“I entered at half-past one, just as he was leaving. That's everything I know about the chap except that someone 'phoned up at five o'clock to say that Mr. Eames, of room number fourteen, wished to let us know that he wouldn't be back till Monday morning, as he was spending the week-end in the country with a friend.”
“Are you sure of the time?”
The clerk shook his head. “Only there or thereabouts. It wasn't much past, for the five o'clock post hadn't come in, nor much before, for I come on duty at five after my tea, and I had just got back.”
“The manager was talking to you when the message came, I understand?”
“Was he? Possibly. I don't remember.”
“You think he wasn't?”
“I thought he came up after the post got in. But, of course, I may be wrong. One day's so like another.”
“But I understand that he, too, heard the 'phone?”
“He might have done that—the 'phone is to one side of the desk—but I didn't see him.”
“Did Mr. Eames give any reason as to why he was determined to have one of the first floor rooms looking into the street?”