Peter looked up, catching his companion’s eyes upon him. “If I may, I’d like to study this.”
‘Take it. There is no haste.” The young sous-chef smiled dourly. “I am told it is unlikely any of my ’orses will come ’ome.”
“The thing that surprises me is how you could develop something like this so quickly.”
André Lemieux shrugged. “To perceive what is wrong, it does not take long.”
“Maybe we could apply the same idea in finding what went wrong with the deep fryer.”
There was a responsive gleam of humor, then chagrin. “Touché! It is true—I had eyes for this, but not the ’ot fat under my nose.”
“No,” Peter objected. “From what you’ve told me, you did detect the bad fat but it wasn’t changed as you instructed.”
“I should have found the cause the fat went bad. There is always a cause. Greater trouble there may be if we do not find it soon.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Today—through much good fortune—we have used the frying fat a little only. Tomorrow, monsieur, there are six hundred fryings for convention luncheons.”
Peter whistled softly.
“Just so.” They had walked together from the office to stand beside the deep fryer from which the last vestiges of the recently offending fat were being cleaned.
“The fat will be fresh tomorrow, of course. When was it changed previously?”
“Yesterday.”
“That recently!”
André Lemieux nodded. “M. Hèbrand he was making no joke when he complained of the ’igh cost. But what is wrong it is a mystery.”
Peter said slowly, “I’m trying to remember some bits of food chemistry. The smoke-point of new, good fat is …”
“Four ’undred and twenty-five degrees. It should never be heated more, or it will break down.”
“And as fat deteriorates its smoke-point drops slowly.”
“Very slowly—if all is well.”
“Here you fry at …”
“Three ’undred and sixty degrees; the best temperature—for kitchens and the ’ousewives too.”
“So while the smoke-point remains about three hundred and sixty, the fat will do its job. Below that, it ceases to.”
“That is true, monsieur. And the fat it will give food a bad flavor, tasting rancid, as today.”
Facts, once memorized but rusty with disuse, stirred in Peter’s brain. At Cornell there had been a course in food chemistry for Hotel Administration students. He remembered a lecture dimly … in Statler Hall on a darkening afternoon, the whiteness of frost on window panes. He had come in from the biting, wintry air outside. Inside was warmth and the drone of information …fats and catalyzing agents.
“There are certain substances,” Peter said reminiscently, “which, in contact with fat, will act as catalysts and break it down quite quickly.”
“Yes, monsieur.” Andre Lemieux checked them off on his fingers. “They are the moisture, the salt, the brass or the copper couplings in a fryer, too much ’eat, the oil of the olive. All these things I have checked. This is not the cause.”
A word had clicked in Peter’s brain. It connected with what he had observed, subconsciously, in watching the deep fryer being cleaned a moment earlier.
“What metal are your fry baskets?”
“They are chrome.” The tone was puzzled. Chromium, as both men knew, was harmless to fat.
“I wonder,” Peter said, “how good the plating job is. If it isn’t good, what’s under the chrome and is it—in any places—worn?”
Lemieux hesitated, his eyes widening slightly. Silently he lifted one of the baskets down and wiped it carefully with a cloth. Moving under a light, they inspected the metal surface.
The chrome was scratched from long and constant use. In small spots it had worn away entirely. Beneath scratches and worn spots was a gleam of yellow.
“It is brass!” The young Frenchman clapped a hand to his forehead. “Without doubt it ’as caused the bad fat. I have been a great fool.”
“I don’t see how you can blame yourself,” Peter pointed out. “Obviously, long before you came, someone economized and bought cheap fry baskets. Unfortunately it’s cost more in the end.”
“But I should have discovered this—as you have done, monsieur.” Andre Lemieux seemed close to tears. “Instead, you, monsieur, you come to the kitchen—from your paper-asserie—to tell me what is ’aywire here. It will be a laughing joke.”
“If it is,” Peter said, “it will be because you talked about it yourself. No one will hear from me.”
André Lemieux said slowly, “Others they have said to me you are a good man, and intelligent. Now, myself, I know this is true.”
Peter touched the folder in his hand. “I’ll read your report and tell you what I think.”
“Thank you, monsieur. And I shall demand new fry baskets. Of stainless steel. Tonight they will be here if I have to ’ammer someone’s ’ead.”
Peter smiled.
“Monsieur, there is something else that I am thinking.”
“Yes?”
The young sous-chef hesitated. “You will think it, how you say, presumptuous. But you and I, Monsieur McDermott—with the hands free—we could make this a ’otshot hotel.”
Though he laughed impulsively, it was a statement which Peter McDermott thought about all the way to his office on the main mezzanine.
9
A second after knocking at the door of room 1410, Christine Francis wondered why she had come. Yesterday, of course, it had been perfectly natural for her to visit Albert Wells, after his brush with death the night before and her own involvement. But now Mr. Wells was being adequately cared for and, with recovery, had reverted to his role as an ordinary guest among more than a thousand and a half others in the hotel. Therefore, Christine told herself, there was no real reason to make another personal call.
