Observe the _calm_ of it. This is what the snoopopath
loves--no rage, no blustering--calmness, cynicism. He
walked over towards the mantelpiece and laid his hat upon
it. He set his boot upon the fender.

"It was cold this evening," he said. He walked over to
the window and gazed a moment into the dark.

"This is a nice hotel," he said. (This scene is what the
author and the reader love; they hate to let it go. They'd
willingly keep the man walking up and down for hours
saying "Well!")

The Man raised his head! "Yes, it's a good hotel," he
said. Then he let his head fall again.

This kind of thing goes on until, if possible, the reader
is persuaded into thinking that there is nothing going
to happen. Then:

"He turned to The Woman. 'Go in there,' he said, pointing
to the bedroom door. Mechanically she obeyed." This, by
the way, is the first intimation that the reader has that
the room in which they were sitting was not a bedroom.
The two men were alone. Dangerfield walked over to the
chair where he had thrown his coat.

"I bought this coat in St. Louis last fall," he said.
His voice was quiet, even passionless. Then from the
pocket of the coat he took a revolver and laid it on the
table. Marsden watched him without a word.

"Do you see this pistol?" said Dangerfield.

Marsden raised his head a moment and let it sink.

Of course the ignorant reader keeps wondering why he
doesn't explain. But how can he? What is there to say?
He has been found out of his own room at night. The
penalty for this in all the snoopopathic stories is death.
It is understood that in all the New York hotels the
night porters shoot a certain number of men in the
corridors every night.

"When we married," said Dangerfield, glancing at the
closed door as he spoke, "I bought this and the mate to
it--for her--just the same, with the monogram on the
butt--see! And I said to her, 'If things ever go wrong
between you and me, there is always this way out.'"

He lifted the pistol from the table, examining its
mechanism. He rose and walked across the room till he
stood with his back against the door, the pistol in his
hand, its barrel pointing straight at Marsden's heart.
Marsden never moved. Then as the two men faced one another
thus, looking into one another's eyes, their ears caught
a sound from behind the closed door of the inner room--a
sharp, hard, metallic sound as if some one in the room
within had raised the hammer of a pist