His hand went through his hair once more. “Nothing looks any better than it did last night.”
“At least it isn’t any worse,” the Duchess said practically, “and that’s something to be thankful for. We’re still here—intact.”
He shook his head wearily. He had had little sleep during the night. “How does it help?”
“As I see it, it’s a question of time. Time is on our side. The longer we wait and nothing happens …” She stopped, then went on slowly, thinking aloud, “What we desperately need is to have some attention focused on you. The kind of attention that would make the other seem so fantastic it wouldn’t even be considered.”
As if by consent, neither referred to their acrimony of the night before.
The Duke resumed his pacing. “Only thing likely to do that is an announcement confirming my appointment to Washington.”
“Exactly.”
“You can’t hurry it. If Hal feels he’s being pushed, he’ll blow the roof off Downing Street. The whole thing’s damn touchy, anyway …”
“It’ll be touchier still if …”
“Don’t you think I bloody well know! Do you think I haven’t thought we might as well give up!” There was a trace of hysteria in the Duke of Croydon’s voice. He lit a cigarette, his hand shaking.
“We shall not give up!” In contrast to her husband, the Duchess’s tone was crisp and businesslike. “Even prime ministers respond to pressure if it’s from the right quarter. Hal’s no exception. I’m going to call London.”
“Why?”
“I shall speak to Geoffrey. I intend to ask him to do everything he can to speed up your appointment.”
The Duke shook his head doubtfully, though not dismissing the idea out of hand. In the past he had seen plenty of evidence of the remarkable influence exerted by his wife’s family. All the same he warned, “We could be spiking our own guns, old girl.”
“Not necessarily. Geoffrey’s good at pressure when he wants to be. Besides, if we sit here and wait it may be worse still.” Matching action to her words, the Duchess picked up the telephone beside the bed and instructed the operator, “I wish to call London and speak to Lord Selwyn.” She gave a Mayfair number.
The call came through in twenty minutes. When the Duchess of Croydon had explained its purpose, her brother, Lord Selwyn, was notably unenthusiastic. From across the bedroom the Duke could hear his brother-in-law’s deep protesting voice as it rattled the telephone diaphragm. “By golly, sis, you could be stirring a nest of vipers, and why do it? I don’t mind telling you, Simon’s appointment to Washington is a dashed long shot right now. Some of those in Cabinet feel he’s the wrong man for the time. I’m not saying I agree, but there’s no good wearing blinkers, is there?”
“If things are left as they are, how long will a decision take?”
“Hard to say for sure, old thing. The way I hear, though, it could be weeks.”
“We simply cannot wait weeks,” the Duchess insisted. “You’ll have to take my word, Geoffrey, it would be a ghastly mistake not to make an effort now.”
“Can’t see it myself.” The voice from London was distinctly huffy.
Her tone sharpened. “What I’m asking is for the family’s sake as well as our own. Surely you can accept my assurance on that.”
There was a pause, then the cautious question, “Is Simon with you?”
“Yes.”
“What’s behind all this? What’s he been up to?”
“Even if there were an answer,” the Duchess of Croydon responded, “I’d scarcely be so foolish as to give it on the public telephone.”
There was a silence once more, then the reluctant admission, “Well, you usually know what you’re doing. I’ll say that.”
The Duchess caught her husband’s eye. She gave a barely perceptible nod before inquiring of her brother, “Am I to understand, then, that you’ll act as I ask?”
“I don’t like it, sis. I still don’t like it.” But he added, “Very well, I’ll do what I can.”
In a few more words they said goodbye.
The bedside telephone had been replaced only a moment when it rang again. Both Croydons started, the Duke moistening his lips nervously. He listened as his wife answered.
“Yes?”
A flat nasal voice inquired, “Duchess of Croydon?”
“This is she.”
“Ogilvie. Chief house officer.” There was the sound of heavy breathing down the line, and a pause as if the caller were allowing time for the information to sink in.
The Duchess waited. When nothing further was said she asked pointedly, “What is it you want?”
“A private talk. With your husband and you.” It was a blunt unemotional statement, delivered in the same flat drawl.
“If this is hotel business I suggest you have made an error. We are accustomed to dealing with Mr. Trent.”
“Do that this time, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.” The cold, insolent voice held an unmistakable confidence. It caused the Duchess to hesitate. As she did, she was aware her hands were shaking.
She managed to answer, “It is not convenient to see you now.”
“When?” Again a pause and heavy breathing.
Whatever this man knew or wanted, she realized, he was adept at maintaining a psychological advantage.
She answered, “Possibly later.”
“I’ll be there in an hour.” It was a declaration, not a question.
“It may not be …”
Cutting off her protest, there was a click as the caller hung up.
“Who was it? What did they want?” The Duke approached tensely. His gaunt face seemed paler than before.
Momentarily, the Duchess closed her eyes. She had a desperate yearning to be relieved of leadership and responsibility for them both; to have someone else assume the burden of decision. She knew it was a vain hope, just as it had always been for as long as she could remember. When you were born with a character stronger than those around you, there was no escaping. In her own family, though strength was a norm, others looked to her instinctively, following her lead and heeding her advice. Even Geoffrey, with his real ability and headstrong ways, always listened to her in the end, as he had just now. As reality returned, the moment passed. Her eyes opened.
