He walked to and fro in his room, and cogitated
as few people beside Theodore Racksole could cogitate. At 6 a.m.
he took a stroll round the business part of his premises, and
watched the supplies come in from Covent Garden, from
Smithfield, from Billingsgate, and from other strange places. He
found the proceedings of the kitchen department quite interesting,
and made mental notes of things that he would have altered, of
men whose wages he would increase and men whose wages he
would reduce. At 7 a.m. he happened to be standing near the
luggage lift, and witnessed the descent of vast quantities of
luggage, and its disappearance into a Carter Paterson van.
'Whose luggage is that?' he inquired peremptorily.
The luggage clerk, with an aggrieved expression, explained to him
that it was the luggage of nobody in particular, that it belonged to
various guests, and was bound for various destinations; that it was,
in fact, 'expressed'
luggage despatched in advance, and that a similar quantity of it left
the hotel every morning about that hour.
Theodore Racksole walked away, and breakfasted upon one cup of
tea and half a slice of toast.
At ten o'clock he was informed that the inspector of police desired
to see him. The inspector had come, he said, to superintend the
removal of the body of Reginald Dimmock to the mortuary
adjoining the place of inquest, and a suitable vehicle waited at the
back entrance of the hotel.
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