Ten minutes later, sweating from his exertions, he was back in the main building of the hotel. He went directly to his office where he intended to snatch an hour’s sleep before setting out on the long drive to Chicago. He checked the time. It was 11:15 P.M.
15
“I might be able to help more,” Royall Edwards observed pointedly, “if someone told me what this is all about.”
The St. Gregory’s comptroller addressed himself to the two men facing him across the long, accounting office table. Between them, ledgers and files were spread open and the entire office, normally shrouded in darkness at this time of night, was brightly lit. Edwards himself had switched on the lights an hour ago on bringing the two visitors here, directly from Warren Trent’s fifteenth-floor suite.
The hotel proprietor’s instructions had been explicit. “These gentlemen will examine our books. They will probably work through until tomorrow morning. I’d like you to stay with them. Give them everything they ask for. Hold no information back.”
In issuing the instructions, Royall Edwards reflected, his employer had seemed more cheerful than for a long time. The cheerfulness, however, did not appease the comptroller, already piqued at being summoned from his home where he had been working on his stamp collection, and further irritated by not being taken into confidence concerning whatever was afoot. He also resented—as one of the hotel’s most consistent nine-to-fivers—the idea of working all night.
The comptroller knew, of course, about the mortgage deadline of Friday and the presence of Curtis O’Keefe in the hotel, with its obvious implications. Presumably this latest visitation was related to both, though in what way was hard to guess. A possible clue was luggage tags on both visitors’ bags, indicating they had flown to New Orleans from Washington, D.C. Yet instinct told him that the two accountants—which obviously they were—had no connection with government. Well, he would probably know all the answers eventually. Meanwhile it was annoying to be treated like some minor clerk.
There had been no response to his remark that he might be able to help more if better informed, and he repeated it.
The older of the two visitors, a heavy-set middle-aged man with an immobile face, lifted the coffee cup beside him and drained it. “One thing I always say, Mr. Edwards, there’s nothing quite like a good cup of coffee. Now you take most hotels, they just don’t brew coffee the right way. This one does. So I reckon there can’t be much wrong with a hotel that serves coffee like that. What do you say, Frank?”
“I’d say if we’re to get through this job by morning, we’d better have less chit-chat.” The second man answered dourly, without looking up from a trial balance sheet he was studying intently.
The first made a placating gesture with his hands. “You see how it is, Mr. Edwards? I guess Frank’s right; he often is. So, much as I’d like to explain the whole thing, maybe we’d better keep right on.”
Aware of being rebuffed, Royall Edwards said stiffly, “Very well.”
“Thank you, Mr. Edwards. Now I’d like to go over your inventory system—purchasing, card control, present stocks, your last supply check, all the rest. Say, that was good coffee. Could we have some more?”
The comptroller said, “I’ll telephone down.” He observed dispiritedly that it was already close to midnight. Obviously they were going to be here for hours more.
THURSDAY
1
If he expected to be alert for a new day’s work, Peter McDermott supposed he had better head home and get some sleep.
It was a half hour past midnight. He had walked, he thought, for a couple of hours, perhaps longer. He felt refreshed and agreeably tired.
Walking at length was an old habit, especially when he had something on his mind or a problem which defied solution.
Earlier tonight, after leaving Marsha, he had returned to his downtown apartment. But he had been restless in the cramped quarters and disinclined for sleep, so he had gone out walking, toward the river. He had strolled the length of the Poydras and Julia Street Wharves, past moored ships, some dimly lighted and silent, others active and preparing for departure. Then he had taken the Canal Street ferry across the Mississippi and on the far side walked the lonely levees, watching the city lights against the darkness of the river. Returning, he made his way to the Vieux Carre and now sat, sipping café au lait, in the old French market.
A few minutes earlier, remembering hotel affairs for the first time in several hours, he had telephoned the St. Gregory. He inquired if there was any more news concerning the threatened walkout of the Congress of American Dentistry convention. Yes, the night assistant manager informed him, a message had been left shortly before midnight by the convention floor head waiter. So far as the head waiter could learn, the dentists’ executive board, after a six-hour session, had reached no firm conclusion. However, an emergency general meeting of all convention delegates was to be held at 9:30 A.M. in the Dauphine Salon. About three hundred were expected to attend. The meeting would be in camera, with elaborate security precautions, and the hotel had been asked to assist in assuring privacy.
Peter left instructions that whatever was asked should be done, and put the matter from his mind until the morning.
Apart from this brief diversion, most of his thoughts had been of Marsha and the night’s events. Questions buzzed in his head like pertinacious bees. How to handle the situation with fairness, yet not clumsily or hurting Marsha in doing so? One thing, of course, was clear: her proposal was impossible. And yet it would be the worst kind of churlishness to dismiss offhandedly an honest declaration. He had told her: “If more people were honest like you…”
There was something else—and why be afraid of it if honesty was to be served both ways? He had been drawn to Marsha tonight, not as a young girl but as a woman. If he closed his eyes he could see her as she had been. The effect was still like heady wine.
