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 tapped me on the knee.

“You will be sensible, Okewood,” he said confidentially.  “You’ve lost.  You can’t save yourself.  Your life was forfeit from the moment you crossed the threshold of his Majesty’s private apartments ... but you can save her.”

I shook his huge hand off my leg.

“You won’t bluff me,” I answered roughly.  “You daren’t touch the Countess Rachwitz, an American lady, niece of an American ambassador, married into one of your leading families ... no, Herr Doktor, you must try something else.”

“Do you know why Schmalz is here?” he asked patiently, “and those soldiers?...  You must have passed through the cordon to come here.  Your little friend is in preventive arrest.  She would be in gaol (she doesn’t know it), but that His Majesty was unwilling to put this affront on the Rachwitz family in their great affliction.”

“The Countess Rachwitz has nothing whatever to do with me,” ... rather a foolish lie, I thought to myself too late, as I was in her house.

But Clubfoot remained quite unperturbed.

“I shall take you into my confidence, my dear sir,” he said, “to show that I know you to be stating an untruth.  The Countess, on the contrary, is, to use a vulgar phrase, in it up to the neck.  Thanks to the amazing imbecility of the Berlin police, I was not informed of your brief stay at the Bendler-Strasse, even after they were called in by the invalid American gentleman in the matter of your hasty flight when asked to have your passport put in order.  But we are systematic, we Germans; we are painstaking; and I set about going through every possible place that might afford you shelter.

“In the course of my investigations I came across our mutual friend, Herr Kore.  A perusal of his very business-like ledgers showed me that on the day following your disappearance from the Esplanade he had received 3,600 marks from a certain E. 2 ... all names in his books were in cipher.  Under the influence of my winning personality, Herr Kore told me all he knew; I pursued my investigations and then discovered what the asinine police had omitted to tell me, namely, that on the date in question an alleged American had made a hurried flight from the Countess Rachwitz’s apartment in the Bendler-Strasse.  An admirable fellow ...  Max or Otto, or some name like that ... anyhow, he was valet to Madame’s invalid brother, was able to fill in all the lacunae, and I was thus enabled to draw up a very strong case against your well-meaning but singularly ill-advised hostess.  By this time the lady had left Berlin for this charming old-world seat, and I promptly took measures to have her placed in preventive arrest whilst I tracked you down.