“But how could he know about Joe?”
“Ah, my mild one, that is a thing that even I cannot tell you without finding out. It is to be found out. Now go back to the girl with this guide book, tell her the pleasant Mr. Neuburg has recommended it as the best of its kind—and remember that if your brain has turned into wool, you have the support of mine, which is particularly acute. That may restore and stimulate your wits.”
When the two ladies had gone out Mr. Neuburg sat and smoked and considered this unexpected happening deeply. His was a quite exceptional brain, and he had mastery over his thoughts and his memories. It was while he was going over his memories that the smoke of his cigar suddenly ceased to puff. That was the only sign exhibited by his impressive, placid and genial bulk.
At once he rose indolently, walked across the lobby to the reception desk. He asked in his affable way if he could see the room bookings. He looked through them. He stopped when he came to the name “Clement Seadon.” He stopped with reason, for he saw that Clement’s room was next his own. He stared at that number for a moment, said “Thank you” very politely to the reception clerk, and mounted to the gallery on which his room stood.
He went not merely to his own room but walked round the corner of the gallery to the door of Clement Seadon’s room. As he stood there regarding it contemplatively, the chambermaid passed by. He looked at her, or rather across her shoulder, with that smile which was quite charming, but had not the slightest tinge of human emotion in it, and he said, “There is, I think, a blind in that room which is making noises in the wind. It destroys my nap. I have knocked on the door, but the occupant of the room is not there apparently. Would it be asking you too much to go in and pull up that blind, so that I can have my beauty sleep undisturbed?”
He backed his appeal with the weight of a half-dollar piece.
The girl smiled and opened the door. With a polite, “Thanks enormously,” Mr. Neuburg slipped away from her with his extraordinary swiftness. He went into his own room. He opened his one of the double doors between his room and Clement Seadon’s bathroom. He listened at the other door. He did not hear as well as Clement had heard, for the bathroom was between him and the Englishman’s room. But he heard. He heard the movements of the chambermaid, heard her rattling at the windows.
When the chambermaid came round the corner of the gallery to ask if it was all right now, he was at his door beaming—but this time, perhaps, with a more natural good humor.
“Yes, that is satisfactory, very satisfactory.”
And indeed he thought it was.