remember, I have only the assurance of our excitable young friend."

"Your caution is most praiseworthy," said the other, "but I should
imagine I carry my name written on my boot." And he lifted his hideous
and deformed foot.

"That is scarcely sufficient guarantee," I answered, "in a matter of
this importance. A detail like that could easily be counterfeited, or
otherwise provided for."

"My badge," and the man produced from his waistcoat pocket a silver star
identical with the one I carried on my braces, but bearing only the
letter "G" above the inscription "Abt. VII."

"That, even," I retorted, "is not conclusive."

Clubfoot's mind was extraordinarily alert, however gross and heavy his
body might be.

He paused for a moment in reflection, his hands crossed upon his great
paunch.

"Why not?" he said suddenly, reached out for his cigar-case, beside him
on the table, and produced three slips of paper highly glazed and
covered with that unforgettable, sprawling hand, a portion of a gilded
crest at the top--in short, the missing half of the document I had found
in Semlin's bag. Clubfoot held them out fanwise for me to see, but well
out of my reach, and he kept a great, spatulate thumb over the top of
the first sheet where the name of the addressee should have been.