"My snake!" cried the queen of tragedy. "Where is my snake?"
Archie, looked at the detective. The detective looked at Archie.
"This lady," said the detective, with a dry little cough, "thinks her snake is in your room, Mr. Moffam,"
"Snake?"
"Snake's what the lady said,"
"My snake! My Peter!" Mme. Brudowska's voice shook with emotion. "He is here--here in this room,"
Archie shook his head.
"No snakes here! Absolutely not! I remember noticing when I came in."
"The snake is here--here in this room. This man had it in a bag! I saw him! He is a thief!"
"Easy, ma'am!" protested the detective. "Go easy! This gentleman is the boss's son-in-law."
"I care not who he is! He has my snake! Here--' here in this room!"
"Mr. Moffam wouldn't go round stealing snakes."
"Rather not," said Archie. "Never stole a snake in my life. None of the Moffams have ever gone about stealing snakes. Regular family tradition! Though I once had an uncle who kept gold-fish."
"Here he is! Here! My Peter!"
Archie looked at the detective. The detective looked at Archie. "We must humour her!" their glances said.
"Of course," said Archie, "if you'd like to search the room, what? What I mean to say is, this is Liberty Hall. Everybody welcome! Bring the kiddies!"
"I will search the room!" said Mme. Brudowska.
The detective glanced apologetically at Archie.
"Don't blame me for this, Mr. Moffam," he urged.
"Rather not! Only too glad you've dropped in!"
He took up an easy attitude against the window, and watched the empress of the emotional drama explore. Presently she desisted, baffled. For an instant she paused, as though about to speak, then swept from the room. A moment later a door banged across the passage.
"How do they get that way?" queried the detective, "Well, g'bye, Mr. Moffam. Sorry to have butted in."
The door closed. Archie waited a few moments, then went to the window and hauled in the slack. Presently the bag appeared over the edge of the window-sill.
"Good God!" said Archie.
In the rush and swirl of recent events he must have omitted to see that the clasp that fastened the bag was properly closed; for the bag, as it jumped on to the window-sill, gaped at him like a yawning face. And inside it there was nothing.
Archie leaned as far out of the window as he could manage without committing suicide. Far below him, the traffic took its usual course and the pedestrians moved to and fro upon the pavements. There was no crowding, no excitement. Yet only a few moments before a long green snake with three hundred ribs, a distensible gullet, and gastrocentrous vertebras must have descended on that street like the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath. And nobody seemed even interested. Not for the first time since he had arrived in America, Archie marvelled at the cynical detachment of the New Yorker, who permits himself to be surprised at nothing.
He shut the window and moved away with a heavy Heart. He had not had the pleasure of an extended acquaintanceship with Peter, but he had seen enough of him to realise his sterling qualities. Somewhere beneath Peter's three hundred ribs there had lain a heart of gold, and Archie mourned for his loss.
Archie had a dinner and theatre engagement that night, and it was late when he returned to the hotel. He found his father-in-law prowling restlessly about the lobby. There seemed to be something on Mr. Brewster's mind. He came up to Archie with a brooding frown on his square face.
"Who's this man Seacliff?" he demanded, without preamble. "I hear he's a friend of yours."
"Oh, you've met him, what?" said Archie. "Had a nice little chat together, yes? Talked of this and that, no!"
"We have not said a word to each other."
"Really? Oh, well, dear old Squiffy is one of those strong, silent fellers you know. You mustn't mind if he's a bit dumb. He never says much, but it's whispered round the clubs that he thinks a lot. It was rumoured in the spring of nineteen-thirteen that Squiffy was on the point of making a bright remark, but it never came to anything."
Mr. Brewster struggled with his feelings.
"Who is he? You seem to know him."
"Oh yes. Great pal of mine, Squiffy. We went through Eton, Oxford, and the Bankruptcy Court together. And here's a rummy coincidence. When they examined ME, I had no assets. And, when they examined Squiffy, HE had no assets! Rather extraordinary, what?"
