The Man with the Clubfoot | Page 9

for a Frenchman--for a
Hungarian, either, for that matter.
I leant back on my knees to ease my cramped position. As I did so I
caught a glimpse of the stranger's three-quarters face.
Why! He reminded me of Francis a little!
There certainly was a suggestion of my brother in the man's appearance.
Was it the thick black hair, the small dark moustache? Was it the
well-chiselled mouth? It was rather a hint of Francis than a resemblance
to him.
The stranger was fully dressed. The jacket of his blue serge suit had
fallen open and I saw a portfolio in the inner breast pocket. Here, I
thought, might be a clue to the dead man's identity. I fished out the

portfolio, then rapidly ran my fingers over the stranger's other pockets.
I left the portfolio to the last.
The jacket pockets contained nothing else except a white silk
handkerchief unmarked. In the right-hand top pocket of the waistcoat
was a neat silver cigarette case, perfectly plain, containing half a dozen
cigarettes. I took one out and looked at it. It was a Melania, a cigarette I
happen to know for they stock them at one of my clubs, the Dionysus,
and it chances to be the only place in London where you can get the
brand.
It looked as if my unknown friend had come from London.
There was also a plain silver watch of Swiss make.
In the trousers pocket was some change, a little English silver and
coppers, some Dutch silver and paper money. In the right-hand trouser
pocket was a bunch of keys.
That was all.
I put the different articles on the floor beside me. Then I got up, put the
candle on the table, drew the chair up to it and opened the portfolio.
In a little pocket of the inner flap were visiting cards. Some were
simply engraved with the name in small letters:
Dr. Semlin
Others were more detailed:
Dr. Semlin, Brooklyn, N.Y. The Halewright Mfg. Coy., Ltd.
There were also half a dozen private cards:
Dr. Semlin, 333 E. 73rd St., New York. Rivington Park House.
In the packet of cards was a solitary one, larger than the rest, an

expensive affair on thick, highly glazed millboard, bearing in gothic
characters the name:
Otto von Steinhardt.
On this card was written in pencil, above the name:
"Hotel Sixt, Vos in't Tuintje," and in brackets, thus: "(Mme. Anna
Schratt.)"
In another pocket of the portfolio was an American passport
surmounted by a flaming eagle and sealed with a vast red seal, sending
greetings to all and sundry on behalf of Henry Semlin, a United States
citizen, travelling to Europe. Details in the body of the document set
forth that Henry Semlin was born at Brooklyn on 31st March, 1886,
that his hair was Black, nose Aquiline, chin Firm, and that of special
marks he had None. The description was good enough to show me that
it was undoubtedly the body of Henry Semlin that lay at my feet.
The passport had been issued at Washington three months earlier. The
only visa it bore was that of the American Embassy in London, dated
two days previously. With it was a British permit, issued to Henry
Semlin, Manufacturer, granting him authority to leave the United
Kingdom for the purpose of travelling to Rotterdam, further a bill for
luncheon served on board the Dutch Royal mail steamer Koningin
Regentes on yesterday's date.
In the long and anguishing weeks that followed on that anxious night in
the Hotel of the Vos in't Tuintje, I have often wondered to what
malicious promptings, to what insane impulse, I owed the idea that
suddenly germinated in my brain as I sat fingering the dead man's
letter-case in that squalid room. The impulse sprang into my brain like
a flash and like a flash I acted on it, though I can hardly believe I
meant to pursue it to its logical conclusion until I stood once more
outside the door of my room.
The examination of the dead man's papers had shown me that he was
an American business man, who had just come from London, having

but recently proceeded to England from the United States.
What puzzled me was why an American manufacturer, seemingly of
some substance and decently dressed, should go to a German hotel on
the recommendation of a German, from his name, and the style of his
visiting card, a man of good family.
Semlin might, of course, have been, like myself, a traveller benighted in
Rotterdam, owing his recommendation to the hotel to a German
acquaintance in the city. Still, Americans are cautious folk and I found
it rather improbable that this American business man should adventure
himself into this evil-looking house with a large sum of money