The great darkened Ritz towered opposite, Devonshire House squatted behind its grilles and shadowy walls on the right, and beyond the great dark thoroughfare stretched away into the night, melancholy, deserted save for the slight stirring of a policeman here and there or the passage of an automobile running in silence without lights.
He had been standing by the window for ten minutes or so, a lighted cigarette between his lips, both hands dropped into the pocket of his pyjamas, when he became aware of a slight sound--a very slight one--behind him.
He turned around and his eyes fell upon the knob of the door. Whether or not it was turning he could not determine in the dusk of the room. The only light in it came through his windows from the starry August night-sky.
After a moment he walked toward the door, bare-footed across the velvet carpet, halted, fixed his eyes on the door knob.
After a moment it began to turn again, almost imperceptibly. And, in him, every over-wrought nerve tightened to its full tension till he quivered. Slowly, discreetly, noiselessly the knob continued to turn. The door was not locked. Presently it began to open, the merest fraction of an inch at a time; then, abruptly but stealthily, it began to close again, as though the unseen intruder had caught sight of him, and Guild stepped forward swiftly and jerked the door wide open.
There was only the darkened hallway there, and a servant with a tray who said very coolly, "Thanky, sir," and entered the room.
"What-do-you-want?" asked Guild unsteadily.
"You ordered whiskey and soda for eleven o'clock, sir."
"I did not. Why do you try to enter my room without knocking?"
"I understood your orders were not to disturb you but to place the tray on the night-table beside your bed, sir."
Guild regarded him steadily. The servant, clean-shaven, typical, encountered the young man's gaze respectfully and with no more disturbance than seemed natural under the circumstances of a not unusual blunder.
Guild's nerves relaxed and he drew a deep, quiet breath.
"Somebody has made a mistake," he said. "I ordered nothing. And, hereafter, anybody coming to my door will knock. Is that plain?"
"Have the goodness to make it very plain to the management."