minutes I believed that Schnitzel had passed out of my life forever.
Then, in taking account of my belongings, I missed my field-glasses. I
remembered that, in order to open a trunk for the customs inspectors,
I had handed them to Schnitzel, and that he had hung them over his
shoulder. In our haste at parting we both had forgotten them.

I was only a few blocks from the hotel, and I told the man to return.

I inquired for Mr. Schnitzel, and the clerk, who apparently knew him by
that name, said he was in his room, number eighty-two.

"But he has a caller with him now," he added. "A gentleman was waiting
for him, and's just gone up."

I wrote on my card why I had called, and soon after it had been borne
skyward the clerk said: "I guess he'll be able to see you now. That's
the party that was calling on him, there."

He nodded toward a man who crossed the rotunda quickly. His face was
twisted from us, as though, as he almost ran toward the street, he were
reading the advertisements on the wall.

He reached the door, and was lost in the great tide of Broadway.

I crossed to the elevator, and as I stood waiting, it descended with a
crash, and the boy who had taken my card flung himself, shrieking, into
the rotunda.

"That man--stop him!" he cried. "The man in eighty-two--he's murdered."