“Herr Mandelstamm,” he said cuttingly, “perhaps this will teach you that Dr. Grundt does not promise what he cannot fulfil!” But a ringing voice from the window-seat broke in upon his words. “You damned scoundrel!” The King’s Messenger was standing erect. The soiled scarf that had gagged him had slipped aside. He was bound round with rope like a mummy in its wrappings, and his face was almost irrecognizable with the smother of dried blood that had welled from the wound in his head. But he stood up and shouted his defiance into the room as though he, and not Clubfoot, were the master there. Grundt looked up slowly. “Max,” he said, without raising his voice, “take him away and get rid of him. He is of no further use to us,” he explained to the men at the table, while Max fell upon his victim. With alacrity Tarock scrambled to his feet, drawing something from his hip pocket. “I’ll attend to him!” he said in a voice hoarse with pleasurable excitement. And he hurried from the room behind Max and his prisoner. As he passed, Desmond, covered by Heinrich’s automatic, saw that the Austrian carried in his hand a long Norwegian knife. Mandelstamm extended talon-like fingers towards the paper in Clubfoot’s hand. “L-l-let me s-s-see.” He stuttered with excitement. “It’s in code,” said Grundt. And all eyes turned to Desmond. Grundt heaved himself up and, grasping his rubber-shod stick, hobbled awkwardly across the room to where Heinrich guarded the prisoner. The cripple waved the guard back. “Okewood,” he said, “you are clever enough to know when you are beaten. I am well aware that your motto has ever been, ‘While there’s life there’s hope!’ but let me assure you that in this instance you can derive very little solace from that saying. The position of this house is so remote, its precincts are so well guarded, that, even if your friends were to discover your hiding-place—which is most unlikely—and were in hot cry hither, I should have ample leisure to devise and carry out even the most lingering form of death for you.” He paused and scrutinized the young man’s face. “I offer you your life on one condition.” Desmond remained silent. “Does it interest you?” A long-drawn-out, gurgling scream, high-pitched and shrill with the extremity of agony, suddenly broke the brooding stillness of the house. It was followed by a little muffled cry from the room. From behind a typewriter placed on a desk in the corner a young girl had risen hesitatingly, one hand clutching her cheek, terror in her eyes. Desmond had not noticed her before. “Xenia!” Mandelstamm cried harshly. Listlessly the girl sank back into her seat. Desmond looked straight into Clubfoot’s eyes. “What was that? Who screamed?” he asked, knowing full well the answer to his question. “I think it must have been Bewlay,” calmly replied Grundt; and asked again: “Does my proposition interest you?” Desmond shrugged his shoulders.