“H’m!” I said.
“I’m sorry you’ve been put to any inconvenience,” said the manager, “and I’m much obliged to you.”
The cold but polite tone was a request to me to re-enter my own chamber, and leave the corpse to the manager and the night-porter. I obeyed.
“What about that man?” I asked the hall-porter early the next, or rather the same, morning. I had not slept a wink since three o’clock, nor had I heard a sound in the corridor.
“What man, sir?” the porter said.
“You know,” I returned, rather angrily. “The man who died in the night—No. 222.”
“I assure you, sir,” he said, “I haven’t the least notion what you mean.”
Yet his face seemed as honest and open as ever.
I inquired at the office for the manager, and after some difficulty saw him in his private room.