B Iloiseless lSurglar.

By JA~IES PAYN.

HOTELS are not as a rule good places for ghosts; there is too
much" to-ing and fro-ing," as Le Fanu calls it (the best judge of
the ghostly wc ever had in the flesh), too much jerking of bells.
instead of solemnly ringing them, and not a room on popular
occasions, such as the race \veek, \vhich a ghost can have to
himself.
On the other hand, hotels are very convenient for robbers, not
of course of the black-craped and" lnoney-or-your-life" descrip-
tion, but of the quiet gentlemanly-looking kind, who, if they meet
the night chamberlain in the passage at t\\'o in -the morning,
express their satisfaction at finding somebody who can tell them
the number of their room, which they have unhappily forgotten.
It must be a strange life, that of pretending to be somebody
else, generally a captain very much unattached, and after
mastering a more or less difficult role all day, to pass the small
hours of the night in trying other people's doors, and taking the
consequences, which may be anything disagreeable, from the
inquiry of "who the devil's that?" down to the presentation of a
revolver. His hope of course is to find the gentlemen he visits,
whose very names and far more their habits are utterly unknown
to him, in a deep sleep, but never dreaming-if dream they do
-that their purse and watch upon their dressing-table arc at
that very moment changing owners.
One can hardly picture a more anxious life than that of the
hotel thief; more at the mercy of circumstances, more subject to
\vhat the old stage directions call" alarms and excursions," and
generally le$s at ease in his inn.
No reflection, ho\vever, respecting the discolnfort of hotel
thieves ever occurred to my Aunt Deborah; like the- French·
vivisectionist \vho \vas n~ked whether his experiments hurt the
anilnals, she I1light have hunestly replied that that consideration
"never entered her Inind"; she \\'as a tendcr-heartcd \\'Olnan,
but her pity did not extend to the class in question. They \\'ere
in fact her bCle lIoir; her sister Susan and herself passed a goOtl
deal of their time in hotels, and al\\'ays \\·ith the fear of bcin~
robbed at night before their eyes. They never "rent do\vn to
the table d Itote \\rithout connecting sOlne innocent and r\.!spcct-
able person with this larcenous profession, and if a footstep
passed their door after they had retired to rest, they plunged
their heads beneath the bed-clothes and a\\'aited the worst.
As a matter of fact, my aunts were never robbed at. an hotel
(except in the course of business by the landlord)-though they
ahvays expected to be-until last year, \"hen-but I must let
Aunt Deb tell her o\\'n story. No onc, she says, can tell \vhat
Sue and she suffered on the occasion in question, or can properly'
describe the horror of their situation but thelnselves: and as
Aunt Sue, according to her sister's account, was insensible
through terror during a part of the time, it seems only right that
Aunt Deb should be the spokesv.oman. Aunt Sue is a sprightly
young thing of fifty-t\\PO or so, and though not "flighty" (except
as regards a desire to escape from robbers) is scarcely equal to
deal with a subject at once so serious and delicate as a nigh~
alarm.
" Sue and I had two bedrooms at the' Imperial,' but as usual,
\vhen at hotels, we slept together for protection, and onc ","as
only used as my dressing-room. In this \VC kept the gas
burning, though very lQ\v, all night, and the door open bet\vecn
the two rooms, so as to avoid being in darkness. I need not say
that all the other doors were bolted; to lock a door at an hotel
is simply to invite the robber, as with a little instrument, such as
dentists use, he can turn the key from without; if on the other
hand you take out your key he puts in one of his own well-oiled
ones, and opens the door \\'ith noiseless facility. Perhaps there
is no bolt, but in that case Sue and I have a patent door-fastener
\vhich sticks into the floor, and is practically ilnlnovablc. It
sometimes strikes me, if anything should happen to Sue, ho\v
very dangerous these precautions would be to a sound sleeper
like myself, in case of fire; but it is not likely, considering our
ages, that she will be taken first.
"Well, I had turned the gas lo\v in the dressing-room, and
 A Noiseless Bltrglar.