But he had tasted heady wine before, and the taste had turned to bitterness he had vowed would never come his way again. Did that kind of experience temper judgment, make a man wiser in his choice of women? He doubted it.
And yet he was a man, breathing, feeling. No self-imposed seclusion could, or should, last forever. The question: When and how to end it?
In any case, what next? Would he see Marsha again? He supposed—unless he severed their connection decisively, at once—it was inevitable he should. Then on what terms? And what, too, of their differences in age?
Marsha was nineteen. He was thirty-two. The gap between seemed wide, yet was it? Certainly if they were both ten years older, an affair—or marriage—would not be thought of as extraordinary. Also, he doubted very much if Marsha would find close rapport with a boy her own age.
The questions were endless. But a decision as to whether, and in what circumstances, he would see Marsha again had yet to be made.
In all his reasoning, too, there remained the thought of Christine. Within the space of a few days he and Christine seemed to have drawn closer together than at any time before. He remembered that his last thought before leaving for the Preyscott house last evening had been of Christine. Even now, he found himself anticipating keenly the sight and sound of her again.
Strange, he reflected, that he, who a week ago had been resolutely unattached, should feel torn at this moment between two women!
Peter grinned ruefully as he paid for the coffee and rose to go home.
The St. Gregory was more or less on the way and instinctively his footsteps took him past it. When he reached the hotel it was a few minutes after one A.M.
There was still activity, he could see, within the lobby. Outside, St. Charles Avenue was quiet, with only a cruising cab and a pedestrian or two in sight. He crossed the street to take a short cut around the rear of the hotel. Here it was quieter still. He was about to pass the entry to the hotel garage when he halted, warned by the sound of a motor and the reflection of headlight beams approaching down the inside ramp. A moment later a low-slung black car swung
into sight. It was moving fast and braked sharply, tires squealing, at the street. As the car stopped it was directly in a pool of light. It was a Jaguar, Peter noticed, and it looked as if a fender had been dented; on the same side there was something odd about the headlight too. He hoped the damage had not occurred through negligence in the hotel garage. If it had, he would hear about it soon enough.
Automatically he glanced toward the driver. He was startled to see it was Ogilvie. The chief house officer, meeting Peter’s eyes, seemed equally surprised. Then abruptly the car pulled out of the garage and continued on.
Peter wondered why and where Ogilvie was driving; and why a Jaguar instead of the house officer’s usual battered Chevrolet? Then, deciding that what employees did away from the hotel was their own business, Peter continued on to his apartment.
Later, he slept soundly.
2
Unlike Peter McDermott, Keycase Milne did not sleep well.
The speed and efficiency with which he obtained precise details of the Presidential Suite key had not been followed by equal success in having a duplicate made for his own use. The connections which Keycase established on arriving in New Orleans had proved less helpful than he expected. Eventually a locksmith on a slum street near the Irish Channel—whom Keycase was assured could be trusted—agreed to do the job, though grumbling at having to follow specifications instead of copying an existing key. But the new key would not be ready until midday Thursday, and the price demanded was exorbitant.
Keycase had agreed to the price, as he had agreed to wait, realizing there was no alternative. But the waiting was especially trying since he was aware that the passage of every hour increased his chances of being traced and apprehended.
Tonight before going to bed he had debated whether to make a new foray through the hotel in the early morning. There were still two room keys in his collection which he had not utilized—449, the second key obtained at the airport Tuesday morning, and 803 which he had asked for and received at the desk instead of his own key 830. But he decided against the idea, arguing with himself that it was wiser to wait and concentrate on the larger project involving the Duchess of Croydon. Yet Keycase knew, even while reaching the decision, that its major motivation was fear.
In the night, as sleep eluded him, the fear grew stronger, so that he no longer attempted to conceal it from himself with even the thinnest veil of self-deception. But tomorrow, he determined, he would somehow beat fear down and become his own lion-hearted self once more.
He fell at length into an uneasy slumber in which he dreamed that a great iron door, shutting out air and daylight, was inching closed upon him. He tried to run while a gap remained, but was powerless to move. When the door had closed, he wept, knowing it would never open again.
He awoke shivering, in darkness. His face was wet with tears.
3
Some seventy miles north of New Orleans, Ogilvie was still speculating on his encounter with Peter McDermott. The initial shock had had an almost physical impact. For more than an hour afterward, Ogilvie had driven tensely, yet at times scarcely conscious of the Jaguar’s progress, first through the city, then across the Pontchartrain Causeway, and eventually northward on Interstate 59.
His eyes moved constantly to the rear-view mirror. He watched each set of headlights which appeared behind, expecting them to overtake swiftly, with the sound of a pursuing siren. Ahead, around each turn of the road, he prepared to brake at imagined police roadblocks.
His immediate assumption had been that the only possible reason for Peter McDermott’s presence was to witness his own incriminating departure. How McDermott might have learned of the plan, Ogilvie had no idea. But apparently he had, and the house detective, like the greenest amateur, had ambled into a trap.
