next room.

Usually, no one would identify the Grand Empire Hotel with crime and
intrigue; but that did not deter Gurdon from rising from his bed and
making a determined effort to see through the ventilator into the
adjoining room. It was not an easy matter, but by dint of balancing two
chairs one on top of the other the thing was accomplished. Very
cautiously Gurdon pushed back the glass slide and looked through. So far
as he could see, there was nothing to justify any suspicion. The room
was absolutely empty, though it was brilliantly lighted; and for a
moment Gurdon felt ashamed of his suspicions, and turned away, half
determined to try and sleep. It was at that instant that he noticed
something out of the common. To his quickened ear there came a sound
unmistakably like a snore, and pushing his body half through the
ventilator he managed to make out the bed in the next room. On it lay
the body of a boy in uniform, unmistakably a messenger boy or hotel
attendant of that kind. Gurdon could see the hotel name embroidered in
gold letters on his collar.

Perhaps there was nothing so very suspicious in this, except that the boy
was lying on the bed fully dressed, even to his boots. It was a luxurious
room; not at all the class of apartment to which the hotel management
would relegate one of their messenger boys, nor was it possible that the
lad had had the temerity to go into the vacant room and sleep.

"Something wrong here," Gurdon muttered. "Hang me if I don't get through
the ventilator and see what it is."

It was no difficult matter for an athlete like Gurdon to push his way
through and drop on to the bed on the other side. Then he shook the form