t
Francis in his loyalty might make an attempt to rescue me, but I hoped,
whatever he did, he would think first of putting the document in a place
of safety. I was more or less resigned to my fate. I was in their hands
properly now, and whether they got the document or not, my doom was
sealed.

"I will pay you the compliment of saying, my dear Captain Okewood,"
Clubfoot remarked in that urbane voice of his which always made my
blood run cold, "that never before in my career have I devoted so much
thought to any single individual, in the different cases I have handled,
as I have to you. As an individual, you are a paltry thing: it is rather
your remarkable good fortune that interests me as a philosopher of
sorts.... I assure you it will cause me serious concern to be the
instrument of severing your really extraordinary strain of good luck. I
don't mind telling you, as man to man, that I have not yet entirely
decided in my mind what to do with you now that I've got you!"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"You've got me, certainly," I replied, "but you would vastly prefer to
have what I have not got."

"Let us not forget to be always content with small mercies,"
answered the other, smiling with a gleam of his golden teeth,... "that
is a favourite maxim of mine. As you truly remark, I would certainly
prefer the ... the jewel to the infinitely less precious
and ... interesting ... casket. But what I have, I hold. And I
have you ... and your accomplice as well."

"I have no accomplice," I denied stoutly.

"Surely you forget our gracious hostess, our most charming Countess? Was
it not thanks to the interest she deigned to take in your safety that I
came here? Had it not been for that circumstance, I should scarcely have
ventured to intrude upon her widowhood...."

"Her widowhood?" I exclaimed.

Clubfoot smiled again.

"You cannot have followed the newspapers in your ... retreat, my dear
Captain Okewood," he replied, "or surely you would have read the
afflicting intelligence that Count Rachwitz, A.D.C. to Field-Marshal von
Mackensen, was killed by a shell that fell into the Brigade Head-quarters
where he was lunching at Predeal. Ah, yes," he sighed, "our beautiful
Countess is now a widow, alone ..." he paused, then added, "... and
unprotected!"

I understood his allusion and went cold with fear. Why, Monica was
involved in this affair as much as I. Surely they wouldn't dare to touch
her....

Clubfoot leaned forward and