It was answered by a waiter—a mere lad. As the light in the passage fell on my face, he paused in the act of addressing me, and drew back a few steps. Without stopping for any explanations, I closed the door behind me, and said to him at once:
“A lady and gentleman came into this hotel a little while ago.”
“What may your business be?”—He hesitated, and added in an altered tone, “I mean, what may you want with them, Sir?”
“I want you to take me where I can hear their voices, and I want nothing more. Here’s a sovereign for you, if you do what I ask.”
His eyes fastened covetously on the gold, as I held it before them. He retired a few steps on tiptoe, and listened at the end of the passage. I heard nothing but the thick, rapid beating of my own heart. He came back, muttering to himself: “Master’s safe at supper downstairs—I’ll risk it! You’ll promise to go away directly,” he added, whispering to me, “and not disturb the house? We are quiet people here, and can’t have anything like a disturbance. Just say at once, will you promise to step soft, and not speak a word?”
“I promise.”
“This way then, Sir—and mind you don’t forget to step soft.”
A strange coldness and stillness, an icy insensibility, a dream-sensation of being impelled by some hidden, irresistible agency, possessed me, as I followed him upstairs. He showed me softly into an empty room; pointed to one of the walls, whispering, “It’s only boards papered over—” and then waited, keeping his eyes anxiously and steadily fixed upon all my movements.