Night clerk

The night clerk works for the hotel in which Woburn spends his last night before leaving New York the next morning. He is a man who is not surprised by anything. He calmly “roused by the swinging of the door, sat watching Woburn's approach with the unexpectant eye of one who has full confidence in his capacity for digesting surprises.”¹ Also, he knows how to make his job more interesting, by “classifying his applicants before they could frame their explanations.”² It appears that he is able to read people only by observation and deduction.