lly of a process,
you do not doubt. I lay down, indeed, and read Poe's tales, which I
love, an hour or more; then I went over the whole business again,
raised every point; made my brain aflame with speculation; put out the
candle; lit it again; read more mystery; held out the hand to sleep;
told sleep I did not want her. You who know me will know also how
useless are such gamings of man with Nature. I could not have slept if
a king's ransom went with the sleeping; and so I lay fretful, blameful,
scolding myself, condoling with myself, vowing the whole problem a
plague and a cheat. This idle wandering might have lasted until dawn,
had it not been for my neighbour in the room to my left, who began to
talk with a low buzz as of a night-insect humming in a bed-curtain. The
surging of the voice amused me; I lay quite still and listened to it.
Now it rose loud--I gleaned a word, and was pleased; now it fell--and I
fretted; but anon another voice was added to the first, and, if the one
had pleased me, the second thrilled me. It was the voice of my friend
who wished to stab me at the dock.

"Two words spoken by this man brought me to my feet; two more to the
thin wooden door which divided our rooms, as oft you'll find them
divided in cafes through Italy. With feverish impatience, I knelt to
pry through the keyhole; and muttered a big oath when I saw that it was
stuffed with paper, and that the sight of the two men was hidden from
me. But I listened with an ear long trained to listening, and, although
the men spoke so that few words reached me, I remained a whole hour
upon my knees, amazed that the man should thus be sent by Providence to
my very hotel; excited with the new sensation of a foot upon the trail.
The ship had not sailed, then, for here was the ruffian, who watched
her, wasting rest in the first hours to hold a parley; and if a parley,
with whom? Why, with those who paid him for the work, I did not doubt.

"At the end of an hour the voices ceased, but there was still a
movement in the room. That was hushed too; and I judged that my
neighbour had gone to bed. For myself I had one of two courses before
me: either to court sleep and wait luck, with the sun, or to see there
and then what was in the room, and by whom it was occupied. You ask,
How was that possible? but you forget my scurvy trade again. In my bag
were forbidden implements sufficient to stock Clerkenwell. I took from
that a brace and bit, and an oiled saw.