He shut the window against insect life, lighted his candles, and seated himself at the table, with his writing-case open before him, and then rang the dual summons which brings the hotel chambermaid.
"Be so good as to get me some ink," he said.
The chambermaid, who was elderly and sour-visaged, told him that ink was the waiter's business, not hers. He should have rung once, not twice, for ink.
"Never mind the ink, Marie," he said, in French. "I want something more valuable even than ink. I want information, and I think you can give it to me. Do you remember Monsieur and Madame Randall, who had rooms on this floor before Easter?"
Yes, she remembered them; but what then?
"When Madame Randall left she was in a hurry, was she not?"
"She was always in a hurry when she had to go anywhere—unless she was sulky and would not budge. She would sit like a stone figure if she had one of her tempers," the chambermaid answered, with many contemptuous shrugs.
"She left hurriedly, and she left her room in a litter—left all sorts of things behind her?" suggested Faunce, with an insinuating smile.
The chambermaid's sharp black eyes flashed angrily, and the chambermaid tossed her head in scorn. And then she held out a skinny forefinger almost under Faunce's nose.
"She has not left so much as that," she said, striking the finger on the first joint with the corresponding finger of the other hand. "Not so much as that!" and from her vehemence Faunce suspected that she had reaped a harvest of small wares, soiled gloves and lace-bordered handkerchiefs, silk stockings with ravelled heels.