"The Midnight Visitor" by Robert Arthur is a suspenseful spy story that subverts traditional stereotypes of secret agents. It highlights how intelligence, presence of mind, and calm composure can triumph over physical threats and weapons.
Fowler accompanies Ausable to his gloomy room on the sixth floor of a French hotel. Fowler feels let down because Ausable is fat, sloppy, and lacks the mysterious, romantic aura of a fictional spy.
Upon entering the room and switching on the light, they find Max standing in the middle of the room with a small automatic pistol. Max demands the secret report on new missiles that Ausable is expecting that night.
Instead of panicking, Ausable calmly sits down and fabricates a story about a non-existent balcony outside his window. He complains bitterly about the hotel management, claiming it is the second time someone has entered his room through that balcony from the adjacent apartment. Max, who entered using a passkey, believes this story completely.
Suddenly, a loud knocking is heard at the door. Ausable claims it is the police, whom he had requested to check on him for the safety of the important report. Terrified of being caught or shot, Max panics.
Max backs towards the window, swings his leg over the sill, and jumps down to hide on the "balcony," screaming shrilly as he falls to his death. The door opens to reveal Henry, the waiter, carrying the drinks Ausable had ordered. Ausable reveals to a stunned Fowler that there was never any police, and more importantly, there is no balcony.
The chapter concludes with two examples of Haiku, a traditional Japanese poetic form characterized by its compact, three-line structure focusing on nature, feelings, or experiences.
An old pond!
A frog jumps in —
The sound of water.
Right at my feet —
and when did you get here,
snail?