“Can you what?” said Doyle.
“Register,” said the stranger.
“I don’t know can you,” said Doyle. “This is a backward place, but you might try them at the police barrack. The sergeant’s an obliging man, and if the thing can be done I wouldn’t doubt but he’d do it for you.”
“You don’t kind of catch on to my meaning,” said the stranger. “What I want is to stop a day or two in your hotel.”
Doyle suddenly realised the possibilities of the situation.
“You can do that of course,” he said, “and welcome. I’d be glad if we had a gentleman like yourself every day of the week.”
He turned as he spoke and shouted for Mary Ellen.
“Business pretty stagnant?” said the stranger.
“You may say that. Mary Ellen, Mary Ellen! Come here, I say.”
The stranger got out of his car. He looked up and down the empty street.