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Page 88
The German obeyed.
"Better search him, Francis," I said to my brother. "He probably has a
Browning on him somewhere."
Francis went through the man's pockets, reaching up and putting each
article as it came to light on the desk above him. From an inner breast
pocket he extracted the Browning. He glanced at it: the magazine was
full with a cartridge in the breech.
"Hadn't we better truss him up?" Francis said to me.
"No," I said. I was still kneeling on the German's arm. He seemed
exhausted. His head had fallen back upon the ground.
"Let me up, curse you!" he choked.
"No!" I said again and Francis turned and looked at me.
Each of us knew what was in the other's mind, my brother and I. We were
thinking of a hand-clasp we had exchanged on the banks of the Rhine.
I was about to speak but Francis checked me. He was trembling all over.
I could feel his elbow quiver where it touched mine.
"No, Des, please ..." he pleaded, "let me ... this is my show...."
Then, in a voice that vibrated with suppressed passion, he spoke swiftly
to Clubfoot.
"Take a good look at me, Grundt," he said sternly. "You don't know me,
do you? I am Francis Okewood, brother of the man who has brought you to
your fall. You don't know me, but you knew some of my friends, I think.
Jack Tracy? Do you remember him? And Herbert Arbuthnot? Ah, you knew
him, too. And Philip Brewster? You remember him as well, do you? No need
to ask you what happened to poor Philip!"
The man on the floor answered nothing, but I saw the colour very slowly
fade from his cheeks.
My brother spoke again.
"There were four of us after that letter, as you knew, Grundt, and three
of us are dead. But you never got me. I was the fourth man, the unknown
quantity in all your elaborate calculations ... and it seems to me I
spoiled your reckoning ... I and this brother of mine ... an amateur at
the game, Grundt!"
Still Clubfoot was silent, but I noticed a bead of perspiration tremble
on his forehead, then trickle down his ashen cheeks and drop splashing
to the floor.
Francis continued in the same deep, relentless voice.
"I never thought I should have to soil my hands by ridding the world of
a man like you, Grundt, but it has come to it and you have to die. I'd
have killed you in hot blood when I first came in but for Jack and
Herbert and the others ... for their sake you had to know who is your
executioner."
My brother raised the pistol. As he did so the man on the floor, by a
tremendous effort of strength, rose erect to his knees, flinging me
headlong. Then there was a hot burst of flame close to my cheek as I lay
on the floor, a deafening report, a thud and a sickening gurgle.
Something twitched a little on the ground and then lay still.
We rose to our feet together.
"Des," said my brother unsteadily, "it seems rather like murder."
"No, Francis," I whispered back, "it was justice!"
CHAPTER XX
CHARLEMAGNE'S RIDE
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