The Grand Babylon Hotel - Arnold Bennett (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📗

“let me explore my own hotel unaccompanied. I believe I can discover my room.” When he got fairly into the passages, Racksole was not so sure that he could discover his own room. The number was 107, but he had forgotten whether it was on the first or second floor.

Travelling in a lift, one is unconscious of floors. He passed several lift-doorways, but he could see no glint of a staircase; in all self-respecting hotels staircases have gone out of fashion, and though hotel architects still continue, for old sakes’ sake, to build staircases, they are tucked away in remote corners where their presence is not likely to offend the eye of a spoiled and cosmopolitan public. The hotel seemed vast, uncanny, deserted. An electric light glowed here and there at long intervals. On the thick carpets, Racksole’s thinly-shod feet made no sound, and he wandered at ease to and fro, rather amused, rather struck by the peculiar senses of night and mystery which had suddenly come over him. He fancied he could hear a thousand snores peacefully descending from the upper realms. At length he found a staircase, a very dark and narrow one, and presently he was on the first floor. He soon discovered that the numbers of the rooms on this floor did not get beyond seventy. He encountered another staircase and ascended to the second floor. By the decoration of the walls he recognized this floor as his proper home, and as he strolled through the long corridor he whistled a low, meditative whistle of satisfaction. He thought he heard a step in the transverse corridor, and instinctively he obliterated himself in a recess which held a service-cabinet and a chair. He did hear a step. Peeping cautiously out, he perceived, what he had not perceived previously, that a piece of white ribbon had been tied round the handle of the door of one of the bedrooms. Then a man came round the corner of the transverse corridor, and Racksole drew back. It was Jules⁠—Jules with his hands in his pockets and a slouch hat over his eyes, but in other respects attired as usual.

Racksole, at that instant, remembered with a special vividness what Félix Babylon had said to him at their first interview. He wished he had brought his revolver. He didn’t know why he should feel the desirability of a revolver in a London hotel of the most unimpeachable fair fame, but he did feel the desirability of such an instrument of attack and defence. He privately decided that if Jules went past his recess he would take him by the throat and in that attitude put a few plain questions to this highly dubious waiter. But Jules had stopped. The millionaire made another cautious observation. Jules, with infinite gentleness, was turning the handle of the door to which the white ribbon was attached. The door slowly yielded and Jules disappeared within the room. After a brief interval, the night-prowling Jules reappeared, closed the door as softly as he had opened it, removed the ribbon, returned upon his steps, and vanished down the transverse corridor.

“This is quaint,” said Racksole; “quaint to a degree!”

It occurred to him to look at the number of the room, and he stole towards it.

“Well, I’m damned!” he murmured wonderingly.

The number was 111, his daughter’s room! He tried to open it, but the door was locked. Rushing to his own room, No. 107, he seized one of a pair of revolvers (the kind that are made for millionaires) and followed after Jules down the transverse corridor. At the end of this corridor was a window; the window was open; and Jules was innocently gazing out of the window. Ten silent strides, and Theodore Racksole was upon him.

“One word, my friend,” the millionaire began, carelessly waving the revolver in the air. Jules was indubitably startled, but by an admirable exercise of self-control he recovered possession of his faculties in a second.

“Sir?” said Jules.

“I just want to be informed, what the deuce you were doing in No. 111 a moment ago.”

“I had been requested to go there,” was the calm response.

“You are a liar, and not a very clever one. That is my daughter’s room. Now⁠—out with it, before I decide whether to shoot you or throw you into the street.”

“Excuse me, sir, No. 111 is occupied by a gentleman.”

“I advise you that it is a serious error of judgement to contradict me, my friend. Don’t do it again. We will go to the room together, and you shall prove that the occupant is a gentleman, and not my daughter.”

“Impossible, sir,” said Jules.

“Scarcely that,” said Racksole, and he took Jules by the sleeve. The millionaire knew for a certainty that Nella occupied No. 111, for he had examined the room with her, and himself seen that her trunks and her maid and herself had arrived there in safety. “Now open the door,” whispered Racksole, when they reached No. 111.

“I must knock.”

“That is just what you mustn’t do. Open it. No doubt you have your passkey.”

Confronted by the revolver, Jules readily obeyed, yet with a deprecatory gesture, as though he would not be responsible for this outrage against the decorum of hotel life. Racksole entered. The room was brilliantly lighted.

“A visitor, who insists on seeing you, sir,” said Jules, and fled.

Mr. Reginald Dimmock, still in evening dress, and smoking a cigarette, rose hurriedly from a table.

“Hello, my dear Mr. Racksole, this is an unexpected⁠—ah⁠—pleasure.”

“Where is my daughter? This is her room.”

“Did I catch what you said, Mr. Racksole?”

“I venture to remark that this is Miss Racksole’s room.”

“My good sir,” answered Dimmock, “you must be mad to dream of such a thing. Only my respect for your daughter prevents me from expelling you forcibly, for such an extraordinary suggestion.”

A small spot halfway down the bridge of the millionaire’s nose turned suddenly white.

“With your permission,” he said in a low calm voice, “I will examine the dressing-room and the bathroom.”

“Just listen to me a moment,” Dimmock urged, in a milder tone.

“I’ll listen to