"Thank you, sir."
Guild went back to bed. Another detail bothered him now. If the man next door had ordered whiskey and soda for eleven, to be placed on the night-table beside the bed, why was he up and dressed and ready to open the door when the jingle of glassware awaited him?
Still there might be various natural explanations. Guild thought of several, but none of them suited him.
He began to feel dull and sleepy. That is the last he remembered, except that his sleep was disturbed by vaguely menacing dreams, until he awoke in the grey light of early morning, scarcely refreshed, and heard the waiter knocking. He rose, unlocked his door, and let him in with his tray.
When the waiter went out again Guild relocked his door, turned on his bath, took it red hot and then icy. And, thoroughly awake, now, he returned to his room, breakfasted, dressed, rang for his account, and a few minutes later descended in the lift to find his car and chauffeur waiting, and the tall, many-medalled porter at salute by the door.
"Westheath," he said to the smiling chauffeur. "Go as fast as you dare and by the direct route."
The chauffeur touched his peaked cap. He seemed an ideal chauffeur, neat, alert, smiling, well turned out in fact as the magnificent and powerful touring car which had been as thoroughly and minutely groomed as a race-horse or a debutante.
When the car rolled out into Piccadilly the waiter who had mistaken the order for whiskey, watched it from the dining-room windows. Several floors above, the man who had occupied the next bedroom also watched the departure of the car. When it was out of sight the man whose name was Vane went to the telephone and called 150 Fenchurch Street, E. C. It was the office of the Holland Steamship Company.
And the waiter who had entered the room unannounced, stood listening to the conversation over the wire, and finally took the transmitter himself for further conversation while Vane stood by listening, one hand resting familiarly on the waiter's shoulder.
After the waiter had hung up the receiver, Vane walked to the window, stood a moment looking out, then came slowly back.