The Midnight Visitor

Fowler, a young writer, wanted to meet Ausable, a secret agent. He had expected someone mysterious and romantic. Instead Ausable was very fat and ordinary-looking. They went to his room on the sixth floor of a French hotel - small, musty, and hardly the setting Fowler imagined.

Fowler had long wanted to meet Ausable, a secret agent. In his mind spies were sharp and dramatic. Reality disappointed him: Ausable was fat, spoke French and German with an American accent, and lived in a gloomy hotel room on the sixth floor with dull wallpaper and a single window. The romance of espionage seemed far away.

While Fowler complained that spy work looked boring, the door opened without a knock. A slim man with a pistol stood there - Max, another secret agent. He wanted an important report Ausable was expecting about new missiles. He said he would wait and get it from Ausable when it arrived.

As Ausable switched on the light, the door opened quietly and a man with a small automatic pistol stepped in. Max was slender, slightly stooped, with bristly hair. He had come for a report on new missiles that Ausable was to receive that night. Max threatened them and said he would get the report from Ausable after it arrived - a midnight visitor with a gun.

Ausable sat down heavily and complained about the balcony. He said the room had once been part of a larger unit and the next room still had a balcony extending under his window. A former occupant had used it illegally. Fowler and Max were surprised - there was no balcony outside.

Ausable did not panic. He sank into a chair and grumbled that the management must be ashamed of the balcony attached to his room - a nuisance left when the hotel divided a suite. He claimed the previous occupant had entered through it and that his own men would soon complain to the management. Fowler, knowing the room, was stunned by the lie; Max listened with growing unease.

Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door. Ausable said it would be the police - he had told them to check on him because he needed extra protection with the important paper coming. Max waved his gun and whispered that Ausable must send the police away or he would shoot.

A sharp knock shook the door. Ausable smiled grimly and said it must be the police; he had asked them to look in because of the sensitive report. Max panicked, holding his gun on Ausable and Fowler. He ordered Ausable to send the police away at once or he would shoot. The tension rose - report, gun and knocking at midnight.

When the knocking grew louder, Max dropped his gun hand for a moment. He swung a leg over the window sill and stood on the imaginary balcony outside. Then he screamed once - there was no balcony. Max fell to his death many floors below.

As the knocking continued, Max faced a choice: police at the door or escape. Believing Ausable's story, he put one leg over the sill, balanced on the supposed balcony, and reached for the window frame. The moment he shifted weight outward he cried out - there was nothing beneath him. He fell from the sixth floor to his death in the street below.

Ausable unlocked the door. A waiter came in with a tray - bottle and glasses for drink Ausable had ordered when he returned. Fowler was still amazed. Ausable said Max would not return and picked up the report from the secret compartment in the room.

Ausable opened the door calmly. Not police but a waiter entered with a bottle and two glasses - the refreshment Ausable had ordered on arrival. Fowler stood staring at his host. Ausable explained that Max would not come back and took the important report from a hidden place in the room. The danger had passed through wit, not weapons.

Fowler realised spy work was not always gunfights and beautiful women. Ausable had defeated an armed enemy with a invented balcony and calm acting. The story ends with Fowler understanding that a real secret agent can be fat, dull-looking - and very clever.

The story closes on Fowler's changed view. He had come seeking romance and found a fat man in a musty room. Yet that man had out-thought an armed rival and turned a non-existent balcony into a weapon. Ausable's triumph teaches that intelligence, presence of mind and the ability to bluff can be more deadly than a pistol in the hands of a nervous enemy.