The Man with the Clubfoot

jerk that flung me forward. From the outer darkness furious altercation resounded above the plashing of the rain. I peered through the streaming glass of the windows but could distinguish

bliterated characters painted on it hung above my head, announcing that I had arrived at my destination. As I paid off the cabman a

he fact that I, an Englishman, was going to spend the night in a German hotel to which I had been specially recommended by a German porter on the understanding that I was a German. I k

y. They may be offensive, they may overcharge you, in a Hun hotel, but they can

a small vestibule with a little glass cage of an office on one side and beyond it an old-fashi

ad a blue apron girt about his waist, but otherwise he wore the short coat and the dicky and white tie of the Contine

was cut so short that his head appeared to be shaven. He advanced quick

same language,

le slits of eyes on hearing my good Bon

proprietress is out at present. I regret...." He spat this a

me to come here," I said. I was not going out again

chratt would make me ve

manner chan

d friend of the house, is Franz. Ja, Frau Schratt is unfortunately out just now, but as soon as th

a candlesti

ed, "No. 31, t

the hour somewher

ait till to-morrow, it is so late. Or perhaps the gentleman w

ding staircase I hea

sent him here!

as, turned down low, flung a dim and flickering light a few yards around. On the third floor I was able to distinguish b

the only sound the rushing of water in the gutters without. Then from the darkness of the

te porcelain plate inscribed with a number in black. No. 46 was the first room on the right counting from the landing: the even num

the sound of a key and then the rattling of a door knob, but the corridor bendi

of the passage, the last door but one. A mirror at the end of

on his arm hung an umbrella streaming with rain. His candlestick stood on the floor at his feet

have just come upstairs and the wind blew out my candle and I could not get the do

you had to insert the key upside-down. I did so and the door opened easily.

unwell?" I said, at the same time lifting my

between the eyebrows. The crispness of his hair and the high cheekbones gave a suggestion of Jewish blo

same breathless voice. "I am only a little out of

," I said, remembering the cab that had

e. He disappeared into the darkness of the room and suddenl

the corridor. It smelt horribly close and musty and the first thing

of great barges, into the windows of gaunt and weather-stained houses over the way. Not a light shone in an

nd mahogany bedstead with a vast édredon, like a giant pincushion. My candle, guttering wildly in the unaccustomed

d an evil look and this, combined with the dank a

-throat Hun hotel, with a waiter who looks like the official Prussian executioner. What's going to happen to you, young

come upstairs and settle your hash! What sort of a fight are you going to put up in that narrow corridor out there with a Hun next door and probably on every side of you, and no exi

cannot have been opened for years-and found it gave on to a very small and deep interior court, just an air shaft round which the house was built. At the bottom was a tiny paved court not more than five foot square, entirely isolated save on one side where there was a basement wi

e of the mysterious document I had received from D

k-wood (for that

y are th

(with one "l"

people

d party

enge by denouncing my brother, now took this extraordinary step to announce his victim's f

ilence of the house. My heart seemed to stop for a moment. I hardly dared raise my eye

throated gurgling. Then I heard a fai

my eyes t

s scratching the panels

oke in raucously upon that horrid gurgling sou

Even as I stepped forward the gurglin

rbe" were the

a swooping rush of wind and rain through the ro

e flared

it we

ll heavily i