The Great Secret | Page 3

door.
"With the police!" I explained.
"No, these are not the police," he answered.
"I don't mind a row particularly," I continued, "but I like to know something about it. What do these people want with you?"
"My life!" he answered grimly.
"Why?"
"I cannot tell you!"
A sudden and ridiculously obvious idea struck me for the first time. A small electric bell and telephone instrument were by the side of the bed. I leaned over and pressed the knob with my finger. My companion half glanced towards me, and back again instantly towards the door.
"No use," he muttered, "they will not come!"
Whereupon a thoroughly British sentiment was aroused in me. Of the liberties which had been taken with my room, both by this man and by his pursuers, I scarcely thought, but that any one should presume to interfere with my rights as an hotel guest angered me! I kept my finger on the knob of the bell; I summoned chambermaid, waiter, valet and boots. It was all to no effect. No one came. The telephone remained silent. The door was on the point of yielding.
I abandoned my useless efforts, and turned towards the man whom I was sheltering.
"How many are there in the next room?" I asked.
"Two!"
"If I stand by you, will you obey me?"
He hesitated for a moment. Then he nodded.
"Yes!"
"Get behind the bed then, and give me the revolver."
He parted with it reluctantly. I took it into my hand, only just in time. The door at last had burst away from its hinges. With perfect self-possession I saw one of the two men who had been engaged in its demolition calmly lean it up against the wall. The other stared at me as though I had been a ghost.
CHAPTER II
A MIDNIGHT RAID
I could see at once that neither of the two men who confronted me had really believed that the room into which their victim had escaped was already occupied by any other person than the one of whom they were in pursuit. Their expression of surprise was altogether genuine. I myself was, perhaps, equally taken aback. Nothing in their appearance suggested in the least the midnight assassin! I turned towards the one who had leaned the door up against the wall, and addressed him.
"May I ask to what I am indebted for the pleasure of this unexpected visit?" I inquired.
The man took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. He was short and stout, with a bushy brown beard, and eyes which blinked at me in amazement from behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. He wore a grey tweed travelling suit, and brown boots. He had exactly the air of a prosperous middle-class tradesman from the provinces.
"I am afraid, sir," he said, "that we have made a mistake--in which case we shall owe you a thousand apologies. We are in search of a friend whom we certainly believed that we had seen enter your room."
Now all the time he was talking his eyes were never still. Every inch of my room that was visible they ransacked. His companion, too, was engaged in the same task. There were no traces of my visitor to be seen.
"You can make your apologies and explanations to the management in the morning," I answered grimly "Pardon me!"
I held out my arm across the threshold, and for the first time looked at the other man who had been on the point of entering. He was slight and somewhat sallow, with very high forehead and small deep-set eyes. He was dressed in ordinary evening clothes, the details of which, however, betrayed his status. He wore a heavy gold chain, a dinner coat, and a made-up white tie, with the ends tucked in under a roll collar. He appeared to be objectionable, but far from dangerous.
"You are still a trifle over-anxious respecting the interior of my room!" I remarked, pushing him gently back.
He spoke to me for the first time. He spoke slowly and formally, and his accent struck me as being a little foreign.
"Sir," he said, "you may not be aware that the person of whom we are in search is a dangerous, an exceedingly dangerous character. If he should be concealed in your room the consequences to yourself might be most serious."
"Thank you," I said, "I am quite capable of taking care of myself."
Both men were standing as close to me as I was disposed to permit. I fancied that they were looking me over, as though to make an estimate of the possible amount of resistance I might be able to offer should they be disposed to make a rush. The odds, if any, must have seemed to them somewhat in my favor, for I was taller by head and shoulders than either of them, and a life-long devotion to athletics had broadened my shoulders, and given me strength