It was only later, as the countryside sped by in the lonely darkness of early morning, that he began to wonder: Could it have been coincidence after all?
Surely, if McDermott had been there with some intent, the Jaguar would have been pursued or halted at a roadblock long before now. The absence of any such attempt made coincidence more likely, in fact almost certain. At the thought, Ogilvie’s spirits rose. He began to think gloatingly of the twenty-five thousand dollars which would be his at the journey’s end.
He debated: Since everything had turned out so well thus far, would it be wiser to keep going? In just over an hour it would be daylight. His original plan had been to pull off the road and wait for darkness again before continuing. But there could be danger in a day of inaction. He was only halfway across Mississippi, still relatively close to New Orleans. Going on, of course, would involve the risk of being spotted, but he wondered just how great the risk was. Against the idea was his own physical strain from the previous day. Already he was tiring, the urge to sleep strong.
It was then it happened. Behind him, appearing as if magically, was a flashing red light. A siren shrieked imperiously.
It was the very thing which for the past several hours he had expected to happen. When it failed to, he had relaxed. Now, the reality was a double shock.
Instinctively, his accelerator foot slammed to the floor. Like a superbly powered arrow, the Jaguar surged forward. The speedometer needle swung sharply … to 70, 80, 85. At ninety, Ogilvie slowed for a bend. As he did, the flashing red light drew close behind. The siren, which had stopped briefly, wailed again. Then the red light moved sideways as the driver behind pulled out to pass.
It was useless, Ogilvie knew. Even if he outdistanced pursuit now, he could not avoid others forewarned ahead. Resignedly, he let his speed fall off.
He had a momentary impression of the other vehicle flashing by: a long limousine body, light colored, a dim interior light and a figure bending over another. Then the ambulance was gone, its flashing red beacon diminishing down the road ahead.
The incident left him shaken and convinced of his own tiredness. He decided that no matter how the alternate risks compared, he must pull off and remain there for the day. He was now past Macon, a small Mississippi community which had been his objective for the first night’s driving. A glimmer of dawn was beginning to light the sky. He stopped to consult a map and shortly afterward turned off the highway onto a complex of minor roads.
Soon the road surface had deteriorated to a rutted, grassy track. It was rapidly becoming light. Getting out of the car, Ogilvie surveyed the surrounding countryside.
It was sparsely wooded and desolate, with no habitation in sight. The nearest main road was more than a mile away. Not far ahead was a cluster of trees. Reconnoitering on foot, he discovered that the track went into the trees and ended.
The fat man gave one of his approving grunts. Returning to the Jaguar, he drove it forward carefully until foliage concealed it. He then made several checks, satisfying himself that the car could not be seen except at close quarters. When he had finished, he climbed into the back seat and slept.
4
For several minutes after coming awake, shortly before eight A.M., Warren Trent was puzzled to know why his spirits were instinctively buoyant. Then he remembered: this morning he would consummate the deal made yesterday with the Journeymen’s Union. Defying pressures, glum predictions and sundry assorted obstacles, he had saved the St. Gregory—with only hours to spare—from engorgement by the O’Keefe hotel chain. It was a personal triumph. He pushed to the back of his mind a thought that the bizarre alliance between himself and the union might lead to even greater problems later on. If that happened, he would worry at the proper time; most important was removal of the immediate threat.
Getting out of bed, he looked down on the city from a window of his fifteenth-floor suite atop the hotel. Outside, it was another beautiful day, the sun—already high—shining from a near-cloudless sky.
He hummed softly to himself as he showered and afterward was shaved by Aloysius Royce. His employer’s obvious cheerfulness was sufficiently unusual for Royce to raise his eyebrows in surprise, though Warren Trent—not yet far enou
gh into the day for conversation—offered no enlightenment.
When he was dressed, on entering the living room he immediately telephoned Royall Edwards. The comptroller, whom a switchboard operator located at his home, managed to convey both that he had worked all night and that his employer’s telephone call had brought him from a well-earned breakfast. Ignoring the undertone of grievance, Warren Trent sought to discover what reaction had come from the two visiting accountants during the night. According to the comptroller’s report, the visitors, though briefed on the hotel’s current financial crisis, had uncovered nothing else extraordinary and seemed satisfied by Edwards’ responses to their queries.
Reassured, Warren Trent left the comptroller to his breakfast. Perhaps even at this moment, he reflected, a report confirming his own representation of the St. Gregory’s position was being telephoned north to Washington. He supposed he would receive direct word soon.
Almost at once the telephone rang.
Royce was about to serve breakfast from the room-service trolley which had arrived a few minutes earlier. Warren Trent motioned him to wait.
An operator’s voice announced that the call was long distance. When he had identified himself, a second operator asked him to wait. At length the Journeymen’s Union president came brusquely on the line.
“Trent?”
“Yes. Good morning!”
“I goddam well warned you yesterday not to hold back on information. You were stupid enough to try. Now I’m telling you: people who work trickery on me finish up wishing they hadn’t been born. You’re lucky this time that the whistle blew before a deal was closed. But this is a warning: don’t ever try that game again!”