The note was just beneath three others:
Dinner $3.45
Tip .25
Cigar .25
He reached toward a button to summon a bell-boy, and then changed his
mind. It was almost possible to read his thoughts by his actions. He
glanced out of the window nearby, and saw the last golden rays of the
evening sun striking upon street and passersby. One who watched him
would have guessed at his mental processes so:—
“I’ll have a bell-boy mail this.... No.... This is a beautiful day....
A walk after dinner will do me good.... I’ll stroll out and mail it,
or stroll out, anyway....”
He tucked the envelope carefully in his pocket, rose, and sauntered
out of the doorway. He moved slowly, carelessly, idling with the
relish of a man who finds little time to idle.
He was gone for less than ten minutes altogether. When he came back in
the door and passed through the lobby his expression had grown subtly
more content. The ten-minutes’ exercise had “shaken down” his dinner,
his cigar had proved all that the brand warranted, and he was at peace
with the world. As he made his way into the elevator he was even
humming a little.
“Three,” he commented, as the car shot upward. “By the way, is there a
good show in town tonight?”
“Yessuh, Ah reg’n so. Dey usual’ is. Y’might ax at de desk.”
The elevator-door clanged open at the third floor and he went out. The
elevator-boy saw him fitting a key into the lock of his room. He was
still humming. The elevator-door shut, and the cage dropped to the
lobby floor again.
“Gosh,” said the elevator-boy to his _confrére_, the chief bell-hop.
“Dem trabelin’ men sho’ has it easy. Dey goes to de shows an’ jes’
chahges it in d’ expense account. Y’ bettuh tote out half a pint. Dis
gen’leman in three-eighty looks lak he mought be intrusted.”
The chief bell-hop rose.
“Bress Gawd fo’ Prohibition,” he commented piously. “Ef t’wasn’t fo’
de law, us hotel-help would hab t’ live on ouah tips.”
He sauntered into a small private closet and a little later stepped
briskly up the stairs. It was certainly not more than two minutes from
the time the elevator-boy saw Craig unlock the door, humming a little,
to the time the bell-hop knocked softly. But where the elevator-boy
carried away an impression of carefree contentment and casual cheer,
the bell-hop straightened involuntarily when he heard a voice from
within.
“Come in!”
The voice was a harsh croak, a rasping gasp, metallic and unhuman. The
bell-hop pushed open the door cautiously and peered in. The room
looked as if a whirlwind had struck it. Sheets, rugs, pillow-cases
were thrown helter-skelter about the place, and at the moment James
Craig was on his knees before a suit-case. Where he had looked
carefree and at peace with the world, he now looked ghastly. His face
was a pasty, chalky white. His eyes seemed to have sunk into his head,
and they stared at the bell-hop with a strange deadness.
“I’ve been robbed!” he croaked harshly. “I’ve been robbed!”
The bell-hop ducked instinctively.
“Bress Gawd!” he gasped. “Y’ don’ mean it!”
A choked sob burst from the throat of the chalky-faced man.
“I’ve been robbed!” he repeated in a certain strange calm. Then he
sobbed again, his whole body writhing with the sound. “My God! Eighty
thousand dollars!”
The bell-hop jumped a foot in the air at mention of that sum and
departed swiftly. The result of his flight was seen a moment later in
a pale and worried desk-clerk who came hurriedly into the room. Craig
was moving dumbly about, looking hopelessly here, there—everywhere.
“You—you’ve been robbed, sir?”
“Eighty thousand dollars!” Craig seemed stunned by the calamity. “I’m
ruined! Ruined! Eighty thousand dollars!”
He sat down suddenly in a chair and stared before him with lack-lustre
eyes. The desk-clerk, alarmed as he was for the reputation of the
house, could not but feel sympathy for the man who had changed so
absolutely in so few minutes. His very lips were gray. His eyes seemed
to have retreated deep into his skull. His voice was a pitiable parody
of a living man’s voice. It was dead, harsh, lifeless.
“Carrying bonds from New Orleans to New York,” he said dully. “Nobody
knew I had ’em. Can’t sleep on trains, and stopped over here to have a
night’s rest. I went out for dinner.... The bonds are gone.”
“I’ll send for the police,” the desk-clerk assured him. “We’ve a
splendid detective force here. If anybody could find them, Jamison
can.”
Craig’s fingers unclenched and he automatically began to look through
the articles in his suit-case again, in the utterly forlorn hope that
he might yet be mistaken, and might yet find the bonds.
“Eighty thousand dollars!” he said apathetically. “I’m ruined! They’ll
suspect me, even me, of stealing them. And nobody knew I had them!” He
groaned. “Nobody knew I had them!”
The clerk slipped from the room and telephoned frantically, while he
gave orders that assured the continued presence of every one of the
hotel employees and a careful note of every guest who left the place.
He would be able to give the police a list of every man who slipped
out, and would be able to produce all the hotel help. It was quick and
efficient work. But once that was done, the desk-clerk allowed himself
to think sympathetically of the man in the room above. He had seen
Craig stroll into the elevator, pleasantly flushed by his dinner and
walk. And now that chalk-white man with sunken eyes, croaking of ruin
and disgrace....
The desk-clerk shook his head in genuine regret.