Mr. Moto Is So Sorry by John P. Marquand

expression gave no hint of agreement or disagreement.
    â€œIt will be dangerous for you if you should meddle,” Mr. Moto said.
    â€œThanks,” Calvin Gates answered, and he paused, and he and Mr. Moto looked at each other carefully. “I won’t forget that, Moto.”
    â€œI am so glad,” Mr. Moto breathed softly, “so glad you won’t forget. I should be so sorry for you. May I show you your new room, please? It is right across the hall. I am so sorry, I shall be busy here tonight, so that we cannot have a pleasant talk.”
    The room where Mr. Moto took him was almost the same as the one he had left.
    â€œYour bags will arrive in a few minutes,” Mr. Moto said. “I am sorry I must leave you, I am so very busy.”

CHAPTER VI
    When Mr. Moto left him, Calvin opened the window and peered out into a dark courtyard; then he closed the window and stood with his ear close to the door listening to sounds from the room across the hall. He could hear a soft thud of footsteps, and he could hear Mr. Moto’s voice speaking in an insistent undertone.
    He had not been listening long before there was a knock at his door. Two men who were obviously not hotel attendants carried his trunk into the room. They gazed at him incuriously and set the trunk at the head of the bed, and returned a moment later with his brief case and his bag. One of them brought in his clothes, which he laid carefully on a chair. Calvin took a piece of money from his trousers pocket, but they looked at him blankly and shook their heads. He heard them hurry across the hall again, open a door and close it, and a moment later he opened his own door. The hallway stretched before him to right and left, absolutely empty, and Calvin closed his door noiselessly and smiled. He had been surprised at first that his room had not been watched, but now he was not surprised: the thing that he proposed to do was so obvious that only a fool would have attempted it, and Mr. Moto had said that he was not a fool.
    He turned out his light and dressed quickly in the dark. Then he opened the door again and stepped out into the hall, holding his shoes in his hand. He dropped them noisily in front of his door and listened. There was a confused and gentle murmur of voices in the room across the hall. Standing in the hallway, Calvin Gates slammed his door shut, and ran on tiptoe down the hall. He had judged the distance he must travel and the chances he must take.
    He darted along the corridor in his stocking feet past the well of the lift to the stairway. When he reached the angle of the stairs, he paused in its shelter and looked behind him. He had moved quickly and just quickly enough. Not a second after he had reached the stairs the door of the room he had first occupied opened and Mr. Moto’s head appeared. Mr. Moto was looking across the hall toward the shoes. Calvin Gates could not help smiling at their guilelessness. Mr. Moto gazed at them before he closed the door again, and Calvin’s smile grew broader.
    â€œI guess,” he murmured, “Mr. Moto has put me in bed for the night.”
    He waited for a few moments, but the hall was empty. Finally he stepped from the angle of the stairs and continued moving softly down the corridor. He had seen Miss Dillaway to her room that night, and he remembered the number. He knocked upon her door without any hesitation, because the noise was a chance that he was obliged to take and he had realized long ago that when one started it was always better to move ahead. He knocked three times, and when he paused he was relieved to hear the key in the lock. A moment later Miss Dillaway opened the door a crack. He could not see her, but he heard her voice—a voice that was soft and incredulous.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Gates?” she asked. “What is it?”
    Calvin pushed the door open and he was in her room before he answered;
    â€œDon’t make a noise,” he