The Midnight Visitor 深夜访客.docxVIP

The Midnight VisitorAusable did not fit the description of any secret agent Fowler had ever read about . Following him down the corridor of the gloomy French hotel where Ausable had a room , Fowler felt disappointed . It was a small room on the sixth floor ,and hardly a setting for a romantic figure . Ausable was , for one thing , fat . Very fat . And then there was his accent . Though he spoke French and German passably , he had never altogether lost the New England accent he had brought to Paris from Boston twenty years ago . You are disappointed , Ausable said wheezily over his shoulder . You were told that I was a secret agent , a spy , dealing in espionage and danger . You wished yo meet me because you are a writer , young and romantic . You thought you would have mysterious figures in the night , the crack of pistols , drugs in the wine . Instead , you have spent a dull evening in a French music hall with a sloppy fat man who , instead of having messages slipped into his hand by dark-eyed beauties , gets only an ordinary telephone call making an appointment in his room . You have been bored ! The fat man chuckled to himself as he unlocked the door of his room and stood aside to let his frustrated guest enter . You are disillusioned, Ausable told him . But take cheer , my young friend . Before long you will see a paper , a quite important paper for which several men and women have risked their lives , come to me in the next-to-last step of its journey into official hands . Some day soon that paper may well affect the course of history . There is drama in that thought , dont you think ? As he spoke , Ausable closed the door behind him. Then he switched on the light . And as the light came on ,Fowler had his first real thrill of the day . For halfway across the room , a small automatic pistol in his hand , stood a man . Ausable blinked a few times. Max, he wheezed , you gave me quite a start . I thought you were in Berlin . What are you doing in my room ? Max