The room was sparely lighted by a single reading-lamp with a green shade, and its sickly rays seemed to heighten the pallor of the speaker’s face. He was a round-shouldered man whose high cheek-bones and slanting eyes betrayed his Mongol blood even as his snuffling German jargon revealed his race. He had a rabbit mouth, the upper lip drawn up over long yellow teeth, and the weakness of his chin was in part hidden by a ragged fringe of reddish beard. He sat at the desk, his whole body atwitch with some nervous tic as he gnawed restlessly at his fingers. In the burly apelike figure that confronted him, with the relentless eyes beneath their tufted brows, the cruel, savage mouth and the heavy jowl, any one closely acquainted with the dark ways of international espionage would have recognized the redoubtable Dr. Grundt, better known as The Man with the Clubfoot. Slowly Grundt opened and shut his great hairy hand. “I’ve got him—_there_, Mandelstamm!” he said in a voice that purred with exultation. “We are old, we are exiled; but we are not a back number yet. In this last affair of Sir Alexander Bannington’s report in which, I confess, my customary good fortune failed me, this cursed Okewood had odds of three to one on his side. He thought he had me cornered; but now he, not old Clubfoot, sits in the trap.” He chuckled savagely with a sound that was almost a snarl. “I think,” he added, “that our young friend will not altogether relish his prospects when he awakes from his long sleep!” “You drugged him, hein?” asked the Jew. There was something vulpine in the way he lifted his long aquiline nose. Clubfoot guffawed. “The neatest trick! Max, whose performance as a Scotland Yard detective was erstklassig—kolossal!—gave him a whiff of chloroform just to keep him quiet! And this poor Okewood believed he was taking me off to Scotland Yard! Donnerwetter!” He slapped his great thigh and laughed uproariously. His companion’s mouth twitched upwards at the corners displaying another inch or two of dripping, yellow fangs. It was like a fox’s grin if such a phenomenon of natural history can be imagined. “The Soviets find that spies, like meat, don’t keep!” he softly lisped. “Why didn’t you kill him, Herr Doktor?” “Perhaps,” Grundt answered slowly, “because I have other uses in view for our enterprising young friend!” Mandelstamm leant forward swiftly. “Also doch!” he ejaculated. “What Clubfoot promises he accomplishes,” said Grundt, raising his voice menacingly. “Of course, of course,” hastily agreed _Tavarish_ Mandelstamm, and slyly added: “Only you didn’t secure the Bannington report, did you, Herr Doktor?”