Of course he could. I switched on the central light and closed the door after him. "I hope you haven't been knocking for hours," I told him. "But, as a matter of fact, I'm about as sleepy as I've ever been in my life...." That was a hint, and when he didn't take it, I went on: "Is everything all right?" Then immediately I could see that everything _wasn't_ all right. He sat down on a chair and clenched his hands between his knees. "I--I think perhaps--I oughtn't to have wakened you," he said at length. "Oh, not at all--if you want my help in any way. You don't look very well, and I'm glad you came.... What's the matter?" He didn't, or else he couldn't, tell me for a few moments. I lit a cigarette and made myself as comfortable as I could; I guessed that whatever he had to say would take some time. And then at last he began, heavily: "I've been down to the bureau." "The hotel bureau?" "Yes." "Well?" "I wanted to .... You see .... I had an idea...." He stopped, as if grappling with some central impossibility. Then he made another beginning. "The clerk knows German--of course--and we had a talk." "Yes?" "A long talk. About Severn ... and that woman with him...." And then it all came out torrentially. "The clerk didn't know he was English. They came here last week--from Belgrade--rolling in money--took the best rooms in the place.... And he--the clerk--showed me the names in the register--not Severn, but some French name--with an address in Paris.... And of course--you see what I mean--they're staying here together--Monsieur and Madame, it says in the register--there's absolutely no doubt about it.... So that...." And he shrugged his shoulders to indicate the inexpressible. X Perhaps a seasoned man of the world would have jumped to the incriminating conclusion the moment he had seen them. The idea had, as a matter of fact, occurred to me, though I had at first managed to dismiss it as something that was no concern of mine. Terry's statement convinced me absolutely, yet an almost self-protective instinct made me dispute it. I remember sitting on the bed and propounding a marvellous theory that the man we had seen wasn't Severn at all, but his double--some innocent Parisian whose _bona-fides_, if inquiry were made, would be found perfectly correct. After all, Bentley had distinctly stated that he hadn't _met_ him; he had only _seen_ him, just as we had. And even we hadn't heard him speak a word of English.... All this, for some curious reason, I expounded to Terry as if I meant it, and after a long pause he squashed it utterly by saying that the handwriting in the register was Severn's beyond the shadow of a doubt. Even then I went on laboriously arguing. Subconsciously, perhaps, I was gaining time to think. "A mere signature," I remember saying, absurdly, "proves nothing." And I made some vague and platitudinous remark about the necessity of having overwhelming evidence before drawing conclusions.