When he again presented himself at the window the clerk motioned him to step inside through a lifted rail. Here he found himself confronted by the clerk and another man, distinguished by a certain air of authority, a keen gray eye, and singularly compressed lips set in a closely clipped beard. The clerk indicated him deferentially but briefly—everybody was astonishingly brief and businesslike there—as the president. The president absorbed and possessed Randolph with eyes that never seemed to leave him. Then leaning back against the counter, which he lightly grasped with both hands, he said: “We've sent to the Niantic Hotel to inquire about your man. He ordered his room by letter, giving no name. He arrived there on time last night, slept there, and has occupied the room No. 74 ever since. WE don't know him from Adam, but”—his eyes never left Randolph's—“from the description the landlord gave our clerk, you're the man himself.”
For an instant Randolph flushed crimson. The natural mistake of the landlord flashed upon him, his own stupidity in seeking this information, the suspicious predicament in which he was now placed, and the necessity of telling the whole truth. But the president's eye was at once a threat and an invitation. He felt himself becoming suddenly cool, and, with a business brevity equal to their own, said:—
“I was looking for work last night on the wharf. He employed me to carry his bag to the hotel, saying I was to wait for him. I have waited since nine o'clock last night in his room, and he has not come.”
“What are you in such a d——d hurry for? He's trusted you; can't you trust him? You've got his bag?” returned the president.
Randolph was silent for a moment. “I want to know what to do with it,” he said.
“Hang on to it. What's in it?”
“Some clothes and a purse containing about seventy dollars.”
“That ought to pay you for carrying it and storage afterward,” said the president decisively. “What made you come here?”
“I found this address in the purse,” said Randolph, producing it.
“Is that all?”