"You have spoken with admirable frankness, Herr Doktor," I said, "and I will be equally plain, but I will be brief. In the first place, I wish to know that you are the man you profess to be: so far, you must remember, I have only the assurance of our excitable young friend." "Your caution is most praiseworthy," said the other, "but I should imagine I carry my name written on my boot." And he lifted his hideous and deformed foot. "That is scarcely sufficient guarantee," I answered, "in a matter of this importance. A detail like that could easily be counterfeited, or otherwise provided for." "My badge," and the man produced from his waistcoat pocket a silver star identical with the one I carried on my braces, but bearing only the letter "G" above the inscription "Abt. VII." "That, even," I retorted, "is not conclusive." Clubfoot's mind was extraordinarily alert, however gross and heavy his body might be. He paused for a moment in reflection, his hands crossed upon his great paunch. "Why not?" he said suddenly, reached out for his cigar-case, beside him on the table, and produced three slips of paper highly glazed and covered with that unforgettable, sprawling hand, a portion of a gilded crest at the top--in short, the missing half of the document I had found in Semlin's bag. Clubfoot held them out fanwise for me to see, but well out of my reach, and he kept a great, spatulate thumb over the top of the first sheet where the name of the addressee should have been. "I trust you are now convinced, Herr Doktor," he said, with a smile that bared his teeth, and, putting the pieces together, he folded them across, tucked them away in the cigar-case again, and thrust it into his pocket. I must test the ground further. "Has it occurred to you, Herr Doktor," I asked, "that we have very little time at our disposal? The person whom we serve must be anxiously waiting...." Clubfoot laughed and shook his head. "I want that half-letter badly," he said, "but there's no violent hurry. So I fear you must leave that argument out of your presentation of the case, for it has no commercial value. The person you speak of is not in Berlin." I had heard something of the Kaiser's sudden appearances and disappearances during the war, but I had not thought they could be so well managed as to be kept from the knowledge of one of his own trusted servants, for such I judged Clubfoot to be. Evidently, he knew nothing of my visit to the Castle that evening, and I was for a moment unpatriotic enough to wish I had kept my half of the letter that I might give it to Clubfoot now to save the coming exposure. "A thousand dollars!" Clubfoot said. I remained silent. "Two? Three? Four thousand? Man, you are greedy. Well, I will make it five thousand--twenty thousand marks...."