Heloise's door was a little ajar. I could tell this by the rectangular shaft of light thrown from her room across the dim passage. Sir Robert had unlocked his own door, just across from it, and was standing with his hand on the knob, crouching a little, evidently listening to the conversation in her room.
I stood motionless.
One of the voices—that of a man—grew a little louder; but I was too far off, there on the stairs, to catch what he was saying. Then rather abruptly, the door swung open and the man backed out. He was the manager of the hotel.
At the same instant Sir Robert, with agility surprising in one of his age, darted into his own room and swiftly, but softly, swung the door nearly to behind him. The manager was too intent on his own words and thoughts to know of this.
I could not think what to do. The one thing I was sure of was that I did not want to speak to the manager, coming, as he was, directly from her room. So I ran down the stairs, and was in the lounge looking at a magazine when he appeared on the ground floor.
I waited a few moments longer, then went up again. I simply had to know what Sir Robert was about. And again I stopped when my head rose just above the top step.
Sure enough, there he was—that old man!—crouching by her door and tapping softly at it with his shaking fingers. I felt a slow, cold sort of dread creep across my mind and my nerves. I did not move.
He tapped and tapped—oh, so softly! He stooped to the keyhole and whispered. I could not hear him, but I could see it all in pantomime.
He gave this up; and stood thinking. He slipped into his own room and switched on the light, but did not close the door. In a very short time he reappeared with a white paper in his hand—an envelope, doubtless.
And for the second time I had to watch this monstrous old man get down on his shaking knees and with a pencil thrust his evil communication in under her door.