“It’s the old suey, all right,” he said and, bending over at the dresser, read aloud what he was jotting down. “James Hopper, Skun-Skunnect—”

Striker objected peevishly. “Why did he go to bed first, then get up and go do it? They don’t usually do that. He took the room for a week, too.”

The precinct man raised his voice, to show he was a police detective talking to a mere hotel dick, someone who in his estimation wasn’t a detective at all. “I don’t care if he took it for six months! He left this note and hit the sidewalk, didn’t he? Whaddaya trying to do, make it into something it ain’t?”

The manager said, “Ssh! if you don’t mind,” and eased the door to, to keep other guests from overhearing. He sided with the precinct man, the wish being father to the thought. If there’s one thing that a hotel man likes less than a suicide, it’s a murder. “I don’t think there’s any doubt of it.”

The police dick stooped to reasoning with Striker. “You were the first one up here. Was there anything wrong with the door? Was it forced open or anything?”

Striker had to admit it had been properly shut; the late occupant’s key lay on the dresser where it belonged at that very moment.

The police dick spread his hands, as if to say: “There you are, what more do you want?”

He took a last look around, decided the room had nothing more to tell him. Nor could Striker argue with him on this point. The room had nothing more to tell anyone. The dick gathered up Hopper’s watch, change, and identification papers, to turn them over to the police property-clerk, until they were claimed by his nearest of kin. His baggage was left in there temporarily; the room was darkened and locked up once more.

Riding down to the lobby, the dick rubbed it in a little. “Here’s how those things go,” he said patronizingly. “No one got in there or went near him, so it wasn’t murder. He left a note, so it wasn’t an accident. The word they got for this is suicide. Now, y’got it?”

Striker held his palm up and fluttered it slightly. “Teacher, can I leave the room?” he murmured poignantly.

The stout manager, Perry, had a distrait, slightly anticipatory expression on his moon face now; in his mind it was the next day, he had already sold the room to someone else, and had the two dollars in the till. Heaven, to him, was a houseful of full rooms.

The body had already been removed from the street outside. Somewhere, across a coffee counter, a cab driver was saying: “I seen him coming down.”