“He is dead,” said the manager. “H’m!” I said. “I’m sorry you’ve been put to any inconvenience,” said the manager, “and I’m much obliged to you.” The cold but polite tone was a request to me to re-enter my own chamber, and leave the corpse to the manager and the night-porter. I obeyed. * * * * * “What about that man?” I asked the hall-porter early the next, or rather the same, morning. I had not slept a wink since three o’clock, nor had I heard a sound in the corridor. “What man, sir?” the porter said. “You know,” I returned, rather angrily. “The man who died in the night--No. 222.” “I assure you, sir,” he said, “I haven’t the least notion what you mean.” Yet his face seemed as honest and open as ever. I inquired at the office for the manager, and after some difficulty saw him in his private room. “I thought I’d just see about that man,” I began. “What man?” the manager asked, exactly as the porter had asked. “Look here,” I said, as I was now really annoyed, “it’s all very well giving instructions to the hall-porter, and I can quite understand you want the thing kept as quiet as possible. Of course I know that hotels have a violent objection to corpses. But as I saw the corpse, and was of some assistance to you----” “Excuse me,” said the manager. “Either you or I must be completely mad. And,” he added, “I don’t think it is myself.” “Do you mean to say,” I remarked with frosty sarcasm, “that you didn’t enter Room 222 with me this morning at three a.m. and find a dead man there?” “I mean to say just that,” he answered. “Well----.” I got no further. I paid my bill and left. But before leaving, I went and carefully examined the door of No. 222. The door plainly showed marks of some iron instrument. “Here,” I said to the porter as I departed. “Accept this half-crown from me. I admire you.” * * * * * I had a serious illness extending over three months. I was frequently delirious, and nearly every day I saw the scene in Room No. 222. In the course of my subsequent travels, I once more found myself, late one night, at the Grand Junction Terminus Hotel. “Mr. Edge,” said the night-porter, “I’ve been looking out for you for weeks and weeks. The manager’s compliments, and he would like to see you in his room.” Again I saw the youngish, alert manager. “Mr. Edge,” he began at once, “it is probable that I owe you an apology. At any rate, I think it right to inform you that on the night of the fifth of November, the year before last, exactly twelve months before your last visit here, a stout man died in Room No. 222, at three a.m. I forgot the circumstance when you last came to see me in this room.” “It seems queer,” I said coldly, “that you should have forgotten such a circumstance.” “The fact is,” he replied, “I was not the manager at that time. My predecessor died two days after the discovery of the corpse in Room 222.” “And the night-porter--is he, too, a new man?”