Racksole took upstairs with him an old commissionaire who had
been attached to the outdoor service of the hotel for many years - a
grey-haired man, wiry as a terrier and strong as a mastiff. Entering
the bedroom with Jules, whose hands were bound, he told the
commissionaire to remain outside the door.
Jules' bedroom was quite an ordinary apartment, though perhaps
slightly superior to the usual accommodation provided for servants
in the caravanserais of the West End. It was about fourteen by
twelve. It was furnished with a bedstead, a small wardrobe, a -mall
washstand and dressing-table, and two chairs. There were two
hooks behind the door, a strip of carpet by the bed, and some
cheap ornaments on the iron mantelpiece. There was also one
electric light. The window was a little square one, high up from
the floor, and it looked on the inner quadrangle.
The room was on the top storey - the eighth - and from it you had a
view sheer to the ground. Twenty feet below ran a narrow cornice
about a foot wide; three feet or so above the window another and
wider cornice jutted out, and above that was the high steep roof of
the hotel, though you could not see it from the window. As
Racksole examined the window and the outlook, he said to himself
that Jules could not escape by that exit, at any rate. He gave a
glance up the chimney, and saw that the flue was far too small to
admit a man's body.
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