Отель «Гранд Вавилон» / The Grand Babylon hotel

It was part of her daily duty to discourage guests who desired to see Mr Babylon.

�No, no,’ said Racksole quickly, �I don’t want any “I’m afraids.” This is business. If you had been the ordinary hotel clerk I should have slipped you a couple of sovereigns into your hand, and the thing would have been done. As you are not—as you are obviously above bribes—I merely say to you, I must see Mr Babylon at once on an affair of the utmost urgency. My name is Racksole—Theodore Racksole.

�Of New York?’ questioned a voice at the door, with a slight foreign accent.

The millionaire turned sharply, and saw a rather short, French-looking man, with a bald head, a grey beard, a long and perfectly-built frock coat, eye-glasses attached to a minute silver chain, and blue eyes that seemed to have the transparent innocence of a maid’s.

�There is only one,’ said Theodore Racksole succinctly.

�You wish to see me?’ the new-comer suggested.

�You are Mr Felix Babylon?’

The man bowed.

�At this moment I wish to see you more than anyone else in the world,’ said Racksole. �I am consumed and burnt up with a desire to see you, Mr Babylon. I only want a few minutes’ quiet chat. I fancy I can settle my business in that time.’

With a gesture Mr Babylon invited the millionaire down a side corridor, at the end of which was Mr Babylon’s private room, a miracle of Louis XV furniture and tapestry: like most unmarried men with large incomes, Mr Babylon had �tastes’ of a highly expensive sort.

The landlord and his guest sat down opposite each other. Theodore Racksole had met with the usual millionaire’s luck in this adventure, for Mr Babylon made a practice of not allowing himself to be interviewed by his guests, however distinguished, however wealthy, however pertinacious. If he had not chanced to enter Miss Spencer’s office at that precise moment, and if he had not been impressed in a somewhat peculiar way by the physiognomy of the millionaire, not all Mr Racksole’s American energy and ingenuity would have availed for a confabulation with the owner of the Grand Babylon Hotel that night.