"Give me my key first," I said. He did so. "Now just tell 'em I'm not in, and hang up. It's a bloke I don't care to talk to."
"Ah," said he, smirking, "I see." To the instrument he murmured, "I'm sorry, Mister Hood is out at present," and--my eternal gratitude to that sleek-haired, smug-faced desk clerk!--rang off without asking if there was any message. He had given me a good half minute of free time. I went to the lift and said, "Four please." If it had not been there I should have had to take the steps. Surely my luck was running that night!
I judged that, just about the time I struck the fourth floor, that phone at the desk would be sounding impatiently again. I opened my door, bolted it behind me, and began to throw things into my Gladstone.
I emptied the drawers of the high-boy, the devilish jangle in my ears; leaped into the bathroom and brushed my shaving kit and toilet articles into a little leather bag I used for them. I would be certain I was leaving nothing behind on which there might be a monogram, an engraved name....
I was packed. Everything I had brought with me was in the Gladstone.
They would be on their way. A hotel detective or a couple of policemen, called in after that urgent message from the garage. Perhaps the usurpers--
I whipped out my handkerchief, wrapped it round my right hand, and started in to dust that room as no chambermaid had ever dusted it in all its memory. Each piece of wood which I might have touched in the past week received a quick vigorous swipe. Each glass and porcelain surface in the bathroom. Everything. The door knob. The glasses. Is that all? The window, which I'd raised a few times. Is that all? It that _all_?
I believed it was. I snatched up the Gladstone and with the cloth still around my hand I opened the door and slipped into the corridor.
Close the door, son. That'll halt them for a precious two seconds.
Down the corridor, around the first turn....
And now what? Here was a flight of stairs. And in the distance I heard a lift door open.
Down the stairs I rushed, and was on the third floor.
Running for another flight, a different one, with a vague thought of confusing my trail, I stumbled and almost fell. Recovering, I fled down these, on down, down, down.