Taken aback, he hesitated a moment, then waved to the porter on shore and said to him over the railing, “All right, take my luggage to the hotel and reserve a room for me anyway.”

Whereupon the ship carried him farther out the fjord.

This man was Johan Nilsen Nagel.

The porter took his luggage away on a cart. It consisted of only two small bags and a fur coat—yes, a fur coat, though it was the middle of summer—except for a valise and a violin case. None of it was tagged.

Around noon the following day Johan Nagel arrived at the hotel overland, traveling by coach and pair. He could just as easily, well, far more easily, have come by sea, and yet he arrived by carriage. He brought some more luggage: on the front seat was a trunk and, beside it, a traveling bag, a coat, and a carrying strap with some articles in it. The carrying strap was marked J. N. N. in beads.

While he was still sitting in the carriage, he asked the hotel keeper about his room, and when he was shown up to the second floor he began examining the walls, to see how thick they were and whether any sound could penetrate from the adjoining rooms. Then he suddenly asked the chambermaid, “What’s your name?”

“Sara.”

“Sara. And one more thing: Could I have a bite to eat? So, your name is Sara, is it? Tell me,” he resumed, “was there a pharmacy in this building at one time?”

Surprised, Sara replied, “Yes. But that was several years ago.”

“Several years ago, you say? Anyway, it struck me the moment I entered the hall; I couldn’t tell by the smell, but I had a feeling of it all the same. Oh well.”

When he came down for dinner, he sat through the whole meal without uttering a word. His fellow passengers from the steamer the evening before, the two gentlemen sitting at the end of the table, made signs to one another as he came in, even joking quite openly about yesterday’s mishap without his seeming to hear them. He ate rapidly, shook his head at dessert, and abruptly left the table by sliding backward off his stool. He immediately lighted a cigar and disappeared down the street.

He wasn’t seen again until long past midnight, returning shortly before the clock struck three. Where had he been? It became apparent later that he had gone back to the neighboring town, walking to and fro the whole long distance he had traveled by carriage in the morning. He must have had some very urgent business. When Sara opened the door to him he was wet with perspiration, but he smiled repeatedly at the maid and was in excellent spirits.

“Good heavens, what a lovely neck you have, girl!” he said. “Did any mail arrive for me while I was away? For Nagel, that is, Johan Nagel? Oh dear, three telegrams! Say, do me the favor to take away that picture on the wall, will you? So I won’t have it staring me in the face. It would be so tiresome to lie in bed looking at it all the time. Napoleon III, you see, didn’t have such a green beard. Thank you!”

When Sara had left, Nagel came to a halt in the middle of the room. Standing perfectly still, he stared quite absently at a particular spot on the wall, and except that his head fell more and more to one side, he didn’t move. This went on for a long time.

Below medium height, he had a swarthy face with curiously dark eyes and a sensitive, effeminate mouth. On one finger he wore a plain ring of lead or iron. He was very broad-shouldered and might be twenty-eight or, at most, thirty years old. His hair was turning gray at the temples.

He awoke from his thoughts with an abrupt start, so abrupt that it could have been feigned, as if he had contemplated making this start for a long time, though he was alone in the room. Then he took some keys, some loose change, and a kind of lifesaving medal on a sadly abused ribbon out of his trouser pocket and put them on the table by his bed. Next, he stuck his wallet under the pillow and fetched his watch and a vial from his vest pocket, a little medicine bottle labeled “Poison.” He held the watch in his hand a moment before putting it aside, but returned the vial to his pocket at once. Then he removed his ring and washed, brushing his hair back with his fingers; he didn’t once look in the mirror.

He had already gone to bed when he suddenly missed his ring, which had been left on the washstand, and as though he couldn’t be without that wretched iron ring, he got up and put it on again.