- The whole story of how a fat, ordinary-looking spy beats an armed rival without lifting a finger
- Who Ausable, Fowler and Max are, and how each one sees the others
- How the invented balcony and the invented police work together as one trap
- The surprise ending and the clues the writer plants for it
- The theme of presence of mind, the book’s nine glossary words, and short answers to every “Read and find out”, “Think about it” and “Talk about it” question
1The Author and the Setting
The story ends with the name ROBERT ARTHUR. As general knowledge (not stated in the book), Robert Arthur was an American writer of mystery and suspense stories, many of them written for young readers.
The book’s opening note sets the puzzle: Ausable, a secret agent, is waiting for a very important report; another agent, Max, points a pistol at him and demands it. Can Ausable outwit him? The whole story takes place in one small hotel room, in about half an hour, close to midnight.
| Setting detail | What the book tells us |
|---|---|
| Place | A gloomy French hotel with a musty corridor; Ausable has lived in Paris for twenty years |
| The room | Small, on the sixth and top floor, with a single ordinary window |
| Time | Late at night, after a dull evening at a French music hall |
| The prize | A report about some new missiles, due to reach Ausable at twelve-thirty |
2The Story, Step by Step
The plot is a short, tight trap. Ausable never touches a weapon; he wins only with words.
2.1 A Spy Who Does Not Look Like One
Fowler, a young writer, has come to meet Ausable because he has been told Ausable is a secret agent. Walking behind him down the musty corridor, Fowler feels let down. Nothing matches the spies he has read about:
What Fowler expected
- Mysterious figures in the night
- The crack of pistols, drugs in the wine
- Messages slipped into the spy’s hand by dark-eyed beauties
- A setting fit for a romantic adventure
What he actually got
- A fat man (“Very fat”) who wheezes as he talks
- An American accent from Boston, still there after twenty years in Paris
- French and German spoken only passably (just well enough)
- A dull evening at a music hall and a prosaic (ordinary) phone call fixing a meeting
Ausable reads Fowler’s mind easily and says it aloud: “You are disappointed.” He even guesses that Fowler has been bored. Then he cheers him up: soon Fowler will see a paper for which several men and women have risked their lives, a paper that may one day affect the course of history. This early scene already shows us that the fat man is far sharper than he looks.
Espionage means spying: secretly collecting information, usually for a country or an organisation. A person who does it is a secret agent or spy.
2.2 The Midnight Visitor: Max and His Pistol
Ausable shuts the door and switches on the light. At that moment Fowler gets his “first authentic thrill of the day”: halfway across the room stands a man with a small automatic pistol. Ausable only blinks a few times and greets him calmly: “Max, … you gave me quite a start. I thought you were in Berlin.”
Max is slender, not very tall, with a sharp, sly face like a fox’s. Apart from the gun he does not look frightening. He has come for the report on some new missiles that is being brought to Ausable that night, and he says it will be “safer in my hands than in yours”.
2.3 The Balcony Story (Lie No. 1)
Ausable sits down heavily in an armchair and complains angrily, as if to himself, that this is “the second time in a month” someone has got into his room through “that nuisance of a balcony”. Max is surprised: he came in with a passkey (a key that opens many doors in a hotel) and did not know about any balcony; he even says it might have saved him some trouble.
Ausable then makes the lie solid with a careful, boring-sounding history of the room, which is exactly what makes it believable:
Max waves Fowler into a chair: they have about half an hour to wait. Ausable corrects him: “Thirty-one minutes”, since the appointment is for twelve-thirty. Max admits he would love to know how Ausable’s people got the report; Ausable would love to know how Max learned about it.
2.4 The Knock at the Door (Lie No. 2)
Suddenly someone knocks. Fowler jumps; Ausable just smiles and says it will be the police. He claims he asked them to check on him because the paper is so important. He adds three facts that leave Max no time to think:
- If he does not answer, they will come in anyway.
- The door is unlocked.
- They will not hesitate to shoot.
Max bites his lip nervously. His face turns dark with anger and he backs towards the window, warning: “Send them away or I’ll shoot and take my chances!” He plans to wait on the balcony until the police are gone.
2.5 The Drop and the Twist
The knocking grows louder and a voice calls “Mr Ausable! Mr Ausable!” Keeping his gun pointed at the two men, Max holds the window frame, swings both legs over the sill and, as the doorknob turns, pushes off with his left hand to drop onto the balcony. As he drops, he screams once, shrilly.
The door opens. It is only a waiter, with a tray, a bottle and two glasses: the drink Ausable had ordered for when he got back. The waiter opens the bottle neatly and leaves. White-faced, Fowler stammers about the police. Ausable explains: there were no police, only Henry, whom he was expecting. Max will not come back, he says, because “there is no balcony.”
The book never says in words that Max died. It lets us work it out: the room is on the sixth floor, Max screams as he falls, and Ausable says he “won’t return”. Write “Max fell from the sixth-floor window” and avoid adding details the book does not give.
3Characters
| Point | Ausable | Max | Fowler |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who | Secret agent, American, living in Paris for twenty years | A rival agent, thought to be in Berlin | A young writer who wanted to meet a real spy |
| Looks | Very fat, wheezy, careless in dress | Slender, fox-like face, nothing menacing except the gun | Not described; we see the story through his eyes |
| Main trait | Calm, quick-witted, full of presence of mind | Crafty and armed, but quick to panic | Romantic, easily thrilled, easily frightened |
| Weapon | Words and a clever plan | A small automatic pistol | None; he is only a witness |
| At the end | Wins without moving from his chair | Falls to the non-existent balcony | White-faced and stammering |
3.1 Ausable
- Calm in danger: faced with a pistol, he only blinks and talks normally.
