Stories from a Rook: The First Ten · Story 9
Pip placed a tiny brass bell beside the castle gate.
Rook tapped it.
Ding.
Pip looked up.
“Does it work?”
“Yes.”
Rook tapped it again.
Ding.
“Still?”
Pip moved the bell out of reach.
Rook bowed to the audience.
“I’m going to tell you a story. Is it real or made up? You decide.”
The mouse opened a miniature ledger.
“This concerns a hotel that received a bill from a man who had never rented a room.”
The hotel stood opposite a railway station.
It had a narrow entrance, a wide staircase, and a lobby clock that was easier to hear than to ignore.
One morning, the manager opened a letter.
Inside was an invoice.
Rook stiffened into a gentleman whose entire working life had prepared him to object to an invoice.
“‘For services rendered between midnight and six in the morning.’”
Pip leaned forward.
“What services?”
“Let us go back to midnight.”
Rain was running down the station windows when a young man arrived at the hotel.
His connecting train would not leave until morning.
He carried a battered case and wore a coat that had ceased to be waterproof some years earlier.
Rook shook an imaginary sleeve.
Pip rustled a sheet of paper behind the tower.
Rain pattered across the little theater.
The young man approached the desk.
“‘A room, please.’”
Rook turned into the night porter, shoulders drooping.
“‘Full, I’m afraid.’”
“‘Somewhere else nearby?’”
“‘There’s another hotel up the hill.’”
The young man looked back at the weather.
“‘How far up?’”
The porter considered.
“‘Far enough.’”
The porter allowed him to wait in a chair beside the lobby fire.
He also explained that his wife had been unwell.
He had spent the day looking after her.
Now he was struggling to stay awake.
“‘If anyone rings,’” he said, “‘give me a shake.’”
He sat behind the desk.
Within minutes, he was asleep.
Pip glanced at the brass bell.
“I expect someone rang.”
Rook nodded.
Ding.
A woman appeared at the foot of the staircase.
Rook became her: upright, brisk, unwilling to be inconvenienced.
“‘My window won’t close.’”
The young man turned toward the porter.
The porter slept.
“‘It’s blowing directly onto the bed.’”
The young man hesitated.
Then he put down his case.
“‘I’ll have a look.’”
Pip fetched a tiny window frame.
Rook inspected it.
Lifted it slightly.
Pressed.
The frame clicked shut.
Pip looked pleased.
“A useful guest.”
“He wasn’t a guest.”
“A useful person in the wrong building.”
When the young man returned to the lobby, someone else was waiting.
“‘Have you seen a brown umbrella?’”
Rook searched an imaginary stand.
He produced one.
Then came a request for a wake-up call.
Then a request for an extra blanket.
The young man found the blankets.
He wrote down the wake-up time.
Once, he went behind the desk to find a pencil.
That was enough.
Everyone who came downstairs afterward assumed he worked there.
Pip opened the ledger.
“Did he explain?”
“Once.”
“And?”
“The gentleman said he was sorry to hear that, but could he please have his boots?”
The night went on.
The young man found the boots.
He carried a trunk downstairs.
He directed a confused traveler back to the station.
He discovered that the lobby clock lost five minutes whenever its pendulum caught against the case.
Rook crouched beside an imaginary clock.
Pip supplied a small wedge.
The clock began to tick evenly.
The porter slept.
“Why didn’t he wake him?” Pip asked.
“According to the story, he kept deciding to let him have another few minutes.”
Pip looked at the ledger.
“That can become a whole night.”
“It did.”
Just before dawn, a man came down the stairs carrying two cases.
“‘My train leaves at six.’”
The young man looked at the clock.
Then at his own case by the fire.
“‘So does mine.’”
“‘You’re leaving?’”
“‘I sincerely hope so.’”
He woke the porter.
He explained the window, the blanket, the umbrella, and the gentleman who needed waking.
He also pointed out the wedge in the clock case.
The porter stared.
Then he looked at the young man’s damp coat.
“‘You haven’t slept.’”
“‘No.’”
“‘Have you had breakfast?’”
The station whistle sounded.
“‘No.’”
The young man picked up his case.
And went to catch his train.
Pip closed the ledger.
“Then he sent the bill.”
“Yes.”
“What did he charge?”
“The ordinary pay for a night’s work at the desk.”
“Nothing for the window?”
“No.”
“The clock?”
“No.”
“The trunk?”
“He included that.”
Pip nodded approvingly.
“Trunks should count.”
The manager questioned the porter.
He checked with the guests.
The window stayed closed.
The umbrella had been recovered.
The gentleman had caught his train.
And for the first time in months, the lobby clock agreed with the station clock opposite.
Rook became the manager again, reading the invoice.
“‘This is highly irregular.’”
Pip waited.
“‘Where is the petty cash?’”
The manager paid.
With the money, he sent a note.
Should the young man ever need employment, there would be a place for him.
A reply arrived a week later.
Rook’s voice became lighter.
“‘Thank you. I am an actor, and have lately obtained an engagement.’”
Pip looked up.
“An actor?”
“An actor.”
“What part?”
Rook let the silence stretch.
“A hotel clerk.”
Pip sat down.
“No.”
Rook remained perfectly still.
“No,” Pip repeated. “You’ve added that.”
“Have I?”
“It is exactly the ending you would choose.”
“An actor might travel by train.”
“He might.”
“And need somewhere to wait.”
“He might.”
“And remember how it felt to be standing behind that desk.”
Pip studied him.
“Did you know this actor?”
“I knew performers who could find a rehearsal almost anywhere.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Rook tipped his skull.
“No.”
He faced the audience.
“A stranded traveler. A sleeping porter. A night’s work that nobody had hired him to do.”
Pip set the brass bell beside the ledger.
“Did the hotel really pay that invoice? Or have I checked an imaginary actor into a convincing story?”
Rook bowed.
“Real… or made up?”
He reached down and tapped the bell.
Ding.
Pip tore a tiny sheet from the ledger.
“What’s that?” Rook asked.
“My invoice.”