Yet there was something about the little elderly man which drew her to him. Was it, she wondered, because of his fatherliness and her perception, perhaps, of some of the traits of her own father to whose loss she had never quite adjusted, even after five long years. But no! The relationship with her father had been one of her reliance on him. With Albert Wells she found herself protective, just as yesterday she had wanted to shield him from the consequences of his own action in choosing the private nursing arrangement.
Or maybe, Christine reflected, she was, at this moment, just plain lonely, wanting to offset her disappointment in learning she would not meet Peter this evening, as they had both planned. And as to that—had it been disappointment, or some stronger emotion on discovering that he would be dining, instead, with Marsha Preyscott?
If she was honest with herself, Christine admitted, she had been angry this morning, though she hoped she had concealed it, covering up with mild annoyance and the slight acidity of comment she had been unable to resist. It would have been a big mistake, either to have shown a possessive-ness about Peter or to have given little Miss Marshmallow the satisfaction of believing she had won a feminine victory even though, in fact, she had.
There was still no response to her knock. Remembering that the nurse should be on duty, Christine knocked again, more sharply. This time there was the sound of a chair moving and footsteps approaching from inside.
The door opened to reveal Albert Wells. He was fully dressed. He looked well and there was color in his face, which brightened as he saw Christine. “I was hoping you’d come, miss. If you hadn’t, I was going to look for you.”
She said, surprised, “I thought …”
The little birdlike man chuckled. “You thought they’d keep me pinned down; well, they didn’t. I felt good, so I made your hotel doctor send for that specialist—the one from Illinois, Dr. Uxbridge. He’s got a lot of sense; said if people feel well, they mostly are. So we bundled the nurse home, and here I am.” He beamed. “Well, miss, come on in.”
Christine’s reaction was of relief
that the considerable expense of the private nursing had ended. She suspected that a realization of its cost had had a good deal to do with Albert Wells’ decision.
As she followed him into the room, he asked, “Did you knock before?”
She admitted that she had.
“Had an idea I’d heard something. I guess my mind was on this.” He pointed to a table near the window. On it was a large and intricate jigsaw puzzle, of which about two thirds was completed. “Or maybe,” he added, “I thought it was Bailey.”
Christine asked curiously, “Who’s Bailey?”
The old man’s eyes twinkled. “If you stay a minute, you’ll meet him. Leastways, either him or Barnum.”
She shook her head, not understanding. Walking toward the window, she leaned over the jigsaw puzzle, inspecting it. There were sufficient pieces in place to recognize the scene depicted as New Orleans—the city at dusk, viewed from high above, with the shining river winding through. She said, “I used to do these once, a long time ago. My father helped me.”
Beside her, Albert Wells observed, “There are some who’d say it isn’t much of a pastime for a grown man. Mostly, though, I set out one of these when I want to think. Sometimes I discover the key piece, and the answer to what I’m thinking about, around the same time.”
“A key piece? I’ve never heard of that.”
“It’s just an idea of mine, miss. I reckon there’s always one—to this, and most other problems you can name. Sometimes you think you’ve found it, and you haven’t. When you do, though, all of a sudden you can see a whole lot clearer, including how other things fit in around.”
Abruptly there was a sharp, authoritative knock at the outer door. Albert Wells’ lips formed the word, “Bailey!”
She was surprised, when the door opened, to see a uniformed hotel valet. He had a collection of suits on hangers over one shoulder; in front he held a pressed blue serge suit which, from its old-fashioned cut, undoubtedly belonged to Albert Wells. With practiced speed the valet hung the suit in a closet and returned to the door where the little man was waiting. The valet’s left hand held the suits on his shoulder; his right came up automatically, palm outstretched.
“I already took care of you,” Albert Wells said. His eyes betrayed amusement. “When the suit was picked up this morning.”
“Not me, you didn’t, sir.” The valet shook his head decisively.
“No, but your friend. It’s the same thing.”
The man said stoically, “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“You mean he holds out on you?”
The outstretched hand went down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on now!” Albert Wells was grinning broadly. “You’re Bailey. I tipped Barnum.”
The valet’s eyes flickered to Christine. As he recognized her, a trace of doubt crossed his face. Then he grinned sheepishly. “Yes, sir.” He went out, closing the door behind him.
“Now what in the world was all that about?”
The little man chuckled. “You work in a hotel, and don’t know the Barnum and Bailey dodge?”
Christine shook her head.
“It’s a simple thing, miss. Hotel valets work in pairs, but the one who picks up a suit is never the one who delivers it back. They figure it that way, so mostly they get tipped twice. Afterward they pool the tips and divvy up.”
“I can see how it works,” Christine said. “But I’ve never thought about it.”
“Nor do most others. Which is why it costs them a double tip for the same service.” Albert Wells rubbed his sparrow-beak nose ruminatively. “With me it’s a kind of game—to see how many hotels there are where the same thing happens.”
She laughed. “How did you find out?”
“A valet told me once—after I let him know I’d rumbled. He told me another thing. You know in hotels with dial telephones, from some phones you can dial rooms directly. So Barnum or Bailey—whichever one’s which for that day—will dial the rooms he has deliveries for. If there’s no answer, he waits and calls again later. If there is an answer—which means someone’s in—he’ll hang up without saying anything. Then a few minutes later he’ll deliver your suit and pick up the second tip.”
