“Don’t be too hard on us, Herr Doktor,” he remarked. “The two Okewoods are in excellent health!” A warm flush crimsoned the pallid cheeks of the cripple. Hot anger suddenly gleamed in his dark and restless eyes. But he controlled himself. He ran one hand over the close iron-grey stubble that thatched the bony head and his fleshy lips bared his yellow teeth in a forced smile. “Clever, clever young men, Herr Kollege!” he murmured. “I congratulate you upon your Okewoods. May they live long to enjoy the fruits of their cleverness!” In his mouth the wish became an imprecation, with such glowing vehemence did he utter it. He spoke with a snarl that for a moment lent his features a positively tigerish expression. But the Chief had stood up. “Is that all?” he demanded, and came round the desk. Clubfoot, his hairy hands crossed above the crutch of his stick, leaned back in his chair and looked up at his interrogator. “Yes,” he replied. “And now you know what you’ve got to do!” The Chief plucked open the door. “Get out of here and go to hell!” he said without raising his voice, with the same dogged composure he had maintained throughout the interview. Like some great animal heaving itself erect, Grundt struggled cumbrously to his feet. “You . . . you refuse?” he blustered. The Chief ignored the question. “If you’re not out of here in one minute,” he retorted with deadly calm, “cripple though you are, I . . . shall . . . kick . . . you . . . downstairs!” Leaning heavily on his stick, The Man with the Clubfoot hobbled slowly to the door. On the threshold he stopped and, in a gesture of sudden ferocity, thrust his face into the other’s. “You have passed sentence of death on Bliss,” he said in a voice that fury rendered hoarse and almost inarticulate, “and sentence of death on yourself as well!” Then he passed out and they heard his heavy footstep pounding down the stairs. CHAPTER XVIII THE CHAMOIS LEATHER PACKET Three times in the course of the ensuing week the Chief’s life was attempted. There is reason to believe, Desmond Okewood says, that, previously to this, other attempts had been made; but he has certain knowledge only of these three plots. No word of the outrages passed the inmost circle of the Service represented by the Chief himself and Collins, his confidential clerk, and Desmond learned of them only when, visiting headquarters one day, he observed that liftman, doormen, messengers, and clerks had all been changed. “Some one tampered with the lock of the gate of the lift which works automatically after hours,” the Chief explained reluctantly when Desmond tackled him, “and, but for a certain instinctive caution that has served me well before now, I should have taken a drop of six floors. Somebody inside did it, so I made a clean sweep of the office staff with the exception of Collins!”