I listened.
Everything in the hotel was silent as the grave.
I turned from my gloomy forebodings to look again at the stranger. In his crisp black hair and slightly protuberant cheekbones I traced again the hint of Jewish ancestry I had remarked before. Now that the man's eyes—his big, thoughtful eyes that had stared at me out of the darkness of the corridor—were closed, he looked far less foreign than before: in fact he might almost have passed as an Englishman.
He was a young man—about my own age, I judged—(I shall be twenty-eight next birthday) and about my own height, which is five feet ten. There was something about his appearance and build that struck a chord very faintly in my memory.
Had I seen the fellow before?
I remembered now that I had noticed something oddly familiar about him when I first saw him for that brief moment in the corridor.
I looked down at him again as he lay on his back on the faded carpet. I brought the candle down closer and scanned his features.
He certainly looked less foreign than he did before. He might not be a German after all: more likely a Hungarian or a Pole, perhaps even a Dutchman. His German had been too flawless for a Frenchman—for a Hungarian, either, for that matter.
I leant back on my knees to ease my cramped position. As I did so I caught a glimpse of the stranger's three-quarters face.
Why! He reminded me of Francis a little!