The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation | Page 3

straight up to my
room--263--and rouse me out. Want to see you at once.--J.A.
Allerdyke slipped the card into his pocket and turned to the
night-porter.
"My cousin wants me to go up to his room at once," he said. "Just show
me the way. Do you happen to know what time he got in last night?" he
continued, as they went upstairs. "Was it late?"
"Passengers from the Perisco, sir?" answered the night-porter. "There
were several of 'em came in last night--she got into the river about
eight-thirty. It 'ud be a bit after nine o'clock when your friend came in."

Allerdyke's mind went back to the meeting at Howden.
"Did you have a lady set off from here in the middle of the night?" he
asked, out of sheer curiosity. "A lady in a motor-car?"
"Oh! that lady," exclaimed the night-porter, with a grim laugh. "Ah!
nice lot of bother she gave me, too. She was one of those Perisco
passengers--she got in here with the rest, and booked a room, and went
to it all right, and then at half-past twelve down she came and said she
wanted to get on, and as there weren't no trains she'd have a motor-car
and drive to catch an express at Selby, or Doncaster, or somewhere.
Nice job I had to get her a car at that time o' night!--and me
single-handed--there wasn't a soul in the office then. Meet her
anywhere, sir?"
"Met her on the road," replied Allerdyke laconically. "Was she a
foreigner, do you know?"
"I shouldn't wonder if she was something of that sort," answered the
night-porter. "Sort that would have her own way at all events. Here's
the room, sir."
He paused before the door of a room which stood halfway down a long
corridor in the centre of the hotel, and on its panels he knocked gently.
"Every room's filled on this floor, sir," he remarked. "I hope your
friend's a light sleeper, for there's some of 'em'll have words to say if
they're roused at four o'clock in the morning."
"He's a very light sleeper as a rule," replied Allerdyke. He stood
listening for the sound of some movement in the room: "Knock again,"
he said, when a minute had passed without response on the part of the
occupant. "Make it a bit louder."
The night-porter, with evident unwillingness, repeated his summons,
this time loud enough to wake any ordinary sound sleeper. But no
sound came from within the room, and after a third and much louder
thumping at the door, Allerdyke grew impatient and suspicious.

"This is queer!" he growled. "My cousin's one of the lightest sleeper I
ever knew. If he's in there, there's something wrong. Look here! you'll
have to open that door. Haven't you got a key?"
"Key'll be inside, sir," replied the night-porter. "But there's a
master-key to all these doors in the office. Shall I fetch it, then?"
"Do!" said Allerdyke, curtly. He began to walk up and down the
corridor when the man had hurried away, wondering what this
soundness of sleep in his cousin meant. James Allerdyke was not a man
who took either drink or drugs, and Marshall's experience of him was
that the least sound awoke him.
"Queer!" he repeated as he marched up and down. "Perhaps he's not--"
The quiet opening of a door close by made him lift his eyes from the
carpet. In the dim light he saw a man looking out upon him--a man of
an unusually thick crop of hair and with a huge beard. He stared at
Allerdyke half angrily, half sulkily; then he closed his door as quietly
as he had opened it. And Allerdyke, turning back to his cousin's room,
mechanically laid his hand on the knob and screwed it round.
The door was open.
Allerdyke drew a sharp breath as he crossed the threshold. He had
stayed in that hotel often, and he knew where the switch of the electric
light should be. He lifted a hand, found the switch, and turned the light
on. And as it flooded the room, he pulled himself up to a tense rigidity.
There, sitting fully dressed in an easy chair, against which his head was
thrown back, was his cousin--unmistakably dead.
CHAPTER II
THE DEAD MAN
For a full minute Marshall Allerdyke stood fixed--staring at the set
features before him. Then, with a quick catching of his breath, he made
one step to his cousin's side and laid his hand on the unyielding

shoulder. The affectionate, familiar terms in which they had always
addressed each other sprang involuntarily to his lips.
"Why, James, my lad!" he exclaimed. "James, lad! James!"
Even as he spoke, he knew that James would never hear word or sound
again in this world. It needed