The Brand of Silence | Page 9

know where he came from?"
"No, sir."
Prale turned away and started for the elevator again. A bell hop stopped him.
"Manager would like to see you in his office, sir," the boy said. "This way, sir."
Prale followed the boy, wondering what was coming now. He found the manager to be a sort of austere individual who seemed impressed with his own importance.
"Mr. Prale," he said, "I regret to have to say this, but I find that it cannot be avoided. When you arrived yesterday, the clerk assigned you to a suite on the fifth floor. He made a mistake. We had a telegraphic reservation for that suite from an old guest of ours, and it should have been kept for him. You appreciate the situation, I feel sure."
"No objection to being moved," Prale said. "I have unpacked scarcely any of my things."
"But--again I regret it--there isn't a vacant suite in the house, Mr. Prale."
"A room, then, until you have one."
"We haven't a room. We haven't as much as a cot, Mr. Prale. We cannot take care of you, I'm afraid. So many regular guests, you understand, and out-of-town visitors."
"Then I'll have to move, I suppose. You may have the suite within two hours."
"Thank you, Mr. Prale."
Prale was angry again when he left the office of the manager. It seemed that everything was conspiring against his comfort. He got a cab, drove to another hotel, inspected a suite and reserved it, paying a month in advance, and then went back to the big hotel on Fifth Avenue to get his baggage. He paid his bill at the cashier's window, and overheard the room clerk speaking to a woman.
"Certainly, madam," the clerk was saying. "We will have an excellent suite on the fifth floor within half an hour. The party is just vacating it. Plenty of suites on the third floor, of course, but, if you want to be up higher in the building----"
Sidney Prale felt the blood pounding in his temples, felt rage welling up within him. He felt as he had once in a Honduras forest when he became aware that a dishonest foreman was betraying business secrets. He hurried to the office of the manager, but the stenographer said the manager was busy and could not be seen.
Prale whirled away, going through the lobby toward the entrance. He met Kate Gilbert face to face. She did not seem to see him, though he was forced to step aside to let her pass.
CHAPTER IV
A FOE AND A FRIEND
After settling himself in the other hotel, Prale ate a belated luncheon. For the first time that day, he looked at the newspapers. He had remembered that a New Yorker reads the papers religiously to keep up to the minute; whereas, in Honduras, it was the custom for busy men to let the papers accumulate and then read a week's supply at a sitting.
Aside from his name in the list of arrivals, Prale found no word concerning himself, though there was mention of other men who had come on the Manatee, and who had no special claim to prominence.
"I don't amount to much, I guess," said Prale to himself. "Don't care for publicity, anyway, but they might let the world know a fellow has come home."
He went for another walk that afternoon, returned to the hotel for dinner, and decided that, instead of going to a show that evening, he would prowl around the town.
He walked up to the Park, went over to Broadway, and started down it, looking at the bright lights again, making his way through the happy, theater-going throngs toward Times Square. In the enjoyment of the crowds he forgot, in part, the discourtesies of the day, but he could not forget them entirely.
Why had the banker acted in such a peculiar fashion? It was not like a financial institution to refuse a deposit of a round million. Why had Griffin refused to see him? Why had he as good as been ordered out of the hotel?
"Coincidence," he told himself. "No reason on earth why such things should happen unless I am being taken for somebody else--and that wouldn't be true in the case of Griffin."
He came to a prominent hotel and went into the lobby, looking in vain for some friend of the old days with whom he could spend an hour or so. Down in Honduras he had had his million and friends, too; and here, in his old home, he had nothing but his money. At this hour, down in Honduras, the band would be playing in the plaza, and society would be out in force. There would be a soft breeze sweeping down from the hills, bringing a thousand odors that could not be detected in New York. Here and there guitars would be tinkling, and men and