,vas lying a\vake listening to the breathing of sis~er Sue, and

\vishing it was not quite so loud; as' a general rule I don't mind
her snoring, it is intermittent, and might be taken by a stranger
for conversation, which is so far a protection; but as it happens
I was not thinking of burglars at all that night, but only wanted
to get to sleep. Then all of a sudden a most horrible thing
happened. I found myself suddenly in total darkness. Some-
body in the dressing-room had put out the gas.
I woke dear Sue as gently as I could, but she is not a good
waker; in reply to my terrified whispers, she ans\vered 'Eh?
What. Did you speak?' And even 'Don't pinch,' for I \vas
driven to that expedient, but \vhen I breathed into her ear \vhat
had happened she \vas quiet enough. 'Perhaps you turned the
gas off yourself,' she murmured. 'No,' said I, in hushed anxiety
-indeed we were talking under the bed-clothes-' I left reore
than a bead: 'Is the dressing-room door bolted?' 'Yes,' I
said; it was indeed made fast by the machin~, but \vhat \vas the
good of Illat, when the robber must be in the room; indeed it
\vas worse than useless, for he would not know how to get out
again, \vhich \\'ould probably make him desperate.
" , I think,' said Sue, '\ve ought to light the candle.' I t stood
with the matches at my bedside, and what she meant, as I well
kne\v, was that I ought to light it. This might precipitate
matters and \vas therefore a dangerous office, but somehow I
accomplished it. Upon the \vhole it had a good effect upon my
nerves, though Sue was not an encouraging spectacle. She had
endeavoured to take off her n:ghtcap, under the impression it
\vas a delicate thing to do in contemplation of the visit of a
stranger, and the strings had got in a knot, at which she was
tugging convulsively. This gave her a colour, but it was not a
healthy one, and her eyes looked as though they would have
come out of her head. However, I took the candle and tottered
with it into the next room with a vague idea of asking for mercy
on condition of giving the man all our valuables and showing how
to undo the door fastener. And here the most dreadful thing of
all happened, for just as I crossed the threshold somebody blew
the candle out, and ,ve wer~ left in darkness with the positive
certainty of there being a robber \vithin a few feet of us. There
may have been more terrible positions in the history of human
life, but if so, I have never heard of theln.
VOL. T. D
66

"The tension of our minds \vas such that a little more \\"ouId
have made gibbering maniacs of both of us: \\'hen a 1110st provi-
dential affair happened. \ '" e heard a tray rattle in the passage
\\'ithout and a cry of 'Go along \\'ith you,' \\'hich \\'C recognised.
It \vas the voice of our chambermaid l\Iary i\nn, and addrcsscll
to our \vaiter \\'ho, not\vithstanding he \vas carrying plates and
glasses, had endeavoured to snatch a salute from her. \\Thcn \\"C
had heard the same thing before \\'e had been shocked as in duty'
bound, but on this occasion it gave us the most heartfelt satisfac-
tion ; for it sho\ved that there \\'ere honest (if rather disreputable)
people about, and that the household \\'ere still afoot It gave
Inc courage at once, and rescued Sue from the very brink of
hysterics. A sort of desperate audacity caused me to see this
Jnysterious matter out, and the more so because the effect of this
relief \vas, I regret to say, to cause Sue to entertain SOITIe doubt
of anything having happened at all. 'Are you quite sure, my
dear,' she said, 'that you left the gas alight in the next room to
begin with?' It was a cruel observation to make, and, so to
speak, put my back up. 'Since you don't believe it,' I replied,
• I must give you the trouble to investigate the matter for your-
self: and thereby secured her very un\villing companionship.
Again I lit the candle and entered the dressing-room: it looked
empty enough, and going straight to the gas-lamp, I put a match
to it \vhich caused it to flame up at once. As I had not turned
the scre\v this sho\ved of course that it had becn left alight.
1Io\v it had been put out and how my candle had becn blo\\'n
out, remained still unsolved problclns. Our nerves \\'crc, ho\\"-
ever, no\v tolerably quieted, only \ve turned the gas a little on in
our o\vn room' for company' as it were, and lay marvelling at
\\'hat had happened and our o\\'n courageous conduct As \Vc
did so an incident took place \\J'hich explained the "'hole Inystery
and revealed the disturber of our peace. Suddenly wc sa\v a
great \vhite moth fly right at our gas-lamp, and getting beneath
the glass attack the slender flame. Had it but been a bead of
light, so resolute was the onset, it ,vould certainly have extin-
guished it, but as it \vas the poor insect perished by suttee. \V c
pitied its fate, though it had t\vice left us in darkness, and given
us a most terrible half-hour."