On the second night of his business trip, Callum's keycard let him into his own room as usual. After dinner, he tried it again, and it also opened the door two rooms down the hall. He discovered this by accident, distracted while reading an email on his phone. He stepped halfway into a room that clearly wasn't his before he noticed the unfamiliar suitcase on the bed.
出差的第二天晚上，卡勒姆的房卡像往常一样打开了他自己的房间。晚饭后，他再刷一次，发现它也能打开走廊那头隔两个房间的门。他是无意中发现的，当时正分心看手机上的一封邮件。他一脚踏进了一个明显不是他的房间，才注意到床上有一只陌生的行李箱。
He backed out immediately, apologising to no one, since the room was empty. He reported it at the front desk. The night manager looked concerned and asked whether he had seen anyone unusual near his floor. Callum mentioned a guest named Tobias, whom he had passed in the corridor twice that evening. Each time, Tobias had looked oddly nervous, checking his phone and glancing back toward the elevator.
他立刻退了出来，对着空气连声道歉，因为房间里并没有人。他到前台作了报告。值班经理一脸担忧，问他有没有在这一层看到什么可疑的人。卡勒姆提到一位名叫托拜厄斯的客人，那天晚上他在走廊里遇到过他两次。每一次，托拜厄斯都显得有些古怪地紧张，一边看手机，一边回头望电梯的方向。
For a moment, standing at the desk, Callum wondered whether he had stumbled onto something worth worrying about. Maybe it was a theft in progress, or a stranger with a copied key. However, the manager, after checking the system, told him something quieter and stranger. His card had somehow been issued the same access code as the room down the hall, a code that should have expired the day before.
站在前台前，卡勒姆有那么一会儿在想，自己是不是撞上了什么值得担心的事。也许是正在发生的盗窃，或者是某个人拿着复制的钥匙。然而，经理查了系统之后，告诉了他一个更平淡也更奇怪的情况。他的房卡不知怎么被设成了与走廊那头房间相同的权限码，而那个码本该在前一天就失效了。
It turned out the hotel had updated its lock software that afternoon. For a narrow window of time, a handful of old codes had been reissued to new guests before the system fully synced. Callum's room happened to share a code with one that had checked out that morning. That room hadn't yet been reprogrammed for its new occupant. It was, the manager admitted, a rare glitch, already reported twice that week.
原来酒店那天下午更新了门锁软件。在一小段时间里，有几个旧的权限码在系统完全同步之前，被重新发给了新入住的客人。卡勒姆的房间碰巧和一个今早已退房的房间共用了一个码。而那个房间还没有为新住客重新设置。经理承认，这是罕见的故障，这周已经被报告过两次了。
As for Tobias, his odd behaviour turned out to have nothing to do with any of it. He had locked himself out of his own room and had been waiting by the elevator for nearly twenty minutes. He was simply too embarrassed to call the front desk a second time that night.
至于托拜厄斯，他那些古怪的举动与这一切毫无关系。他把自己锁在了房门外，在电梯旁等了将近二十分钟。他只是不好意思当晚第二次给前台打电话。
Callum was given a new card within the hour, and the strange sense that something was wrong faded almost as quickly as it had arrived. Packing his bag the next morning, he thought about how easily two harmless problems could look like one much bigger mystery. It just took both of them happening in the same hallway on the same night.
不到一个小时，卡勒姆就拿到了新房卡，那种说不清哪里不对的奇怪感觉，也几乎像来时一样迅速地消散了。第二天早晨收拾行李时，他想到，两个无害的小问题，竟能那么容易地看起来像一个大得多的谜团。只需要它们在同一天晚上、同一条走廊里同时发生。
