Allerdyke slipped the card into his pocket and turned to the night-porter.
"My cousin wants me to go up to his room at once," he said. "Just show me the way. Do you happen to know what time he got in last night?" he continued, as they went upstairs. "Was it late?"
"Passengers from the Perisco, sir?" answered the night-porter. "There were several of 'em came in last night—she got into the river about eight-thirty. It 'ud be a bit after nine o'clock when your friend came in."
Allerdyke's mind went back to the meeting at Howden.
"Did you have a lady set off from here in the middle of the night?" he asked, out of sheer curiosity. "A lady in a motor-car?"
"Oh! that lady," exclaimed the night-porter, with a grim laugh. "Ah! nice lot of bother she gave me, too. She was one of those Perisco passengers—she got in here with the rest, and booked a room, and went to it all right, and then at half-past twelve down she came and said she wanted to get on, and as there weren't no trains she'd have a motor-car and drive to catch an express at Selby, or Doncaster, or somewhere. Nice job I had to get her a car at that time o' night!—and me single-handed—there wasn't a soul in the office then. Meet her anywhere, sir?"
"Met her on the road," replied Allerdyke laconically. "Was she a foreigner, do you know?"
"I shouldn't wonder if she was something of that sort," answered the night-porter. "Sort that would have her own way at all events. Here's the room, sir."
He paused before the door of a room which stood halfway down a long corridor in the centre of the hotel, and on its panels he knocked gently.
"Every room's filled on this floor, sir," he remarked. "I hope your friend's a light sleeper, for there's some of 'em'll have words to say if they're roused at four o'clock in the morning."