This hotel had fallen upon better days. The paint and woodwork about the door were new. A smug respectability beamed from the windows and out of the courtyard. A motor car, sans rubber tires, stood within this courtyard. It had been made in Germany before the war. It was still doing service for the Dutch proprietor.
Fay stood across the narrow street, set his bag at his feet and studied the hotel from a score of angles. He could cross the wide Dutch cobbles and register. It was most certain that the police would have his name, native country, and prospective business within the time it would take to attend to such matters.
He glanced about with the ranging eye of a tourist who would go on. The street and two narrow mews or lanes echoed and reëchoed with the clank of wooden sabots, the squeak of poorly oiled wagon axles, and the voices of market people who were streaming toward the quays and the canals.
Fay studied the situation and decided there was nothing to be gained by waiting. He knew of no other hotel in the city. It would serve as a lodging for the day and the night. It was clean, quiet and somewhat out of the beaten track of those who administered the laws in that quaint lowland capital.
There is that in the super-cracksman which is close to the actor. Fay played his part to perfection as he finished his stare toward the hotel, reached down and lifted the bag and crossed the street at a brisk walk.
He banged the door open like a British traveler who had been to the continent before. He advanced to a tiny opening in a side wall, set down his bag and called for the Hôtelier.
The broad face of the Maître d’Hôtel was thrust through this opening like a harvest moon in sight of plenty.
“A room!â€� said Fay incisively. “Something for a day or two. I came on the Flushing. I’ll never go back on that damn boat, sir! It’s an outrage—the North Sea service!â€�
The proprietor was impressed. He knew that all Englishmen swore. Some swore more than others. He put down Fay’s name—which he gave as “Dr. Crutcher of Londonâ€�—his vocation—which was stated to be “a doctorâ€�—and his probable stay in Holland as “less than a fortnight.â€�
Fay followed a maid up to a second floor back room which overlooked the courtyard and the steel-tired German car. He closed the door, tried to lock it,