hands, both of them, as he tugged with both of them at the knob, forcing it in and out with such violence that May- bury cried out: 'Less force. You'll wreck it.'
'Careful, Cromie,' said Falkner from outside the car. 'Most of Cromie's work is on a big scale,' he explained to Maybury.
But violence proved effective, as so often. Within seconds, the car engine was humming away.
'Thank you very much,' said Maybury.
Cromie made no detectable response, nor did he move.
'Come on out, Cromie,' said Falkner. 'Come on out of it.'
Cromie duly extricated himself and shambled off into the darkness.
'Now,' said Maybury, brisking up as the engine purred. 'Where do we go for the petrol?'
There was the slightest of pauses. Then Falkner spoke from the dimness outside. 'Mr Maybury, I have remembered something. It is not petrol that we have in our tank. It is, of course, diesel oil. I must apologise for such a stupid mistake.'
Maybury was not merely irritated, not merely scared: he was infuriated. With rage and confusion he found it impossible to speak at all. No one in the modern world could confuse diesel oil and petrol in that way. But what could he possibly do?
Falkner, standing outside the open door of the car, spoke again. 'I am extremely sorry, Mr Maybury. Would you permit me to make some amends by inviting you to spend the night with us free of charge, except perhaps for the dinner?'
Within the last few minutes Maybury had suspected that this moment was bound to come in one form or another.
'Thank you,' he said less than graciously. 'I suppose I had better accept.'
'We shall try to make you comfortable,' said Falkner.
Maybury turned off the headlights, climbed out of the car once more, shut and, for what it was worth, locked the door, and followed Falkner back into the house. This time Falkner completed the locking and bolting of the front door that he had instructed Vincent to omit.
'I have no luggage of any kind,' remarked Maybury, still very much on the defensive.
'That may solve itself,' said Falkner, straightening up from the bottom bolt and smoothing his dinner jacket. 'There's something I ought to explain. But will you first excuse me a moment?' He went out through the door at the back of the lounge.
Hotels really have become far too hot, thought Maybury. It positively addled the brain.
Falkner returned. 'There is something I ought to explain,' he said again. 'We have no single rooms, partly because many of our visitors prefer not to be alone at night. The best we can do for you in your emergency, Mr Maybury, is to offer you the share of a room with another guest. It is a large room and there are two beds. It is a sheer stroke of good luck that at present there is only one guest in the room, Mr Bannard. Mr Bannard will be glad of your company, I am certain, and you will be quite safe with him. He is a very pleasant person, I can assure you. I have just sent a message up asking him if he can possibly come down, so that I can introduce you. He is always very helpful, and I think he will be here in a moment. Mr Bannard has been with us for some time, so that I am sure he will be able to fit you up with pyjamas and so forth.'
It was just about the last thing that Maybury wanted from any point of view, but he had learned that it was of a kind that is peculiarly difficult to protest against, without somehow putting oneself in the wrong with other people. Besides he supposed that he was now committed to a night in the place, and therefore to all the implications, whatever they might be, or very nearly so.
'I should like to telephone my wife, if I may,' Maybury said. Angela had been steadily on his mind for some time.
'I fear that's impossible, Mr Maybury,' replied Falkner. 'I'm so sorry.'
'How can it be impossible?'
'In order to reduce tension and sustain the atmosphere that our guests prefer, we have no external telephone. Only an internal link between my quarters and the proprietors.'
'But how can you run an hotel in the modern world without a telephone?'
'Most of our guests are regulars. Many of them come again and again, and the last thing they come for is to hear a telephone ringing the whole time with all the strain it involves.'
'They must be half round the bend,' snapped Maybury, before he could stop himself.
'Mr Maybury,' replied Falkner, 'I have to remind you of two things. The first is that I have invited you to be our guest in the fuller sense of the word. The second is that, although you attach so much importance to efficiency, you none the less appear to have set out on a long journey at night with very little petrol in your tank. Possibly you should think yourself fortunate that you are not spending the night stranded on some motorway.'
'I'm sorry,' said Maybury, 'but I simply must telephone my wife. Soon she'll be out of her mind with worry.'
'I shouldn't think so, Mr Maybury,' said Falkner smiling. 'Concerned, we must hope; but not quite out of her mind.'
Maybury could have hit him, but at that moment a stranger entered.
'Ah, Mr Bannard,' said Falkner, and introduced them. They actually shook hands. 'You won't mind, Mr Bannard, if Mr Maybury shares your room?'
Bannard was a slender, bony little man, of about Maybury's age. He was bald, with a rim of curly red hair. He had slightly glaucous grey-green eyes of the kind that often go with red hair. In the present environment, he was quite perky, but Maybury wondered how he would make out in the world beyond. Perhaps, however, this was because Bannard was too shrimp-like to look his best in pyjamas.
'I should be delighted to share my room with anyone,' replied Bannard. 'I'm lonely by myself.'
'Splendid,' said Falkner coolly. 'Perhaps you'd lead Mr Maybury upstairs and lend him some pyjamas? You must remember that he is a stranger to us and doesn't yet know all our ways.'
'Delighted, delighted,' exclaimed Bannard.
'Well, then,' said Falkner. 'Is there anything you would like, Mr Maybury, before you go upstairs?'
'Only a telephone,' rejoined Maybury, still recalcitrant. He simply did not believe Falkner. No one in the modern world could live without a telephone, let alone run a business without one. He had begun uneasily to wonder if Falkner had spoken the whole truth about the petrol and the diesel fuel either.
'Anything you would like that we are in a position to provide, Mr Maybury?' persisted Falkner, with offensive specificity.
'There's no telephone
'In that case, nothing,' said Maybury. 'But I don't know what my wife will do with herself.'
'None of us knows that,' said Bannard superfluously, and cackled for a second.
'Good-night, Mr Maybury. Thank you, Mr Bannard.'
Maybury was almost surprised to discover, as he followed Bannard upstairs, that it seemed a perfectly normal hotel, though overheated and decorated over-heavily. On the first landing was a full-size reproduction of a chieftain in scarlet tartan by Raeburn. Maybury knew the picture, because it had been chosen for the firm's calendar one year, though ever since they had used girls. Bannard lived on the second floor, where the picture on the landing was smaller, and depicted ladies and gentlemen in riding dress taking refreshments together.
'Not too much noise,' said Bannard. 'We have some very light sleepers amongst us.'
The corridors were down to half-illumination for the night watches, and distinctly sinister. Maybury crept foolishly along and almost stole into Bannard's room.
'No,' said Bannard in a giggling whisper. 'Not Number 13, not yet Number 12 A.'
As a matter of fact Maybury had not noticed the number on the door that Bannard was now cautiously closing, and he did not feel called upon to rejoin.
'Do be quiet taking your things off, old man,' said Bannard softly. 'When once you've woken people who've been properly asleep, you can never quite tell. It's a bad thing to do.'
It was a large square room, and the two beds were in exactly opposite corners, somewhat to Maybury's relief. The light had been on when they entered. Maybury surmised that even the unnecessary clicking of switches was to be eschewed.