“It was a hotel detective. He insists on coming here in an hour.”
“Then he knows! My God—he knows!”
“Obviously he’s aware of something. He didn’t say what.”
Unexpectedly the Duke of Croydon straightened, his head moving upright and shoulders squaring. His hands became steadier, his mouth a firmer line. It was the same chameleon change he had exhibited the night before. He said quietly, “It might go better, even now, if I went … if I admitted …”
“No! Absolutely and positively no!” His wife’s eyes flashed. “Understand one thing. Nothing you can possibly do could improve the situation in the slightest.” There was a silence between them, then the Duchess said broodingly, “We shall do nothing. We will wait for this man to come, then discover what he knows and intends.”
Momentarily it seemed as if the Duke would argue. Then, changing his mind, he nodded dully. Tightening the scarlet robe around him, he padded out to the adjoining room. A few minutes later he returned carrying two glasses of neat Scotch. As he offered one to his wife she protested, “You know it’s much too early …”
“Never mind that. You need it.” With a solicitousness she was unused to, he pressed the glass into her hand.
Surprised, yet yielding, she held the glass and drained it. The undiluted liquor burned, snatching away her breath, but a moment later flooded her with welcome warmth.
9
“Whatever it is can’t be all that bad.”
At her desk in the outer office of the managing director’s suite, Christine Francis had been frowning as she read a letter in her hand. Now she looked up to see Peter McDermott’s cheerful rugged face peering around the doorway.
&
nbsp; Brightening, she answered, “It’s another sling and arrow. But with so many already, what’s one more?”
“I like that thought.” Peter eased his big frame around the door.
Christine regarded him appraisingly. “You appear remarkably awake, considering how little sleep you must have had.”
He grinned. “I had an early morning session with your boss. It was like a cold shower. Is he down yet?”
She shook her head, then glanced at the letter she had been reading. “When he comes he won’t like this.”
“Is it secret?”
“Not really. You were involved, I think.”
Peter seated himself in a leather chair facing the desk.
“You remember a month ago,” Christine said, “—the man who was walking on Carondelet Street when a bottle dropped from above. His head was cut quite badly.”
Peter nodded. “Damn shame! The bottle came from one of our rooms, no question of that. But we couldn’t find the guest who did it.”
“What sort of a man was he—the one who got hit.”
“Nice little guy, as I recall. I talked to him after, and we paid his hospital bill. Our lawyers wrote a letter making clear it was a goodwill gesture, though, and not admitting liability.”
“The goodwill didn’t work. He’s suing the hotel for ten thousand dollars. He charges shock, bodily harm, loss of earnings and says we were negligent.”
Peter said flatly, “He won’t collect. I guess in a way it’s unfair. But he hasn’t a chance.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because there’s a raft of cases where the same kind of thing has happened. It gives defending lawyers all kinds of precedents they can quote in court.”
“Is that enough to affect a decision?”
“Usually,” he assured her. “Over the years the law’s been pretty consistent. For example, there was a classic case in Pittsburgh—at the William Penn. A man was hit by a bottle which was thrown from a guest room and went through the roof of his car. He sued the hotel.”
“And he didn’t win?”
“No. He lost his case in a lower court, then appealed to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. They turned him down.”
“Why?”
“The court said that a hotel—any hotel—is not responsible for the acts of its guests. The only exception might be if someone in authority—say, the hotel manager—knew in advance what was going to happen but made no attempt to prevent it.” Peter went on, frowning at the effort of memory. “There was another case—in Kansas City, I think. Some conventioneers dropped laundry bags filled with water from their rooms. When the bags burst, people on the sidewalk scrambled to get out of the way and one was pushed under a moving car. He was badly injured. Afterward he sued the hotel, but couldn’t collect either. There are quite a few other judgments—all the same way.”
Christine asked curiously. “How do you know all this?”
“Among other things, I studied hotel law at Cornell.”
“Well, I think it sounds horribly unjust.”
“It’s hard on anyone who gets hit, but fair to the hotel. What ought to happen, of course, is that the people who do these things should be held responsible. Trouble is, with so many rooms facing a street it’s next to impossible to discover who they are. So mostly they get away with it.”
Christine had been listening intently, an elbow planted on her desk, chin cupped lightly in the palm of one hand. Sunlight, slanting through half-opened venetian blinds, touched her red hair, highlighting it. At the moment a line of puzzlement creased her forehead and Peter found himself wanting to reach out and erase it gently.
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “Are you saying that a hotel isn’t responsible legally for anything its guests may do—even to other guests?”
“In the way we’ve been talking about, it certainly isn’t. The law’s quite clear on that and has been for a long time. A lot of our law, in fact, goes back to the English inns, beginning with the fourteenth century.”
“Tell me.”
“I’ll give you the shortened version. It starts when the English inns had one great hall, warmed and lighted by a fire, and everyone slept there. While they slept it was the landlord’s business to protect his guests from thieves and murderers.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“It was. And the same thing was expected of the landlord when smaller chambers began to be used, because even these were always shared—or could be—by strangers.”
