Peeping cautiously out, he perceived, what he had not perceived previously, that a piece of white ribbon had been tied round the handle of the door of one of the bedrooms.

Then a man came round the corner of the transverse corridor, and Racksole drew back.

It was Jules--Jules with his hands in his pockets and a slouch hat over his eyes, but in other respects attired as usual.
Racksole, at that instant, remembered with a special vividness what Felix Babylon had said to him at their first interview.

He wished he had brought his revolver.

He didn't know why he should feel the desirability of a revolver in a London hotel of the most unimpeachable fair fame, but he did feel the desirability of such an instrument of attack and defence.