Chapter 3 of the Class 10 English Supplementary Reader ‘Footprints Without Feet’ consists of a prose titled – The Midnight Visitor. “The Midnight Visitor,” a detective story, written by Robert Arthur. This story is about a clever detective who outsmarts another agent with his calmness & composure.
Here’s a simple summary of the prose– The Midnight Visitor.

Summary of The Midnight Visitor

“The Midnight Visitor” is a story about a detective named Ausable. Ausable is a quick-witted secret agent. One day, Ausable and his writer friend Fowler went out to spend an evening together. As they talked, Ausable mentioned that Fowler probably imagined him as a secret agent involved in espionage and danger, picturing mysterious figures in the night, the crack of pistols, and drugs in the wine. However, when Fowler met Ausable, he found him to be a chubby spy who spoke French and German moderately well, with an American accent, having moved from Paris to Boston twenty years ago.

Soon, both of them go towards Ausable’s room; he opens the door and turns on the light. At the point when they went into the room, Fowler was surprised to see a man holding a small automatic pistol across the room. Ausable quickly recognized the other man to be Max, a spy. Max had come to request the report connected with rockets that Ausable was expecting. In the meantime, Fowler was in a condition of shock, and this was the most daring experience for him to meet a spy in such a way.

Meanwhile, Ausable started his imaginary story of the balcony underneath the window of the room to distract Max’s attention. Suddenly, someone thumped at the door, and it went on until the pounding became stronger and more frequent. Ausable said that the police must have come to visit him as they did consistently. Hearing this, Max was stunned, and keeping in mind that he pointed his gun toward the other two men in the room, he said he would look out of the balcony until the police left.

Max warned that he would shoot them off the moment they didn’t pay attention to him. Saying as much, he jumped through the window, and out of nowhere there was a loud shout. Meanwhile, Ausable opened the entryway, and the server brought some wine that he had requested. The server kept the wine bottle, glasses, and plate on top of the table and left. This astonished Fowler, and he asked about the police. Ausable replied he lied about the police as he was attempting to threaten Max. Fowler again asked that Max must be looking out on the balcony, to which Ausable said there was none there. He put together the whole story about the balcony to persuade Max to accept him, which he foolishly did.