Who Goes There!

His hotel was the Berkeley, and he looked out across Piccadilly into a silent, sad, unlighted city of shadows. Only a single line of lighted lamps outlined the broad thoroughfare. Crimson sparks twinkled here and there – the lights of cabs.

The great darkened Ritz towered opposite, Devonshire House squatted behind its grilles and shadowy walls on the right, and beyond the great dark thoroughfare stretched away into the night, melancholy, deserted save for the slight stirring of a policeman here and there or the passage of an automobile running in silence without lights.

He had been standing by the window for ten minutes or so, a lighted cigarette between his lips, both hands dropped into the pocket of his pyjamas, when he became aware of a slight sound – a very slight one – behind him.

He turned around and his eyes fell upon the knob of the door. Whether or not it was turning he could not determine in the dusk of the room. The only light in it came through his windows from the starry August night-sky.

After a moment he walked toward the door, bare-footed across the velvet carpet, halted, fixed his eyes on the door knob.

After a moment it began to turn again, almost imperceptibly. And, in him, every over-wrought nerve tightened to its full tension till he quivered. Slowly, discreetly, noiselessly the knob continued to turn. The door was not locked. Presently it began to open, the merest fraction of an inch at a time; then, abruptly but stealthily, it began to close again, as though the unseen intruder had caught sight of him, and Guild stepped forward swiftly and jerked the door wide open.

There was only the darkened hallway there, and a servant with a tray who said very coolly, "Thanky, sir," and entered the room.

"What-do-you-want?" asked Guild unsteadily.

"You ordered whiskey and soda for eleven o'clock, sir."

"I did not. Why do you try to enter my room without knocking?"

"I understood your orders were not to disturb you but to place the tray on the night-table beside your bed, sir."

Guild regarded him steadily. The servant, clean-shaven, typical, encountered the young man's gaze respectfully and with no more disturbance than seemed natural under the circumstances of a not unusual blunder.

Guild's nerves relaxed and he drew a deep, quiet breath.

"Somebody has made a mistake," he said. "I ordered nothing. And, hereafter, anybody coming to my door will knock. Is that plain?"

"Perfectly, sir."

"Have the goodness to make it very plain to the management."

"I'm sorry, sir – "

"You understand, now?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Very well… And, by the way, who on this corridor is likely to have ordered that whiskey?"

"Sir?"

"Somebody ordered it, I suppose?"

"Very likely the gentleman next door, sir – "

"All right," said Guild quietly. "Try the door while I stand here and look on."

"Very good, sir."

With equanimity unimpaired the waiter stepped to the next door on the corridor, placed his tray flat on the palm of his left hand, and, with his right hand, began to turn the knob, using, apparently, every precaution to make no noise.

But he was not successful; the glassware on his tray suddenly gave out a clear, tinkling clash, and, at the same moment the bedroom door opened from within and a man in evening dress appeared dimly framed by the doorway.

"Sorry, sir," said the waiter, "your whiskey, sir – "

He stepped inside the room and the door closed behind him. Guild quietly waited. Presently the waiter reappeared without the tray.

"Come here," motioned Guild.

The waiter said: "Yes, sir," in a natural voice. Doubtless the man next door could hear it, too.

Guild, annoyed, lowered his own voice: "Who is the gentleman in the next room?"

"A Mr. Vane, sir."

"From where?"

"I don't know, sir."

"What is he, English?"

"Yes sir, I believe so."

"You don't happen to know his business, do you?"

"No, sir."

"I ask – it's merely curiosity. Wait a moment." He turned, picked up a sovereign from a heap of coins on his night-table and gave it to the waiter.

"No need to repeat to anybody what I have asked you."

"Oh, no, sir – "

"All right. Listen very attentively to what I tell you. When I arrived here this afternoon I desired the management to hire for my use a powerful and absolutely reliable touring car and a chauffeur. I mentioned the Edmeston Agency and a Mr. Louis Grätz.

"Half an hour later the management informed me that they had secured such a car for me from Mr. Louis Grätz at the Edmeston Agency; that I was permitted sufficient gasoline to take me from here to Westheath, back here again, and then to the docks of the Holland Steamship Company next Sunday.

"I've changed my mind. Tomorrow is Wednesday and a steamer sails from Fresh Wharf for Amsterdam. Tell the management that I'll take that steamer and that I want them to telephone the Edmeston Agency to have the car here at six o'clock tomorrow morning."

"Very good, sir."

"Go down and tell them now. Ask them to confirm the change of orders by telephone."

"Very good, sir."

A quarter of an hour later the bell tinkled in his room: "Are you there, sir? Thank you, sir. The car is to be here at six o'clock. What time would you breakfast, Mr. Guild?"

"Five. Have it served here, please."