“From inquiries my informant made locally he ascertained that the house had been let furnished to a man named Fitzroy, which, the police tell me, is one of the various aliases of Schmetterding, alias Blund, an old friend of ours, Des., for, if you remember, it was he who took that place at Harlesden for Grundt in the affair of the purple cabriolet. When we picked up the poor gentleman with his neck so picturesquely broken at the foot of the staircase at Rushdene Grange, Manderton recognized him at once. He’s an Englishman of German extraction, with a fine list of convictions against him at the Yard.” Francis looked at his brother and smiled. “A little rough with him, weren’t you, Des.?” “He came butting in when I was trying to escape,” replied Desmond, “so I landed him a punch, and he went backwards over the stairs.” “And there was Tarock on his face in the hall with a bullet in his temple . . .” “Dead?” “As dead as a door-nail!” Francis replied. “I’m glad I nailed him,” Desmond remarked, and added, addressing the Chief, “Tarock, of Cracow, you know, sir!” The big man nodded. “He’s no loss,” he remarked. “He’d lived too long, anyway.” “From what my house agent friend told me,” Francis resumed, “we guessed that the house would be a regular fortress. So I took a charge of guncotton with the cutting-out party the Chief let me organize and blew the lock off the front door. How Clubfoot escaped being killed by the explosion I don’t know. When we got in, we found the nest empty except for that choice specimen, Mandelstamm, who was spitting teeth into the basin in the bath-room out of the most beautiful mouth you ever saw. Whew, Des., you must have fetched him a clip!” “He walked into my fist,” his brother retorted, grinning. “But what about Grundt?” “I’m afraid he got away through my fault. The shooting inside the house rather rattled me . . . on account of you, you know . . . and I blew the lock before our men had got into their stations at the back. Clubfoot must have escaped through the basement and got down to the river, for we discovered afterwards that an electric launch he used to keep up a creek had disappeared. I presume he took Max and Heinrich with him. They left poor Bewlay where they killed him upstairs.” “He died well,” said Desmond, giving him his epitaph. He turned to the Chief. “And this treaty, sir? Clubfoot has got away with it, I suppose?” “He has!” replied the big man grimly. “He was under the impression that it was coded in 3A,” Desmond went on. “It wasn’t, you know, though I didn’t disabuse his mind, of course. It was in no code _I_ had ever seen before.”