- Sharp observer: he reads Fowler’s disappointment without being told.
- Quick-witted and convincing: his balcony story is full of small, dull details, so it sounds true.
- Uses the moment: he turns an ordinary knock by a waiter into “the police”.
- Lesson: looks can deceive; brains beat a gun.
3.2 Max
- Clever enough to learn about the report and get in with a passkey.
- Proud and confident while he holds the gun.
- Loses his nerve at the word “police” and acts without checking, which ruins him.
3.3 Fowler
- Young and romantic: his idea of spies comes from stories.
- His feelings move from disappointment, to thrill, to fear, to shock.
- He is the reader’s stand-in: like us, he believes in the balcony and the police until the last line.
4Themes and Message
4.1 The Four Big Ideas
Presence of mind
The ability to think quickly and act calmly and wisely when danger or surprise strikes. Ausable shows it from start to finish.
Brain over force
The man with the gun loses; the unarmed man who keeps thinking wins.
Appearance versus reality
The dull, fat man is a real spy, and the “balcony” and “police” are not real at all.
Romance versus real spying
Real spying, the story suggests, is quiet, ordinary-looking and dangerous, not glamorous.
Presence of mind is the ability to think quickly and act calmly and wisely in a situation of danger and surprise. The book adds that it comes from mental preparedness: thinking ahead about possible problems and how to act.
4.2 The Title and the Twist
The midnight visitor is Max, who arrives uninvited just before the twelve-thirty appointment. The ending is a twist: the reader, like Fowler and Max, believes in the balcony until the final line. Looking back, the clues were there: the sixth and top floor, the single ordinary window with the night “pressing blackly” against it, and Max’s own words that he did not know about any balcony.
4.3 Key Lines and What They Mean
| Line from the story | Meaning |
|---|---|
| “Ausable did not fit any description of a secret agent Fowler had ever read.” | Ausable is the opposite of the glamorous spy of books and films. |
| “Fowler had his first authentic thrill of the day.” | The first real excitement comes only when Max appears with a gun. |
| “This is the second time in a month that somebody has got into my room through that nuisance of a balcony!” | The opening of Ausable’s trap, said as if it were a real complaint. |
| “Thirty-one minutes” | Ausable stays exact and calm even at gunpoint. |
| “There were no police.” | The police were Ausable’s invention; the knock was only Henry. |
| “You see, my young friend, there is no balcony.” | The twist: Max jumped into empty air from the sixth floor. |
5Words to Know (Book’s Glossary)
6The Book’s Questions, Answered Briefly
6.1 Read and Find Out
| Question | Short answer |
|---|---|
| How is Ausable different from other secret agents? | He is very fat, wheezes, keeps his American accent, speaks French and German only passably, lives in a small top-floor room and gets ordinary phone calls instead of secret messages. |
| Who is Fowler and what is his first authentic thrill? | A young, romantic writer eager to meet a real spy. His thrill comes when the light goes on and a stranger is standing halfway across the room, gun in hand. |
| How has Max got in? | With a passkey. |
| How does Ausable say he got in? | Through the balcony under his window, as someone had done a month before. |
6.2 Think About It
- Spies in books and films (such as James Bond) are usually shown as handsome, fit, stylish and surrounded by danger and glamour. Ausable is the opposite: fat, wheezy, carelessly dressed and dull to look at, yet he is far cleverer.
- Why the balcony sounds real: Ausable complains about it angrily, as if annoyed, not as if planning anything. He adds dull, specific details: it belongs to the next apartment, the rooms were once one large unit, it can be reached from the empty room two doors down, and the management promised to block it. Max had also just been told it was used a month ago, so he believes it.
- When did he plan it? Most likely the moment he saw Max, since he begins the balcony story right away. The police part seems to be made up on the spot, using the waiter’s knock. So he had a basic idea at once and built on events as they happened.
6.3 Talk About It (points to discuss)
- Share a real or story example where someone stayed calm and acted wisely in danger, as Ausable did.
- Sensible first steps: kitchen fire, switch off the gas and smother small flames, never pour water on oil; choking child, call an adult and give back blows or first aid; sparking appliance, switch off the main power and do not touch it; bicycle accident, help the person aside and give first aid or call for help; non-stop rain, stay indoors, keep away from water and wires, keep essentials ready; family member late, stay calm, phone them and their friends or workplace, then inform elders or the police if needed.
Suggested reading in the book: ‘After Twenty Years’ by O. Henry, ‘The Stolen Bacillus’ by H.G. Wells, ‘The Face on the Wall’ by E.V. Lucas.
- Author Robert Arthur; setting: small sixth-floor room of a gloomy French hotel in Paris
- Ausable: very fat, wheezy, American accent from Boston, French and German “passably”
- Fowler: young romantic writer, let down; first authentic thrill = Max with a pistol
- Max: slender, fox-like, thought to be in Berlin; came in with a passkey; wants the report on new missiles
- Balcony lie: “second time in a month”, belongs to the next apartment, reached from the empty room two doors down
- Appointment at twelve-thirty; “Thirty-one minutes”
- Knock = “the police”: door unlocked, they will shoot; Max goes over the sill, drops, screams shrilly
- Door opens: Henry the waiter with a tray, a bottle and two glasses
- Last line: “there is no balcony”; theme: presence of mind, brain beats gun
- Can I list four ways Ausable differs from a story-book spy?
- Can I explain how Max really entered and how Ausable claimed he entered?
- Can I give three details that made the balcony story convincing?
- Can I explain the part the knock at the door plays in the plan?
- Can I explain what the story teaches about presence of mind?