Giuseppe attacks Kade and steals the letter from Revell

Giuseppe’s attack on Anthony Cade and theft of Virginia Revel’s letters transform a hotel-room suspicion into a violent struggle, while leaving Anthony with the memoirs but without the letters. The episode shows how a seemingly ordinary waiter exploits the room’s access points, and how Anthony’s precautions protect one document even as another disappears. Its consequences extend beyond the hotel: Giuseppe’s later murder and Anthony’s handling of the body and pistol turn this attempted theft into part of a wider chain of concealment.

Suspicion at the Hotel

Anthony has taken the manuscript of Count Stylptitch’s memoirs and Virginia Revel’s letters to his room. As dinner is brought in, he stands with his back to the room, facing a mirror, and notices that the waiter’s attention is fixed on the manuscript parcel. The man glances toward Anthony and edges around the table, his hands twitching and lips dry. Anthony recognizes him as Italian rather than French, but does not immediately act on the suspicion.

Anthony speaks to the waiter in Italian; the man answers fluently. He is Giuseppe Manelli, and Anthony dismisses him with a nod. During the meal, however, Anthony keeps returning to Giuseppe’s visibly intense interest in the parcel. He considers whether it might be ordinary curiosity, but the fervor of the waiter’s behavior makes that explanation difficult to accept. Suspicion remains unresolved: Anthony is alert, yet knows that he may be reading too much into what he has seen.

The Night Attack

Before going to bed, Anthony locks the letters and the manuscript’s wrapping in his suitcase, then locks the door and places a chair against it with a water bottle balanced on top. He keeps the memoir manuscript itself beneath his pillow. The arrangement reflects his expectation that someone may try to reach the documents, although his barricade guards the door rather than the window.

About four hours later, Anthony wakes to a stealthy rustle and sees a darker shape near the suitcase, between the bed and the window. He switches on the light and finds a figure rising from beside it: Giuseppe, holding a long, thin knife. Giuseppe lunges. Anthony is unarmed, and Giuseppe appears practiced with his weapon, so Anthony’s immediate objective is to prevent the knife from being used.

Anthony dodges the first thrust, and the two men grapple on the floor. He clamps onto Giuseppe’s right arm and slowly forces it back, while Giuseppe’s free hand closes on Anthony’s throat. The contest is close and physical: Anthony’s grip keeps the knife arm from striking, even as the pressure on his windpipe threatens to choke him. The knife finally falls with a sharp tinkle, but Giuseppe twists free.

Escape and the Missing Letters

Anthony moves toward the door to block Giuseppe’s retreat, only then realizing that the chair and water bottle remain exactly where he placed them. They have not been disturbed because Giuseppe did not enter by the door. He came through the window, and now escapes the same way, leaping from the balcony to the adjoining balcony and disappearing through its window. Anthony judges that pursuit would be useless and would only get him into trouble.

The escape leaves the room’s defenses intact but defeats their purpose: a barricaded door offers no protection against entry from outside. Anthony first checks beneath the pillow and retrieves the memoirs, which have remained out of the suitcase and beyond Giuseppe’s reach. When he opens the suitcase to take out the letters, he discovers they are gone. The distinction matters: Giuseppe has not taken the manuscript Anthony was guarding, but he has obtained the letters that were locked away with its wrapping.

Consequences and Narrative Significance

The theft gives the letters a direct connection to the danger surrounding Anthony and Virginia. Later, a telegram addressed to Chilvers instructs him to take the household to the cottage and prepare for a weekend party, presenting a familiar domestic arrangement that can draw the household away. The stolen letters and the subsequent effort to manipulate the household’s movements belong to a developing chain of threats and deception, rather than to an isolated hotel theft.

Giuseppe’s later murder further changes the meaning of the encounter. Anthony removes Giuseppe’s body from a trunk on a road between Hounslow and Staines, placing it beside a curve where passing headlights will not fall on it; he then conceals a small parcel containing the pistol high in a tree at Burnham Beeches. The brisk, deliberate disposal contrasts with the desperate, close-quarters struggle in the hotel room. The attack is thus an early point in a sequence where Anthony’s efforts to protect people and papers become entangled with his own concealment of evidence.

The episode also establishes a pattern of vulnerable boundaries and guarded objects. Anthony watches the manuscript in the mirror, secures the documents, and barricades the door, yet Giuseppe reaches the room through the window. The memoirs survive because Anthony has placed them beneath his pillow; the letters vanish because their security depends on the suitcase and the assumption that the room’s entrance is the door. That reversal makes the scene both a physical confrontation and a lesson in the limits of Anthony’s precautions.