It looked as though it might have dropped out of a man's pocket as he was scrambling up the rock. The name of a popular firm of cigar-merchants, with branches all over Germany, was printed on it. "Loeser und Wolff, Berlin. S.W. Friedrich-Strasse," I read. I knew the shop well. I had bought cigars there scores of times in the past....
A sudden feeling of uneasiness, an acute sense of danger, came over me. To be shadowed is an almost everyday experience on our job and one develops a kind of sixth sense in detecting it. I had the distinct impression that somebody was watching me.
My brain worked swiftly. I was in the open, without cover, liable to be shot down with impunity from the edge of the ravine. To keep perfectly calm, to show no signs of fluster and, above all things, to spot your man without his knowing that he has been seen, is the only safe course in moments like this. My grip tightened on my pistol as, very slowly, I began to raise my head....
The top of the rock above me was level with my eyes. As I lifted them my gaze fell upon a monstrous mis-shapen boot, projecting awkwardly over the edge. For the moment, I had no eyes for the huge figure that stood there resting on the rubber-shod stick. I could only stare, like one transfigured, at that sinister club-foot, as a voice, a well-remembered voice that for months had haunted me in dreams, cried out sharply:
"Stay as you are and raise your hands! Quick! And drop that gun!"
I glanced up and as I lifted my arms, my pistol rattled noisily on the slab below.
Over the barrel of a great automatic clasped in a huge hairy hand, the Man With the Clubfoot was looking at me.