Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/14

6 the fraction of a second before adding his place of residence—London.

"A room with a bath, if you please; second flight. Have the man call me at seven."

"Yes, sir. Here, boy!"

Sleepily the bellboy lifted the battered kitbag and led the way to the elevator.

"Bawth!” said the night clerk, as the elevator door slithered to the latch. "Bawth! The old dear!"

He returned to his chair, hoping that he would not be disturbed again until he was relieved.

What do we care, so long as we don’t know? What's the stranger to us but a fleeting shadow? The Odysseys that pass us every day, and we none the wiser!

The clerk had not properly floated away into dreams when he was again aroused. Resentfully he opened his eyes. A huge fist covered with a fell of black hair rose and fell. Attached to this fist was an arm, and joined to that were enormous shoulders. The clerk's trailing, sleep-befogged glance paused when it reached the newcomer's face. The jaws and cheeks and upper lip were blue-black with a beard that required extra-tempered razors once a day. Black eyes that burned like opals, a bullet-shaped head well cropped, and a pudgy nose broad in the nostrils. Because this second arrival wore his hat well forward the clerk was not able to discern