situation. It was as though he were reluctant to forgo a moment of his malicious enjoyment. His dark and cruel eyes, lighted with a spiteful fire, rested with a look of taunting interrogation upon the young man, and, when presently he raised his cigar to his mouth, he turned it over between his thick and pursed-up lips like some great beast of prey licking its chops. At last he broke the silence. “Lieber Freund,” he said in a soft, purring voice, “this is indeed a pleasure!” He wagged his head as though in sheer enjoyment of the sight of his _vis-à-vis_, bound hand and foot, sprawling awkwardly in his chair. “You always were a disconcerting person, lieber Okewood,” he remarked, his little finger flicking the ash of his cigar into a tray. “I had not reached your name on my little list—no, not by a round dozen or so! In fact, you find me in a considerable quandary. To be perfectly frank with you, teurer junger Herr, I have not yet decided how I shall put you to death!” He placed his cigar between his fleshy lips and drew on it luxuriously. “For the lad of mettle that I know you to be,” he continued, “you are remarkably taciturn this evening. If I remember rightly, you were more talkative in the past! Perhaps, though, the trifling measure of restraint I have been compelled to lay upon you embarrasses you . . .” His black-turfed eyebrows bent to a frown and his eyes flashed hotly. “I am taking no more chances with you, young man!” he said in a voice of dangerous softness. Desmond Okewood struggled erect. Instantly a young man appeared from behind his chair. He was a typical fair young German, his right cheek scored with a long white duelling scar. “Let him be, Heinrich!” said Grundt.