"I thought the war was over," said the night clerk.

"The shootin' is over, that's all," said the captain of the bellboys,
sagely.

What had happened in Room 212? A duel of wits rather than of physical
contact. Hawksley realized instantly that here was the crucial moment.
Caught and overpowered, he was lost. If he shouted for help and it came,
he was lost. Once the police took a hand in the affair, the newspaper
publicity that would follow would result in the total ruin of all his
hopes. There was only one chance--to finish this affair outside the
hotel, in some fog-dimmed street. There leaped into his mind, obliquely
and queerly, a picture in one of Victor Hugo's tales--Quasimodo. And
there he stood, in every particular save the crooked back. And on the
top of this came the recollection that he had seen the man before....
The torches! The red torches and the hobnailed boots!

There began an odd game, a dancing match, which the young man led
adroitly, always with his thought upon the open window. There would be
no shooting; Quasimodo would not want the police either. Half a dozen
times his fingers touched futilely the dancing master's coat. Bank
and forth across the room, over the bed, round the stand and chairs.
Persistently, as if he understood the young man's manoeuvres, the squat
individual kept to the window side of the room.