The Grand Babylon Hôtel
Mr Reginald Dimmock, still in evening dress, and smoking a cigarette,
rose hurriedly from a table.
‘Hello, my dear Mr Racksole, this is an unexpected--ah--pleasure.’
‘Where is my daughter? This is her room.’
‘Did I catch what you said, Mr Racksole?’
‘I venture to remark that this is Miss Racksole’s room.’
‘My good sir,’ answered Dimmock, ‘you must be mad to dream of such a
thing.
Only my respect for your daughter prevents me from expelling you
forcibly, for such an extraordinary suggestion.’
A small spot half-way down the bridge of the millionaire’s nose turned
suddenly white.
‘With your permission,’ he said in a low calm voice, ‘I will examine the
dressing-room and the bath-room.’
‘Just listen to me a moment,’ Dimmock urged, in a milder tone.
‘I’ll listen to you afterwards, my young friend,’ said Racksole, and he
proceeded to search the bath-room, and the dressing-room, without any
result whatever. ‘Lest my attitude might be open to misconstruction, Mr
Dimmock, I may as well tell you that I have the most perfect confidence
in my daughter, who is as well able to take care of herself as any woman
I ever met, but since you entered it there have been one or two rather
mysterious occurrences in this hotel. That is all.’ Feeling a draught of
air on his shoulder, Racksole turned to the window. ‘For instance,’ he
added, ‘I perceive that this window is broken, badly broken, and from
the outside.
Now, how could that have occurred?’
‘If you will kindly hear reason, Mr Racksole,’ said Dimmock in his best
diplomatic manner, ‘I will endeavour to explain things to you. I
regarded your first question to me when you entered my room as being
offensively put, but I now see that you had some justification.’ He
smiled politely. ‘I was passing along this corridor about eleven
o’clock, when I found Miss Racksole in a difficulty with the hotel
servants. Miss Racksole was retiring to rest in this room when a large
stone, which must have been thrown from the Embankment, broke the
window, as you see. Apart from the discomfort of the broken window, she
did not care to remain in the room. She argued that where one stone had
come another might follow. She therefore insisted on her room being
changed. The servants said that there was no other room available with a
dressing-room and bath-room attached, and your daughter made a point of
these matters. I at once offered to exchange apartments with her. She
did me the honour to accept my offer. Our respective belongings were
moved--and that is all. Miss Racksole is at this moment, I trust, asleep
in No. 124.’
Theodore Racksole looked at the young man for a few seconds in silence.
There was a faint knock at the door.
‘Come in,’ said Racksole loudly.
Someone pushed open the door, but remained standing on the mat. It was
Nella’s maid, in a dressing-gown.
‘Miss Racksole’s compliments, and a thousand excuses, but a book of hers
was left on the mantelshelf in this room. She cannot sleep, and wishes
to read.’
‘Mr Dimmock, I tender my apologies--my formal apologies,’ said Racksole,
when the girl had gone away with the book. ‘Good night.’
‘Pray don’t mention it,’ said Dimmock suavely--and bowed him out.
Chapter Four ENTRANCE OF THE PRINCE
NEVERTHELESS, sundry small things weighed on Racksole’s mind. First
there was Jules’ wink. Then there was the ribbon on the door-handle and
Jules’ visit to No. 111, and the broken window--broken from the outside.
Racksole did not forget that the time was 3 a.m. He slept but little
that night, but he was glad that he had bought the Grand Babylon Hôtel.
It was an acquisition which seemed to promise fun and diversion.
The next morning he came across Mr Babylon early. ‘I have emptied my
private room of all personal papers,’ said Babylon, ‘and it is now at
your disposal.
I purpose, if agreeable to yourself, to stay on in the hotel as a guest
for the present. We have much to settle with regard to the completion of
the purchase, and also there are things which you might want to ask me.
Also, to tell the truth, I am not anxious to leave the old place with
too much suddenness. It will be a wrench to me.’
‘I shall be delighted if you will stay,’ said the millionaire, ‘but it
must be as my guest, not as the guest of the hotel.’
‘You are very kind.’
‘As for wishing to consult you, no doubt I shall have need to do so, but
I must say that the show seems to run itself.’
‘Ah!’ said Babylon thoughtfully. ‘I have heard of hotels that run
themselves. If they do, you may be sure that they obey the laws of
gravity and run downwards. You will have your hands full. For example,
have you yet heard about Miss Spencer?’
‘No,’ said Racksole. ‘What of her?’
‘She has mysteriously vanished during the night, and nobody appears to
be able to throw any light on the affair. Her room is empty, her boxes
gone.
You will want someone to take her place, and that someone will not be
very easy to get.’
‘H’m!’ Racksole said, after a pause. ‘Hers is not the only post that
falls vacant to-day.’
A little later, the millionaire installed himself in the late owner’s
private room and rang the bell.
‘I want Jules,’ he said to the page.
While waiting for Jules, Racksole considered the question of Miss
Spencer’s disappearance.
‘Good morning, Jules,’ was his cheerful greeting, when the imperturbable
waiter arrived.
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘Take a chair.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘We have met before this morning, Jules.’
‘Yes, sir, at 3 a.m.’
‘Rather strange about Miss Spencer’s departure, is it not?’ suggested
Racksole.
‘It is remarkable, sir.’
‘You are aware, of course, that Mr Babylon has transferred all his
interests in this hotel to me?’
‘I have been informed to that effect, sir.’
