He handed me a candlestick and a key.

"So," he grunted, "No. 31, the third floor."

A clock rang out the hour somewhere in the distance.

"Ten o'clock already," he said. "The gentleman's papers can wait till
to-morrow, it is so late. Or perhaps the gentleman will give them to the
proprietress. She must come any moment."

As I mounted the winding staircase I heard him murmur again:

"So, so, Franz sent him here! Ach, der Franz!"

As soon as I had passed out of sight of the lighted hall I found myself
in complete darkness. On each landing a jet of gas, turned down low,
flung a dim and flickering light a few yards around. On the third floor
I was able to distinguish by the gas rays a small plaque fastened to the
wall inscribed with an arrow pointing to the right above the figures:
46-30.

I stopped to strike a match to light my candle. The whole hotel seemed
wrapped in silence, the only sound the rushing of water in the gutters
without. Then from the darkness of the narrow corridor that stretched
out in front of me, I heard the rattle of a key in a lock.

I advanced down the corridor, the pale glimmer of my candle showing me
as I passed a succession of yellow doors, each bearing a white porcelain
plate inscribed with a number in black. No. 46 was the first room on
the right counting from the landing: the even numbers were on the right,