“You don’t like tipping, Mr. Wells?”
“It isn’t so much that, miss. Tipping’s like dying; it’s here to stay, so what good’s worrying? Anyway I tipped Barnum well this morning—sort of paying in advance for the bit of fun I had with Bailey just now. What I don’t like, though, is to be taken for a fool.”
“I shouldn’t imagine that happens often.” Christine was beginning to suspect that Albert Wells needed a good deal less protection than she had at first supposed. She found him, though, as likeable as ever.
He acknowledged: “That’s as may be. There’s one thing, though, I’ll tell you. There’s more of that kind of malarkey goes on in this hotel than most.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because mostly I keep my eyes open, miss, and I talk to people. They tell me things they maybe wouldn’t you.”
“What kind of things?”
“Well, for one, a good many figure they can get away with anything. It’s because you don’t have good management, I reckon. It could be good, but it isn’t, and maybe that’s why your Mr. Trent is in trouble right now.”
“It’s almost uncanny,” Christine said. “Peter McDermott told me exactly the same thing—almost in those words.” Her eyes searched the little man’s face. For all his lack of worldliness, he seemed to have a homespun instinct for getting at the truth.
Albert Wells nodded approvingly. “Now there’s a smart young man. We had a talk yesterday.”
The disclosure surprised her. “Peter came here?”
“That’s right.”
“I didn’t know.” But it was the kind of thing, she reasoned, that Peter McDermott would do—an efficient follow-up to whatever it was he was concerned with personally. She had observed before, his capacity for thinking largely, yet seldom omitting detail.
“Are you going to marry him, miss?”
The abrupt question startled her. She protested, “Whatever gave you that idea?” But to her embarrassment she felt her face was flushing.
Albert Wells chuckled. There were moments, Christine thought, when he had the mien of a mischievous elf.
“I sort of guessed—by the way you said his name just now. Besides, I’d figured the two of you must see a lot of each other, both working where you do; and if that young man has the kind of sense I think, he’ll find out he doesn’t have to look much farther.”
“Mr. Wells, you’re outrageous! You … you read people’s minds, then you make them feel terrible.” But the warmth of her smile belied the reproof. “And please stop calling me ‘miss.’ My name is Christine.”
He said quietly, “That’s a special name for me. It was my wife’s, too.”
“Was?”
He nodded. “She died, Christine. So long ago, sometimes I get to thinking the times we had together never really happened. Not the good ones or the hard, and there were plenty of both. But then, once in a while, it seems as if all that happened was only yesterday. It’s then I get weary, mostly of being so much alone. We didn’t have children.” He stopped, his eyes reflective. “You never know how much you share with someone until the sharing ends. So you and your young man—grab on to every minute there is. Don’t waste a lot of time; you never get it back.”
She laughed. “I keep telling you he isn’t my young man. At least, not yet.”
“If you handle things right, he can be.”
“Perhaps.” Her eyes went to the partially completed jigsaw puzzle. She said slowly, “I wonder if there is a key piece to everything—the way you say. And when you’ve found it, if you really know, or only guess, and hope.” Then, almost before she knew it, she found herself confiding in the little man, relating the happenings of the past—the tragedy in Wisconsin, her aloneness, the move to
New Orleans, the adjusting years, and now for the first time the possibility of a full and fruitful life. She revealed, too, the breakdown of this evening’s arrangements and her disappointment at the cause.
At the end Albert Wells nodded sagely. “Things work themselves out a lot of times. Other times, though, you need to push a bit so’s to start people moving.”
She asked lightly, “Any ideas?”
He shook his head. “Being a woman, you’ll know plenty more’n me. There’s one thing, though. Because of what happened, I shouldn’t wonder if that young man’ll ask you out tomorrow.”
Christine smiled. “He might.”
“Then get yourself another date before he does. He’ll appreciate you more, having to wait an extra day.”
“I’d have to invent something.”
“No need for that, unless you want. I was going to ask anyway, miss … excuse me, Christine. I’d like us to have dinner, you and me—a kind of thank you for what you did the other night. If you can bear an old man’s company, I’d be glad to be a stand-in.”
She answered, “I’d love to have dinner, but I promise you won’t be any stand-in.”
“Good!” The little man beamed. “We’d best make it here in the hotel, I reckon. I told that doctor I’d not go outdoors for a couple of days.”
Briefly, Christine hesitated. She wondered if Albert Wells knew just how high were the evening prices in the St. Gregory’s main dining room. Though the nursing expense had ended, she had no wish to deplete still further whatever funds he had remaining. Suddenly she thought of a way to prevent that happening.
Putting the idea aside to be dealt with later, she assured him, “The hotel will be fine. It’s a special occasion, though. You’ll have to give me time to go home and change into something really glamorous. Let’s make it eight o’clock—tomorrow night.”
On the fourteenth floor, after leaving Albert Wells, Christine noticed that number four elevator was out of service. Maintenance work, she observed, was being done both on the landing doors and the elevator cage.