“When you think about it,” Christine mused, “it wasn’t much of an age for privacy.”
“That came later when there were individual rooms, and guests had keys. After that the law looked at things differently. The innkeeper was obliged to protect his guests from being broken in upon. But beyond that he had no responsibility, either for what happened to them in their rooms or what they did.”
“So the key made the difference.”
“It still does,” Peter said. “On that, the law hasn’t changed. When we give a guest a key it’s a legal symbol, just as it was in an English inn. It means the hotel can no longer use the room, or quarter anyone else there. On the other hand, the hotel isn’t responsible for the guest once he’s closed the door behind him.” He pointed to the letter which Christine had put down. “That’s why our friend from outside would have to find whoever dropped the bottle on him. Otherwise he’s out of luck.”
“I didn’t know you were so encyclopedic.”
“I didn’t mean to sound that way,” Peter said. “I imagine W. T. knows the law well enough, though if he wants a list of cases I have one somewhere.”
“He’ll probably be grateful. I’ll clip a note on the letter.” Her eyes met Peter’s directly. “You like all this, don’t you? Running a hotel; the other things that go with it.”
He answered frankly, “Yes, I do. Though I’d like it more if we could rearrange a few things here. Maybe if we’d done it earlier we wouldn’t be needing Curtis O’Keefe now. By the way, I suppose you know he’s arrived.”
“You’re the seventeenth to tell me. I think the phone started ringing the moment he stepped on the sidewalk.”
“It’s not surprising. By now a good many are wondering why he’s here. Or rather, when we shall be told officially why he’s here.”
Christine said, “I’ve just arranged a private dinner for tonight in W. T.’s suite—for Mr. O’Keefe and friend. Have you seen her? I hear she’s something special.”
He shook his head. “I’m more interested in my own dinner plan—involving you, which is why I’m here.”
“If that’s an invitation for tonight, I’m free and hungry.”
“Good!” He jumped up, towering over her. “I’ll collect you at seven. Your apartment.”
Peter was leaving when, on a table near the doorway, he observed a folded copy of the Times-Picayune. Stopping, he saw it was the same edition—with black headlines proclaiming the hit-and-run fatalities—which he had read earlier. He said somberly, “I suppose you saw this.”
“Yes, I did. It’s horrible, isn’t it? When I read it I had an awful sensation of watching the whole thing happen because of going by there last night.”
He looked at her strangely. “It’s funny you should say that. I had a feeling too. It bothered me last night and again this morning.”
“What kind of feeling?”
“I’m not sure. The nearest thing is—it seems as if I know something, and yet I don’t.” Peter shrugged, dismissing the idea. “I expect it’s as you say—because we went by.” He replaced the newspaper where he had found it.
As he strode out he turned and waved back to her, smiling.
As she often did for lunch, Christine had room service send a sandwich and coffee to her desk. During the course of it Warren Trent appeared, but stayed only to read the mail before setting out on one of his prowls of the hotel which, as Christine knew, might last for hours. Observing the strain in the hotel proprietor’s
face, she found herself concerned for him, and noticed that he walked stiffly, a sure sign that sciatica was causing him pain.
At half-past two, leaving word with one of the secretaries in the outer office, Christine left to visit Albert Wells.
She took an elevator to the fourteenth floor then, turning down the long corridor, saw a stocky figure approaching. It was Sam Jakubiec, the credit manager. As he came nearer, she observed that he was holding a slip of paper and his expression was dour.
Seeing Christine, he stopped. “I’ve been to see your invalid friend, Mr. Wells.”
“If you looked like that, you couldn’t have cheered him up much.”
“Tell you the truth,” Jakubiec said, “he didn’t cheer me up either. I got this out of him, but lord knows how good it is.”
Christine accepted the paper the credit manager had been holding. It was a soiled sheet of hotel stationery with a grease stain in one corner. On the sheet, in rough sprawling handwriting, Albert Wells had written and signed an order on a Montreal bank for two hundred dollars.
“In his quiet sort of way,” Jakubiec said, “he’s an obstinate old cuss. Wasn’t going to give me anything at first. Said he’d pay his bill when it was due, and didn’t seem interested when I told him we’d allow some extra time if he needed it.”
“People are sensitive about money,” Christine said. “Especially being short of it.”
The credit man clucked his tongue impatiently. “Hell!—most of us are short of money. I always am. But people go around thinking it’s something to be ashamed of when if they’d only level, a lot of the time they could be helped out.”
Christine regarded the improvised bank draft doubtfully. “Is this legal?”
“It’s legal if there’s money in the bank to meet it. You can write a check on sheet music or a banana skin if you feel like it. But most people who have cash in their accounts at least carry printed checks. Your friend Wells said he couldn’t find one.”
As Christine handed the paper back, “You know what I think,” Jakubiec said, “I think he’s honest and he has the money—but only just and he’s going to put himself in a hole finding it. Trouble is, he already owes more than half of this two hundred, and that nursing bill is soon going to swallow the rest.”