The Midnight Visitor — RBSE Class 10 English (Footprints without Feet)
Forget the dashing, gun-toting spy of the movies. The hero of this story is a fat, unimpressive man in a shabby hotel room — and he defeats an armed intruder using nothing but a calm voice and an invented balcony. Robert Arthur's clever tale argues that real intelligence beats melodrama.
1. The story in brief
Ausable is a secret agent, but not the kind from spy films: he is fat, speaks French and German with an American accent, and lives in a small, gloomy room on the top floor of a Paris hotel. A young writer, Fowler, has come hoping to see the thrill of espionage — and is disappointed by how dull Ausable seems.
That night, when they enter Ausable's room, they find an intruder waiting — Max, a rival agent — holding a pistol. Max has come for an important report on new missiles that Ausable is expecting. Fowler is terrified, but Ausable stays remarkably calm.
Ausable spins a story to unsettle Max: he complains that this is the second time someone has got into his room through the balcony, and grumbles that he has asked the hotel management about that "troublesome balcony." Max is surprised — he had entered through the door, not any balcony — and Ausable explains it belongs to the empty room next door and runs under his window.
Just then there is a knock at the door. Ausable says it must be the police, whom he had called for protection. A frightened Max, to avoid being caught, decides to climb out onto the balcony and wait there until the visitors leave — and lowers himself over the windowsill with a despairing cry.
But there is no balcony. Max falls to his death. The knock at the door was not the police at all — it was only the waiter bringing the drinks Ausable had ordered. Ausable had invented the entire balcony to trick his armed enemy.
2. Themes
- Presence of mind over force. Ausable wins not with a weapon or a fight, but by thinking quickly and calmly under threat. Intelligence beats brute strength.
- Appearances are deceptive. The unimpressive, overweight Ausable is a far more effective agent than his looks suggest — while the conventionally "professional" Max is outwitted and destroyed.
- The gap between the romance and reality of espionage. The story gently mocks Fowler's film-fed expectations of glamorous spies.
3. The characters
- Ausable — a secret agent who is the opposite of the romantic image: fat, ordinary-looking, but shrewd, calm and quick-witted. His invented balcony is a masterstroke.
- Max — the rival agent; armed and confident but gullible and nervous enough to be fooled into a fatal mistake.
- Fowler — the young, romantic writer, the reader's stand-in; he learns that real espionage is about brains, not melodrama.
4. Why it matters
The story is a small, satisfying lesson in keeping your head. Ausable is in real danger — a loaded pistol is pointed at him — yet he neither panics nor reaches for heroics. He simply tells a calm, confident lie and lets his enemy's fear do the rest. The "midnight visitor" who came to trap Ausable ends up trapped by his own nerves.
For the RBSE board, hold on to the trick (the non-existent balcony), the twist (the knock was the waiter, not the police), the contrast between Ausable and the film-image of a spy, and the theme that presence of mind triumphs over force. The question of how Ausable outwitted Max is the chapter's most common one.