‘I suppose you know everything that goes on in the hotel, Jules?’
‘As the head waiter, sir, it is my business to keep a general eye on
things.’
‘You speak very good English for a foreigner, Jules.’
‘For a foreigner, sir! I am an Englishman, a Hertfordshire man born and
bred. Perhaps my name has misled you, sir. I am only called Jules
because the head waiter of any really high-class hotel must have either
a French or an Italian name.’
‘I see,’ said Racksole. ‘I think you must be rather a clever person,
Jules.’
‘That is not for me to say, sir.’
‘How long has the hotel enjoyed the advantage of your services?’
‘A little over twenty years.’
‘That is a long time to be in one place. Don’t you think it’s time you
got out of the rut? You are still young, and might make a reputation for
yourself in another and wider sphere.’
Racksole looked at the man steadily, and his glance was steadily
returned.
‘You aren’t satisfied with me, sir?’
‘To be frank, Jules, I think--I think you--er--wink too much. And I
think that it is regrettable when a head waiter falls into a habit of
taking white ribbons from the handles of bedroom doors at three in the
morning.’
Jules started slightly.
‘I see how it is, sir. You wish me to go, and one pretext, if I may use
the term, is as good as another. Very well, I can’t say that I’m
surprised. It sometimes happens that there is incompatibility of temper
between a hotel proprietor and his head waiter, and then, unless one of
them goes, the hotel is likely to suffer. I will go, Mr Racksole. In
fact, I had already thought of giving notice.’
The millionaire smiled appreciatively. ‘What wages do you require in
lieu of notice? It is my intention that you leave the hotel within an
hour.’
‘I require no wages in lieu of notice, sir. I would scorn to accept
anything. And I will leave the hotel in fifteen minutes.’
‘Good-day, then. You have my good wishes and my admiration, so long as
you keep out of my hotel.’
Racksole got up. ‘Good-day, sir. And thank you.’
‘By the way, Jules, it will be useless for you to apply to any other
first-rate European hotel for a post, because I shall take measures
which will ensure the rejection of any such application.’
‘Without discussing the question whether or not there aren’t at least
half a dozen hotels in London alone that would jump for joy at the
chance of getting me,’ answered Jules, ‘I may tell you, sir, that I
shall retire from my profession.’
‘Really! You will turn your brains to a different channel.’
‘No, sir. I shall take rooms in Albemarle Street or Jermyn Street, and
just be content to be a man-about-town. I have saved some twenty
thousand pounds--a mere trifle, but sufficient for my needs, and I shall
now proceed to enjoy it. Pardon me for troubling you with my personal
affairs. And good-day again.’
That afternoon Racksole went with Felix Babylon first to a firm of
solicitors in the City, and then to a stockbroker, in order to carry out
the practical details of the purchase of the hotel.
‘I mean to settle in England,’ said Racksole, as they were coming back.
‘It is the only country--’ and he stopped.
‘The only country?’
‘The only country where you can invest money and spend money with a
feeling of security. In the United States there is nothing worth
spending money on, nothing to buy. In France or Italy, there is no real
security.’
‘But surely you are a true American?’ questioned Babylon.
‘I am a true American,’ said Racksole, ‘but my father, who began by
being a bedmaker at an Oxford college, and ultimately made ten million
dollars out of iron in Pittsburg--my father took the wise precaution of
having me educated in England. I had my three years at Oxford, like any
son of the upper middle class! It did me good. It has been worth more to
me than many successful speculations. It taught me that the English
language is different from, and better than, the American language, and
that there is something--I haven’t yet found out exactly what--in
English life that Americans will never get. Why,’ he added, ‘in the
United States we still bribe our judges and our newspapers. And we talk
of the eighteenth century as though it was the beginning of the world.
Yes, I shall transfer my securities to London. I shall build a house in
Park Lane, and I shall buy some immemorial country seat with a history
as long as the A. T. and S. railroad, and I shall calmly and gradually
settle down. D’you know--I am rather a good-natured man for a
millionaire, and of a social disposition, and yet I haven’t six real
friends in the whole of New York City. Think of that!’
‘And I,’ said Babylon, ‘have no friends except the friends of my boyhood
in Lausanne. I have spent thirty years in England, and gained nothing
but a perfect knowledge of the English language and as much gold coin as
would fill a rather large box.’
These two plutocrats breathed a simultaneous sigh.
‘Talking of gold coin,’ said Racksole, ‘how much money should you think
Jules has contrived to amass while he has been with you?’
‘Oh!’ Babylon smiled. ‘I should not like to guess. He has had unique
opportunities--opportunities.’
‘Should you consider twenty thousand an extraordinary sum under the
circumstances?’
‘Not at all. Has he been confiding in you?’
‘Somewhat. I have dismissed him.’
‘You have dismissed him?’
‘Why not?’
‘There is no reason why not. But I have felt inclined to dismiss him for
the past ten years, and never found courage to do it.’
‘It was a perfectly simple proceeding, I assure you. Before I had done
with him, I rather liked the fellow.’
‘Miss Spencer and Jules--both gone in one day!’ mused Felix Babylon.
‘And no one to take their places,’ said Racksole. ‘And yet the hotel
continues its way!’
But when Racksole reached the Grand Babylon he found that Miss Spencer’s
chair in the bureau was occupied by a stately and imperious girl,
dressed becomingly in black.
‘Heavens, Nella!’ he cried, going to the bureau. ‘What are you doing