Отель «Гранд Вавилон» / The Grand Babylon hotel

What everyone did not know—what no one knew—was that higher up than the balcony there was a little barred window in the end wall from which the hotel authorities might keep a watchful eye, not only on the dancers, but on the occupants of the balcony itself.

It may seem incredible to the uninitiated that the guests at any social gathering held in so gorgeous and renowned an apartment as the Gold Room of the Grand Babylon should need the observation of a watchful eye. Yet so it was. Strange matters and unexpected faces had been descried from the little window, and more than one European detective had kept vigil there with the most eminently satisfactory results.

At eleven o’clock Theodore Racksole, afflicted by vexation of spirit, found himself gazing idly through the little barred window. Nella was with him.

Together they had been wandering about the corridors of the hotel, still strange to them both, and it was quite by accident that they had lighted upon the small room which had a surreptitious view of Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi’s ball.

�I wonder which is Mrs Sampson Levi?’ Nella said, �and whether she matches her name. Wouldn’t you love to have a name like that, Father—something that people could take hold of—instead of Racksole?’

The sound of violins and a confused murmur of voices rose gently up to them.

�Umph!’ said Theodore. �Curse those evening papers!’ he added, inconsequently but with sincerity.

�Father, you’re very horrid to-night. What have the evening papers been doing?’

�Well, my young madame, they’ve got me in for one, and you for another; and they’re manufacturing mysteries like fun. It’s young Dimmock’s death that has started �em.’

�Well, Father, you surely didn’t expect to keep yourself out of the papers. Besides, as regards newspapers, you ought to be glad you aren’t in New York.

�That’s true,’ assented Racksole. �But it’ll be all over New York to-morrow morning, all the same. The worst of it is that Babylon has gone off to Switzerland.’

�Why?’

�Don’t know. Sudden fancy, I guess, for his native heath.’

�What difference does it make to you?’

�None.