Mr. Brewster seemed to be in no mood for discussing coincidences.
"I might have known he was a friend of yours!" he said, bitterly. "Well, if you want to see him, you'll have to do it outside my hotel."
"Why, I thought he was stopping here."
"He is--to-night. To-morrow he can look for some other hotel to break up."
"Great Scot! Has dear old Squiffy been breaking the place up?"
Mr. Brewster snorted.
"I am informed that this precious friend of yours entered my grill- room at eight o'clock. He must have been completely intoxicated, though the head waiter tells me he noticed nothing at the time."
Archie nodded approvingly.
"Dear old Squiffy was always like that. It's a gift. However woozled he might be, it was impossible to detect it with the naked eye. I've seen the dear old chap many a time whiffled to the eyebrows, and looking as sober as a bishop. Soberer! When did it begin to dawn on the lads in the grill-room that the old egg had been pushing the boat out?"
"The head waiter," said Mr. Brewster, with cold fury, "tells me that he got a hint of the man's condition when he suddenly got up from his table and went the round of the room, pulling off all the table- cloths, and breaking everything that was on them. He then threw a number of rolls at the diners, and left. He seems to have gone straight to bed."
"Dashed sensible of him, what? Sound, practical chap, Squiffy. But where on earth did he get the--er--materials?"
"From his room. I made enquiries. He has six large cases in his room."
"Squiffy always was a chap of infinite resource! Well, I'm dashed sorry this should have happened, don't you know."
"If it hadn't been for you, the man would never have come here." Mr. Brewster brooded coldly. "I don't know why it is, but ever since you came to this hotel I've had nothing but trouble."
"Dashed sorry!" said Archie, sympathetically.
"Grrh!" said Mr. Brewster.
Archie made his way meditatively to the lift. The injustice of his father-in-law's attitude pained him. It was absolutely rotten and all that to be blamed for everything that went wrong in the Hotel Cosmopolis.
While this conversation was in progress, Lord Seacliff was enjoying a refreshing sleep in his room on the fourth floor. Two hours passed. The noise of the traffic in the street below faded away. Only the rattle of an occasional belated cab broke the silence. In the hotel all was still. Mr. Brewster had gone to bed. Archie, in his room, smoked meditatively. Peace may have been said to reign.
At half-past two Lord Seacliff awoke. His hours of slumber were always irregular. He sat up in bed and switched the light on. He was a shock-headed young man with a red face and a hot brown eye. He yawned and stretched himself. His head was aching a little. The room seemed to him a trifle close. He got out of bed and threw open the window. Then, returning to bed, he picked up a book and began to read. He was conscious of feeling a little jumpy, and reading generally sent him to sleep.
Much has been written on the subject of bed-books. The general consensus of opinion is that a gentle, slow-moving story makes the best opiate. If this be so, dear old Squiffy's choice of literature had been rather injudicious. His book was The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and the particular story, which he selected for perusal was the one entitled, "The Speckled Band." He was not a great reader, but, when he read, he liked something with a bit of zip to it.
Squiffy became absorbed. He had read the story before, but a long time back, and its complications were fresh to him. The tale, it may be remembered, deals with the activities of an ingenious gentleman who kept a snake, and used to loose it into people's bedrooms as a preliminary to collecting on their insurance. It gave Squiffy pleasant thrills, for he had always had a particular horror of snakes. As a child, he had shrunk from visiting the serpent house at the Zoo; and, later, when he had come to man's estate and had put off childish things, and settled down in real earnest to his self- appointed mission of drinking up all the alcoholic fluid in England, the distaste for Ophidia had lingered. To a dislike for real snakes had been added a maturer shrinking from those which existed only in his imagination. He could still recall his emotions on the occasion, scarcely three months before, when he had seen a long, green serpent which a majority of his contemporaries had assured him wasn't there.