"Then you're Colonel Gray. Colonel Calvin Gray."
"Quite so." The speaker's voice was harsh, and it came with an effort. "But you didn't read that in the Post. Come! What's the idea? Out with it."
The interview had taken an unexpectedly disagreeable turn. Gray had anticipated an unpleasant moment or two, but this—well, it was indeed the crash. Calamity had overtaken him from the very quarter he had least expected and most dreaded, and his mind raced off at a tangent; a dozen unwelcome queries presented themselves.
"Strange what circles we move in," Haviland was saying. "Do you know who owns the controlling interest in this hotel? Surely you must know or can guess. Think a moment. It's somebody you met over there and have reason to remember."
A sound escaped, from the throat of Colonel Gray—not a cry, but rather a gasp of amazement, or of rage.
"Aha!" Haviland grinned in triumph. "I thought—"
His guest leaned forward over the desk, with face twitching. Passion had driven the blood from it, and his whole expression was one of such hatred, such fury, the metamorphosis was so startling, that the hotel man stiffened in his chair and stared upward in sudden amazement.
"Nelson!" Gray ejaculated. "Nelson! By God! So! He's here!"
During the moment that Haviland sat petrified, Gray turned his head slowly, his blazing eyes searched the office as if expecting to discover a presence concealed somewhere; they returned to the hotel man's face, and he inquired:
"Well, where is he?"