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As I turned to go to my brother's help my eye caught sight of the butt of my pistol lying where Schmalz had thrown it the evening before under my overcoat on the leather lounge. I snatched up the weapon and dropped by my brother's side, crushing Clubfoot's right arm to the ground. I thrust the pistol in his face. "Stop that noise!" I commanded. The German obeyed.
"And don't forget old Clubfoot's box," he said by way of a parting injunction. Monica took him out to the entrance of our refuge. She was dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief when she returned. It was Francis who had got rid of the soldiers remaining as a guard. "You remember the Captain of Köpenick trick," she said. "Well, Francis played it off on the sergeant and those six men.
"Quick, Des, the door!" my brother gasped. "Lock the door!" The big German was roaring like a bull and plunging wildly under my brother's fingers, his clubfoot beating a thunderous tattoo on the parquet floor. In his fall Clubfoot's left arm had been bent under him and was now pinioned to the ground by his great weight.
It seemed, too, that Malan squeezed as he lifted, and that Jud's shoulder turned a little, as though he wished to brace it against the clubfoot's breast, or was troubled by the squeezing. Malan bent slowly backward, and Jud's heels began to rise out of the dust. Then, as though a crushing weight descended suddenly through his shoulder, Jud threw himself heavily against Malan, and the two fell.
Besides it was almost dusk, the bear might come home to supper at any moment and a revolver was of little use in a bear fight in the dark. Moreover the looting of Old Clubfoot's larder would only ensure more midnight raids on the flocks upon the mountain. Therefore the superintendent rode away.
"You got hold of it, Des," he said, "and it's only fair that you should get all the credit. I have Clubfoot's dispatch-box to show as the result of my trip. It's only a pity we could not have got the other half out of the cloak-room at Rotterdam." We were shown straight in to the Chief. I was rather taken aback by the easy calm of his manner in receiving us.
"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."
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