The Man with the Clubfoot | Page 6

mosaic flooring, a waiter emerged
from a little cubby-hole under the stairs. He had a blue apron girt about
his waist, but otherwise he wore the short coat and the dicky and white
tie of the Continental hotel waiter. His hands were grimy with black
marks and so was his apron. He had apparently been cleaning boots.
He was a big, fat, blonde man with narrow, cruel little eyes. His hair
was cut so short that his head appeared to be shaven. He advanced
quickly towards me and asked me in German in a truculent voice what I
wanted.
I replied in the same language, I wanted a room.
He shot a glance at me through his little slits of eyes on hearing my
good Bonn accent, but his manner did not change.
"The hotel is full. The gentleman cannot have a bed here. The
proprietress is out at present. I regret...." He spat this all out in the
offhand insolent manner of the Prussian official.
"It was Franz, of the Bopparder Hof, who recommended me to come
here," I said. I was not going out again into the rain for a whole army of
Prussian waiters.
"He told me that Frau Schratt would make me very comfortable," I
added.
The waiter's manner changed at once.

"So, so," he said--quite genially this time--"it was Franz who sent the
gentleman to us. He is a good friend of the house, is Franz. Ja, Frau
Schratt is unfortunately out just now, but as soon as the lady returns I
will inform her you are here. In the meantime, I will give the gentleman
a room."
He handed me a candlestick and a key.
"So," he grunted, "No. 31, the third floor."
A clock rang out the hour somewhere in the distance.
"Ten o'clock already," he said. "The gentleman's papers can wait till
to-morrow, it is so late. Or perhaps the gentleman will give them to the
proprietress. She must come any moment."
As I mounted the winding staircase I heard him murmur again:
"So, so, Franz sent him here! Ach, der Franz!"
As soon as I had passed out of sight of the lighted hall I found myself
in complete darkness. On each landing a jet of gas, turned down low,
flung a dim and flickering light a few yards around. On the third floor I
was able to distinguish by the gas rays a small plaque fastened to the
wall inscribed with an arrow pointing to the right above the figures:
46-30.
I stopped to strike a match to light my candle. The whole hotel seemed
wrapped in silence, the only sound the rushing of water in the gutters
without. Then from the darkness of the narrow corridor that stretched
out in front of me, I heard the rattle of a key in a lock.
I advanced down the corridor, the pale glimmer of my candle showing
me as I passed a succession of yellow doors, each bearing a white
porcelain plate inscribed with a number in black. No. 46 was the first
room on the right counting from the landing: the even numbers were on
the right, the odd on the left: therefore I reckoned on finding my room
the last on the left at the end of the corridor.

The corridor presently took a sharp turn. As I came round the bend I
heard again the sound of a key and then the rattling of a door knob, but
the corridor bending again, I could not see the author of the noise until
I had turned the corner.
I ran right into a man fumbling at a door on the left-hand side of the
passage, the last door but one. A mirror at the end of the corridor
caught and threw back the reflection of my candle.
The man looked up as I approached. He was wearing a soft black felt
hat and a black overcoat and on his arm hung an umbrella streaming
with rain. His candlestick stood on the floor at his feet. It had
apparently just been extinguished, for my nostrils sniffed the odour of
burning tallow.
"You have a light?" the stranger said in German in a curiously
breathless voice. "I have just come upstairs and the wind blew out my
candle and I could not get the door open. Perhaps you could ..." He
broke off gasping and put his hand to his heart.
"Allow me," I said. The lock of the door was inverted and to open the
door you had to insert the key upside-down. I did so and the door
opened easily. As it swung back I noticed the number of the room was
33, next door to mine.
"Can I be of any assistance to you? Are you unwell?" I said, at