The Aldebaran was a gloomy hotel. When the bell boy had gone down in the elevator, the place was as still and as morbid as a morgue.
ACROSS the hall from Arnaud’s room, a door was ajar. Eyes were peering through the crack of that door — eyes that stared with a sinister purpose. They were glued upon the single exit from Arnaud’s room. They were waiting and watching, making sure that the guest in 806 did not leave.
Now a figure appeared from the door. It was a grotesque, crouching figure that crept slowly forward, making no noise as it advanced. The clothes that it wore were dark; but the face above them bore a yellow tinge.
In action, although not in guise, this creature bore the semblance of a Chinaman. His hands were close against his breast.
He listened outside the door of 806, his face now hidden from the light. This was a secluded portion of the hall. Yet the crouched man seemed ready to slide back to the other room at the first sign of an approaching person.
Within the room, Henry Arnaud again stood in darkness. The only indications of his presence that reached the man outside were the sounds that he made.
The clasps of the bag clicked as Arnaud undid them. He coughed slightly as he removed articles of apparel from the bag. The door of the wardrobe banged dully as he pushed it shut. Then the bed creaked as Arnaud flung himself upon it.
The noise of his breathing was interrupted occasionally by a slight cough. Then those sounds decreased, and there were steady minutes of prolonged silence.
The man outside the door was listening intently. With the subsidence of all sound, he moved, surely, but cautiously.
One hand came from his body. Deftly, he inserted a pass key in the lock of the door. The key turned. The other hand was upon the knob.