Jack had not waited to ask any idle questions; he had felt quite sure from Seymour's manner that the latter had some great scheme in hand. It was very pleasant and exhilarating to feel that a man of Seymour's wonderful fertility and courage should be enlisted on his side. Masefield was not without hope that the discoveries of the night were not yet complete. He strolled away in the direction of the Great Metropolitan, turning these things over in his mind.
It seemed to him that the clerk in the office of the mammoth hotel regarded him somewhat suspiciously, seeing that he had arrived without luggage of any kind; but a deposit of a sovereign soon set that matter right. It occurred to Jack as a good idea to secure a bedroom as nearly as possible next to that of Carrington. The hotel was not particularly busy, he discovered, for nobody had come in enquiring for bedroom accommodation during the last hour. This was a discovery in itself, for it testified to the fact that Carrington had not yet arrived.
It was nearly an hour before he came, and then he appeared in a desperate hurry. Discreetly Jack remained in the background, but he was close enough to hear Carrington arguing and protesting that he must have a certain room. The matter seemed to be settled amicably at length, and Carrington took his key and departed. Jack strolled across to the office again. He had decided on a bold policy.
"I am going to ask you to give me another room," he said. "I want to be as near as possible to the gentleman who has just gone up-stairs. I think if you do as I ask you it may save the hotel trouble. What was the number of his room?"
The clerk was friendly enough, and inclined to talk. Was it a police matter? he asked. Jack responded gravely that he was not in a position to say too much, but his mysterious manner had the desired effect, and the exchange was made.
"I haven't put you exactly next to that gentleman," the clerk explained. "You see our bedrooms are on a sort of cubical system--corridors down both sides, and the bedrooms back to back, if I may so express it--with a ventilating grating between them for the sake of air. That gentleman's bedroom is 28; therefore your room, exactly behind it, is No. 14. I hope I have made myself plain."
Jack replied that the thing was perfectly clear. Indeed, the system was in considerable vogue on the Continent. He lingered a little longer in the big lounge hall, where he smoked a cigarette or two, so as to give Carrington time to get to bed. It occurred to Jack, in an idle kind of way, that perhaps Carrington was deceiving Anstruther, or why had he not come straight to the hotel? Instead of that, he had evidently gone off somewhere in a desperate hurry, and had returned at length to the hotel looking very exhausted and agitated. Jack pondered this matter in his mind as he went up to his own room.
It was a comfortable enough bedroom, for the Great Metropolitan was noted for the luxury of its appointments; indeed, the room was fit for anybody. The lighting was exceedingly efficient; even over the bed was a pendant, evidently intended for those who cared to read after they retired to rest. Jack smiled as he noted the elaborate dressing-table and wash-hand-stand, to say nothing of a huge winged wardrobe, which was almost as big as a bedroom itself. Behind this wardrobe, fairly close to the ceiling, was the open grating which formed a ventilating shaft between the one room and the other one behind it.
Jack carefully closed the door, and with the aid of a chair managed to climb to the top of the wardrobe. He found that the grating was constructed on the swivel principle, very like a big cheval glass, so that by tilting it slightly it was just possible to see into the next room.
In the room aforesaid the lights had not yet been turned down, so that evidently Carrington had not gone to bed. The watcher could hear him impatiently pacing the room and muttering to himself from time to time. The muttering was exceedingly incoherent, but from the gist of it Jack seemed to make out that Carrington was expecting somebody. On the far side of the room was a wardrobe very much like the one upon which Jack was perched, except that it had large plate-glass doors which reflected practically everything that was taking place inside the room.
Jack could see Carrington now, lounging in a comfortable armchair and impatiently turning over a great mass of papers which lay on a table before him. On the table also was a box of cigars, flanked by two glasses and the necessary ingredients for the manufacture of whiskey and soda. There could be no longer any doubt about it: Carrington was expecting a friend. So far as the watcher could see, there was no hurry. He was quite prepared to sit up all night if necessary, and had no feelings of delicacy in listening to what the two scoundrels were going to say--provided always that the expected visitor was a scoundrel, of which Jack had very little doubt.
As he stood there, his whole mind strained to attention, it seemed to him that he could hear the sound of music somewhere. To his trained ear there was something familiar in the method of the player. Jack wondered where he had heard that finished execution before. Then it suddenly flashed upon him.
"How stupid," he muttered to himself. "I had quite forgotten that Padini was here. That is Padini, without a shadow of a doubt, carrying out the programme that Anstruther made out for him."
The music was not far off; it seemed to Jack that he could almost hear the scraping of the bow. It was not lost upon him, however, that the whole of the piece............