Desmond smiled sardonically. “You’re getting careless, Grundt! A few years ago you would not have been taken off your guard like this!” But Grundt said no word. “Your psychological powers are failing, too, my dear Doctor,” Desmond continued. “A woman’s wit defeated you. Celibacy has its drawbacks. If you had been a married man, now, you would have known that women have as great a predilection for curious hiding-places as a magpie!” For the first time Clubfoot spoke. “You again!” he said in a voice thick with anger. “Always you!” His dark eyes were hot with passion and they saw the veins swell knot-like at his temples. “You are beginning to incommode me, Okewood. I must advise you to be careful!” Desmond laughed. “If I hadn’t been careful during the last few weeks, I shouldn’t be here to-day,” he said. “You know that well enough, Grundt. However, you’re not going to do any more harm. Sergeant Rushbrooke!” “Sir?” “Go down and see if those police I asked for are there. Explain to the man in charge that it is essential that no one should leave this house or the houses on either side for the present, and ask him to be good enough to step up here to me. When you have done that, take a man with you and go to the nursing-home next door and inquire whether young Mr. Deinwitz is there. If he is, invite him to accompany you to Scotland Yard. If he won’t come, kidnap him! Understand?” “Sir!” said the Sergeant who had learnt discipline in the Brigade of Guards. He seemed to hesitate. “Will _you_ be all right, sir?” he asked. “Don’t you worry about me,” Desmond smiled. “Dr. Grundt and I are old friends! We shall enjoy a tête-à-tête!” On that Rushbrooke clattered off and Desmond turned to Clubfoot again. Grundt seemed to have regained all his saturnine good-humour. “You’ll hang for this job, my friend!” Desmond observed pleasantly. Grundt bared his strong yellow teeth in a smile and made a little bow. “You have, of course, all necessary evidence against me. Your English justice, if I remember rightly, is exacting on this point.” Unwittingly Desmond flashed an inquiring glance at him. The cripple was quick to notice it and chuckled. “My dear Okewood,” he remarked suavely, “you are too deliciously naïve. Lieber Freund, do you really imagine you will ever secure the conviction of a poor neurastheniac for murder simply because, on the night after the tragedy, attracted by the light and the sound of voices, he penetrated the scene of the crime?” “The key, man, the key!” Desmond broke in. “The key of my back door opens the back door of this flat,” was the rejoinder. A large key dropped on the carpet at Desmond’s feet. “Try it and see!” But now an interruption came. There was a ring at the front door. Three men in plain clothes appeared.