"Clubfoot was answerable to no one save to the Emperor alone. His work was of so delicate, so confidential a nature, that he rendered an account of his services only to his Imperial master. There was none to stay his hand, to check him in his courses, save only this neurotic, capricious cripple who is always open to flattery...."
Red Tabs thought for a minute and then went on.
"No one may catalogue," he said, "the crimes that Clubfoot committed, the infamies he had to his account. Not even the Kaiser himself, I dare say, knows the manner in which his orders to this black-guard were executed—orders rapped out often enough, I swear, in a fit of petulance, a gust of passion, and forgotten the next moment in the excitement of some fresh sensation.
"I know a little of Clubfoot's record, of innocent lives wrecked, of careers ruined, of sudden disappearances, of violent deaths. When you and your brother put it across der Stelze, Okewood, you settled a long outstanding account we had against him, but you also rendered his fellow-Huns a signal service."
I thought of the comments I had heard on Clubfoot among the customers at Haase's, and I felt that Red Tabs had hit the right nail on the head again.
"By the way?" said Red Tabs, as I rose to go, "would you care to see Clubfoot's epitaph? I kept it for you." He handed me a German newspaper—the Berliner Tageblatt, I think it was—with a paragraph marked in red pencil. I read:
"We regret to report the sudden death from apoplexy of Dr. Adolf Grundt, an inspector of secondary schools. The deceased was closely connected for many years with a number of charitable institutions enjoying the patronage of the Emperor. His Majesty frequently consulted Dr. Grundt regarding the distribution of the sums allocated annually from the Privy purse for benevolent objects."
"Pretty fair specimen of Prussian cynicism?" laughed Red Tabs. But I held my head ... the game was too deep for me.
Every week a hamper of good things is dispatched to 3143 Sapper Ebenezer Maggs, British Prisoner of War, Gefangenen-Lager, Friedrichsfeld bei Wesel. I have been in communication with his people, and since his flight from the camp they have not had a line from him. They will let me know at once if they hear, but I am restless and anxious about him.