While the meal was being got ready, Mr. Cleon stated that he should like to see such bedrooms as were disengaged. He was rather fastidious, he added, in the choice of a bedroom, and should prefer making his own selection. He was very pleasant and jocular with the chambermaid who showed him round.
In all there were five bedrooms in want of occupants, and Mr. Cleon was not satisfied till he had looked into each of them. "Come, now," he said, after peeping into the fifth and last, "if I am rightly informed, you have a military gentleman stopping in the house, a Captain----."
"Ducie," added the girl as the mulatto stopped as if in doubt.
"Ah, that is the name. Captain Ducie. Now, soldiers generally know how to pick out the best quarters, and if I were to choose a bedroom on the same floor as the captain's I could hardly go far astray. Now, I dare say you could tell me the number of Captain Ducie's room?"
"The captain's room is number fourteen. Number ten, the next room but three to it, is empty, and you can have it if you choose."
"I engage number ten on the spot," said Mr. Cleon, emphatically. "See that the sheets are properly aired, and here are a couple of half-crowns for your trouble."
Mr. Cleon ate his dinner in solitary state, and retired to his bedroom at an early hour. To his bedroom, but not to bed. After about five minutes his candle was put out. A minute or two later the door of his room was noiselessly opened, and showed him standing on the threshold, tall and black, like a spirit of evil in the dim starlight. After listening intently for a little while, he stole gently along the corridor from his own room to the door of number fourteen. This door he tried, and found that it yielded at once to his hand. He opened it a little way and peeped in. The room was dark and empty. Still listening, with every sense on the alert, he struck a noiseless match. The tiny flame, bright and clear, and lasting for about half a minute, was sufficient to enable him to photograph on his memory the position of every article of furniture in the room. It was also sufficient to enable him to note something of much greater importance: that there was not only a stout lock on the door of number fourteen; but that the door could be still further secured on the inside by means of a strong bolt. He smothered the malediction that rose to his lips when he saw this, and then he stole back to his own room with the look of a baffled wild beast on his face.
Even now he did not go to bed, but sat waiting in the dark, with his door slightly ajar, for the coming of the tenant of number fourteen. Upwards of an hour passed away before he heard Captain Ducie's step on the stair. He seemed to draw back within himself as he heard it: to crouch as if getting ready for a spring. But the moment Captain Ducie entered number fourteen, Cleon was at the door of his own room and listening. He fell back a pace or two and shook his fist savagely in the air as he heard what he had felt almost sure he should hear. He heard Captain Ducie double lock the door of number fourteen, and then shoot home the brass bolt, as though still further to secure himself against intruders. The mulatto's sharp white teeth clashed together viciously as the sound met his ear.
"Only wait!" he whispered down the dark corridor. Then he went in, and shut and locked the door of his own room.
Next morning he ordered breakfast to be taken up to bed to him. He was very unwell, he said, and should not be able to leave his room all that day. But his illness, whatever it might be, did not seem to affect his appetite. Luncheon, and afterwards dinner, were sent up to him in due course. At nine o'clock he rang his bell and ordered a bottle of claret. At the same time he instructed the waiter that he should not want anything more till morning; and that he must on no account be disturbed till that time.