The Silent Barrier
By Louis Tracy
“Yes, sir; just arrived. What name?”
“Charles K. Spencer.”
The letter clerk seized a batch of correspondence and sorted it with nimble fingers. The form of the question told him that Spencer was interested in letters stamped for the greater part with bland presentments of bygone Presidents of the United States. In any event, he would have known, by long experience of the type, that the well-dressed, straight-limbed, strong-faced young man on the other side of the counter was an American. He withdrew four missives from the bundle. His quick eyes saw that three bore the Denver postmark, and the fourth hailed from Leadville.
“That is all at present, sir,” he said. “Would you like your mail sent to your room in the future, or shall I keep it here?”
“Right here, please, in the No. 20 slot. I could receive a reply by cable while I was going and coming along my corridor.”
The clerk smiled deferentially. He appreciated not only the length of the corridor but also the price paid by the tenant of a second-floor suite overlooking the river.
“Very well, sir,” he said, glancing again at Spencer, “I will attend to it;” and he took a mental portrait of the man who could afford to hire apartments that ranked among the most expensive in the hotel. The American was a recent arrival. His suite had been vacated by a Frankfort banker only three days earlier, and this was the first time he had asked for letters. Even the disillusioned official was amused by the difference between the two latest occupants of No. 20,—Herr Bamberger, a tub of a man, bald-headed and bespectacled, and this alert, sinewy youngster, with the clean-cut features of a Greek statue, and the brilliant, deep-set, earnest eyes of one to whom thought and action were alike familiar.
Spencer, fully aware that he was posing for a necessary picture, examined the dates on his letters, nipped the end off a green cigar, helped himself to a match from a box tendered by a watchful boy, crossed the entrance hall, and descended a few steps leading to the inner foyer and restaurant. At the foot of the stairs, he looked about for a quiet corner. The luncheon hour was almost ended. Groups of smokers and coffee drinkers were scattered throughout the larger room, which widened out below a second short flight of carpeted steps. The smaller anteroom in which he stood was empty, save for a few people passing that way from the restaurant, and he decided that a nook near a palm-shaded balcony offered the retreat he sought.
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Louis Tracy
Biography.
Louis Tracy (1863–1928) was a British journalist and prolific writer of fiction. He used the pseudonyms Gordon Holmes and Robert Fraser, which were at times shared with M. P. Shiel, a collaborator from the start of the twentieth century.
He was born in Liverpool to a well-to-do middle-class family. At first, he was educated at home and then at the French Seminary at Douai. Around 1884 he became a reporter for a local paper, The Northern Echo at Darlington, circulating in parts of Durham and North Yorkshire; later he worked for papers in Cardiff and Allahabad. During 1892–1894 he was closely associated with Arthur Harmsworth, in The Sun and The Evening News and Post.
His fiction included mystery, adventure, and romance.
Louis Tracy
