black hair rose and fell. Attached to this fist was an arm,
and joined to that were enormous shoulders. The clerk's trailing,
sleep-befogged glance paused when it reached the newcomer's face. The
jaws and cheeks and upper lip were blue-black with a beard that required
extra-tempered razors once a day. Black eyes that burned like opals, a
bullet-shaped head well cropped, and a pudgy nose broad in the nostrils.
Because this second arrival wore his hat well forward the clerk was
not able to discern the pinched forehead of the fanatic. Not wholly
unpleasant, not particularly agreeable; the sort of individual one
preferred to walk round rather than bump into. The clerk offered the
register, and the squat man scratched his name impatiently, grabbed the
extended key, and trotted to the elevator.

"Ah," mused the clerk, "we have with us Mr. Poppy--Popo--" He stared at
the signature close up. "Hanged if I can make it out! It looks like
some new brand of soft drink we'll be having after July first. Greek
or Bulgarian. Anyhow, he didn't awsk for a bawth. Looks as if he needed
one, too. Here, boy!"

"Ye-ah!"

"Take a peek at this John Hancock."

"Gee! That must be the guy who makes that drugstore drink--Boolzac."

The clerk swung out, but missed the boy's head by a hair. The boy stood
off, grinning.

"Well, you ast me!"

"All right. If anybody else comes in tell 'em we're full up. I'll be a
wreck to-morrow without my usual beauty sleep." The clerk dropped into
his chair again and elevated his feet to the radiator.

"Want me t' git a pillow for yuh?"

"No back talk!"--drowsily.

"Oh! boy, but I got one on you!"

"What?"

"This Boolzac guy didn't have no baggage, and yuh give 'im the key
without little ol' three-per in advance."

"No grip?"

"Nix. Not a toot'brush in sight."

"Well, the damage is done. I might as well go to sleep."

It was not premeditated on the part of the clerk to give the squat man
the room adjoining that of Hawksley's. The key had been nearest his
hand. But the squat man trembled with excitement when he noted that it
was stamped 214. He had taken particular pains to search the register
for Hawksley's number before rousing the clerk. He hadn't counted on any
such luck as this. His idea had been merely to watch the door of Room
212.

He had the feline foot, as they say. He moved about lightly and without
sound in the dark. Almost at once he approached one of the two doors
and put his ear to