Kathleen Mary glanced at Collis worriedly, but he simply called back, ‘I haven’t the faintest notion! Is it Arnold Douglas? Is it General Tom Thumb?’

‘Open up this door and you’ll soon see!’ shouted the voice.

‘I can’t!’ responded Collis.

‘The devil you can’t!’ the voice called back.

‘My hands are in my pockets,’ said Collis, ‘and they will only come out to pay my debts or shake hands with my friends. Opening hotel doors for bears with sore heads is not one of their duties.’

‘Will you open this door or shall I tear it down?’ demanded the voice.

Collis took his cheroot out of his mouth. ‘If your stature is as short as your temper, you should be able to walk under it,’ he said.

The doorhandle was rattled furiously for a while, and then they heard more footsteps outside, and muffled conversation. It sounded as if the hotel manager had been called, because after a while they heard the jangling of keys.

‘Can’t a fellow get some sleep?’ called Collis. ‘This must be the noisiest hotel in New York! Why don’t you drive a coach and horses down the corridor, and have done with it?’

There was a gentler rapping, and then Collis heard the manager.

‘Mr Edmonds, sir, I’m sorry to disturb you.’

‘I should think so. Is this a hotel or a circus?’

There was an uncomfortable pause. Collis could imagine the manager, who was a small, punctilious, sensitive man, with highly polished shoes and a shock of brown brilliantined hair, grimacing with displeasure, as if he had just swallowed the slippery black neck of a steamed clam. But then the manager rapped again and said, ‘There’s a gentleman here who insists on seeing you, Mr Edmonds. He says he will continue to create a disturbance until you do.’

‘Then let him. I haven’t any wish to see anyone at this moment, particularly a hooligan who bangs on my door and shouts.’

‘Mr Edmonds, it might be easier if you were to open the door for just a moment.’

‘It might be easier if you all went off and left me alone.’

There was a further pause. Collis and Kathleen Mary could hear a hurried, intense, whispered conversation. Then the manager came back to the door.

‘This gentleman says he is the proprietor of the Madison Saloon, sir. He says that last night, while you were visiting his establishment, you managed to break a considerable amount of glassware and bottles, sir. He says, sir, that you were dancing on his tables.’

Collis winked at Kathleen Mary. ‘He says that, does he? Well, let him say what dance I was doing.’

More muffled conversation. Then: ‘The polka, sir.’