“How much higher is it?” he asked plaintively.
“Up top,” Big Hazel told him, wheezingly. “We’re crowded. But you’ve got a room all to yourself.”
It was not a large room, as the Saint found when Big Hazel conducted him into it. The single window overlooked a sheer drop into darkness. The furniture was clean but depressingly plain.
Big Hazel said, “Find your way around. I’ll register you later.”
She went out, closing the door softly. Simon stood motionless, listening, and heard the lock snap.
The shadow of a smile touched his lips. In his pocket was a small instrument that would cope with any ordinary lock. The lock didn’t bother him — only the reason why it had been used. The vital point was whether it was merely a house custom, or a special courtesy...
He felt his way methodically around the room. Literally felt it. There were such things as peepholes: there were creaking boards, and floors not soundproofed against footsteps. He was infinitely careful to make no movement that a blind man might not have made. He tapped and groped and fumbled from one landmark to another, performing all the laborious orientations of a blind man. And in fact those explorations told him almost as much as his eyes.
There was an iron bedstead, a chair, a lavatory basin, a battered bureau — all confined within a space of about seventy square feet. The walls were dun-painted plaster, relieved only by a framed printing of Kipling’s “If.” There was the one little window, of the sash variety, which he was able to open about six inches. He stood in front of it, as if sniffing the grimy air, and noted that the glass panes had wire mesh fused into them.
After a while he took off some of his clothes and lay down on the bed. He did not switch off the one dim light that Big Hazel had left him. He might have been unaware of its existence.
He dozed. That was literally true. The Saint had an animal capacity for rest and self-refreshment. But not for an instant was he any more stupefied than a prize watchdog, and he heard Big Hazel’s cautious steps outside long before she unlatched the door.