Frantically he pulled and pushed at the stiff, brittle bough; a lust to break it took hold of him; leaning forward his whole length he seized the bough at the elbow joint and strained it away from him. As it cracked he toppled over and the shroud came rushing upwards. . . .

Mr. Rumbold waked in a cold sweat to find himself clutching the curved arm of the chair on which the waiter had set his brandy. The glass had fallen over and the spirit lay in a little pool on the leather seat. ‘I can’t let it go like that,’ he thought. ‘I must get some more.’ A man he did not know answered the bell. ‘Waiter,’ he said, ‘bring me a brandy and soda in my room in a quarter of an hour’s time. Rumbold, the name is.’ He followed the waiter out of the room. The passage was completely dark except for a small blue gas-jet, beneath which was huddled a cluster of candlesticks. The hotel, he remembered, maintained an old-time habit of deference towards darkness. As he held the wick to the gas-jet, he heard himself mutter, ‘Here is a candle to light you to bed.’ But he recollected the ominous conclusion of the distich, and fuddled though he was he left it unspoken.

Shortly after Mr. Rumbold’s retirement the door-bell of the hotel rang. Three sharp peals, and no pause between them. ‘Someone in a hurry to get in,’ the night porter grumbled to himself. ‘Expect he’s forgotten his key.’ He made no haste to answer the summons; it would do the forgetful fellow good to wait: teach him a lesson. So dilatory was he that by the time he reached the hall door the bell was tinkling again. Irritated by such importunity, he deliberately went back to set straight a pile of newspapers before letting this impatient devil in. To mark his indifference he even kept behind the door while he opened it, so that his first sight of the visitor only took in his back; but this limited inspection sufficed to show that the man was a stranger and not a visitor at the hotel.

In the long black cape which fell almost sheer on one side, and on the other stuck out as though he had a basket under his arm, he looked like a crow with a broken wing. A bald-headed crow, thought the porter, for there’s a patch of bare skin between that white linen thing and his hat.

‘Good evening, sir,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’

The stranger made no answer, but glided to a side-table and began turning over some letters with his right hand.

‘Are you expecting a message?’ asked the porter.

‘No,’ the stranger replied. ‘I want a room for the night.’

‘Was you the gentleman who telephoned for a room this evening?’

‘Yes.’

‘In that case, I was to tell you we’re afraid you can’t have one; the hotel’s booked right up.’

‘Are you quite sure?’ asked the stranger. ‘Think again.’

‘Them’s my orders, sir. It don’t do me no good to think.’

At this moment the porter had a curious sensation as though some important part of him, his life maybe, had gone adrift inside him and was spinning round and round. The sensation ceased when he began to speak.

‘I’ll call the waiter, sir,’ he said.

But before he called the waiter appeared, intent on an errand of his own.

‘I say, Bill,’ he began, ‘what’s the number of Mr. Rumbold’s room? He wants a drink taken up, and I forgot to ask him.’

‘It’s thirty-three,’ said the porter unsteadily. ‘The double room.’

‘Why, Bill, what’s up?’ the waiter exclaimed. ‘You look as if you’d seen a ghost.’

Both men stared round the hall, and then back at each other. The room was empty.

‘God!’ said the porter. ‘I must have had the horrors. But he was here a moment ago. Look at this.’

On the stone flags lay an icicle, an inch or two long, around which a little pool was fast collecting.

‘Why, Bill,’ cried the waiter, ‘how did that get here? It’s not freezing.’

‘He must have brought it,’ the porter said.

They looked at each other in consternation, which changed into terror as the sound of a bell made itself heard, coming from the depths of the hotel.

‘Clutsam’s there,’ whispered the porter. ‘He’ll have to answer it, whoever it is.’

Clutsam had taken off his tie and was getting ready for bed. He slept in the basement. What on earth could anyone want in the smoking-room at this hour? He pulled on his coat and went upstairs.

Standing by the fire he saw the same figure whose appearance and disappearance had so disturbed the porter.

‘Yes, sir?’ he said.

‘I want you to go to Mr. Rumbold,’ said the stranger, ‘and ask him if he is prepared to put the other bed in his room at the disposal of a friend.’

In a few moments Clutsam returned.

‘Mr. Rumbold’s compliments, sir, and he wants to know who it is.’

The stranger went to the table in the centre of the room. An Australian newspaper was lying there which Clutsam had not noticed before. The aspirant to Mr. Rumbold’s hospitality turned over the pages. Then with his finger, which appeared even to Clutsam standing by the door unusually pointed, he cut out a rectangular slip, about the size of a visiting card, and, moving away, motioned the waiter to take it.

By the light of the gas-jet in the passage Clutsam read the clipping. It seemed to be a kind of obituary notice; but of what possible interest could it be to Mr. Rumbold to know that the body of Mr. James Hagberd had been discovered in circumstances which suggested that he had met his death by violence?

After a longer interval Clutsam returned, looking puzzled and a little frightened.

‘Mr. Rumbold’s compliments, sir, but he knows no one of that name.’

‘Then take this message to Mr. Rumbold,’ said the stranger. ‘Say, “Would he rather that I went up to him, or that he came down to me?” ’

For the third time Clutsam went to do the stranger’s bidding. He did not, however, upon his return open the door of the smoking-room, but shouted through it:

‘Mr. Rumbold wishes you to Hell, sir, where you belong, and says, “Come up if you dare!” ’

Then he bolted.

A minute later, from his retreat in an underground coal-cellar, he heard a shot fired. Some old instinct, danger-loving or danger-disregarding, stirred in him, and he ran up the stairs quicker than he had ever run up them in his life. In the passage he stumbled over Mr. Rumbold’s boots. The bedroom door was ajar. Putting his head down he rushed in. The brightly lit room was empty. But almost all the movables in it were overturned and the bed was in a frightful mess. The pillow with its five-fold perforation was the first object on which Clutsam noticed bloodstains. Thenceforward he seemed to see them everywhere. But what sickened him and kept him so long from going down to rouse the others was the sight of an icicle on the window-sill, a thin claw of ice curved like a Chinaman’s nail, with a bit of flesh sticking to it.

That was the last he saw of Mr. Rumbold. But a policeman patrolling Carrick Street noticed a man in a long black cape, who seemed, by the position of his arm, to be carrying something heavy. He called out to the man and ran after him; but though he did not seem to be moving very fast, the policeman could not overtake him.