Even new crowded hotels and new buildings weren’t the protection he
had at first hoped and thought they would be. Even there you weren’t
safe—not from a man like Mersereau. Take that incident there in Los
Angeles, and again in Seattle, only two months ago now, when Mersereau
was able to make that dreadful explosive or crashing sound, as if one
had burst a huge paper bag full of air, or upset a china-closet full
of glass and broken everything, when as a matter of fact nothing at all
had happened. It had frightened him horribly the first two or three
times, believing as he did that something fearful had happened. Finding
that it was nothing—or Mersereau—he was becoming used to it now; but
other people, unfortunately, were not.
He would be—as he had been that first time—sitting in his room
perfectly still and trying to amuse himself, or not to think, when
suddenly there would be that awful crash. It was astounding! Other
people heard it, of course. They had in Los Angeles. A maid and a
porter had come running the first time to inquire, and he had had to
protest that he had heard nothing. They couldn’t believe it at first,
and had gone to other rooms to look. When it happened the second time,
the management had protested, thinking it was a joke he was playing;
and to avoid the risk of exposure he had left.
After that he could not keep a valet or nurse about him for long.
Servants wouldn’t stay, and managers of hotels wouldn’t let him remain
when such things went on. Yet he couldn’t live in a house or apartment
alone, for there the noises and atmospheric conditions would be worse
than ever.