The story
“Algernon tries the patience of his gentle wife by wandering in his sleep. In the wee small hours of the morning he travels the roofs of the neighboring apartment houses, and rambles the streets. Marianne sews his name and address on the back of his pajamas, and leaves the rest to Providence. One night, prowling in his sleep, he descends a fire escape and enters a hotel room where Tom is peacefully slumbering. He climbs into bed, but soon wakes. Seeing Tom there, but no trace of Marianne, he leaps to the conclusion that this intruder has made away with his wife. He summons help, and as the night clerk does not know Tom, and Algernon’s story sounds plausible enough, he gets a policeman, and Tom is carried, protesting violently, downstairs. Here, however, the bellboy recognizes him as a transient arrived that day. Algernon, meanwhile, perceives that he is not in his own house and that he is likely to get himself into serious trouble. Marianne has already discovered his absence and has gone to notify the police. On her return, she finds her lost husband asleep in bed. In desperation, she ties a rope to a staple on the wall where he cannot reach it, knotting the noose around his neck. And across the fire escape, Tom is rigging up an automatic window-releasing attachment, fatal to sleepwalkers.”
Summary from Reel Life · 16 May 1914
