Who, among the city’s business leaders, was behind Emile Dumaire? Who might care enough to run the financial risk of maintaining the St. Gregory as a traditionally independent house? Mark Preyscott, perhaps? Could the department-store chieftain be seeking to augment his already widespread interests? Warren Trent recalled having heard from someone, during the past few days, that Mark Preyscott was in Rome. That might account for the indirect approach. Well, whoever it was, he supposed he would learn soon enough.
The stock transaction which the banker was spelling out was fair. Compared with the offer from O’Keefe, Warren Trent’s personal cash settlement would be smaller, but offset by a retained equity in the hotel. In contrast, the O’Keefe terms would cast him adrift from the St. Gregory’s affairs entirely.
As to an appointment as chairman of the board, while it might be a token post only, devoid of power, he would at least be an inside, privileged spectator to whatever might ensue. Nor was the prestige to be dismissed lightly.
“That,” Emile Dumaire concluded, “is the sum and substance. As to the offer’s integrity, I have already stated that it is guaranteed by the bank. Furthermore, I am prepared to give you a notarized letter of intention, this afternoon, to that effect.”
“And completion, if I agree?”
The banker pursed his lips, considering. “There is no reason why papers could not be drawn quickly, besides which the matter of the impending mortgage expiry lends some urgency. I would say completion tomorrow at this time.”
“And also at that time, no doubt, I would be told the purchaser’s identity.”
“That,” Emile Dumaire conceded, “would be essential to the transaction.”
“If tomorrow, why not now?”
The banker shook his head. “I am bound by my instructions.”
Briefly, in Warren Trent’s mind, his old ill temper flared. He was tempted to insist on revelation as a condition of assent. Then reason argued: Did it matter, providing the stipulations pledged were met? Disputation, too, would involve effort to which he felt unequal. Once more, the weariness of a few minutes earlier engulfed him.
He sighed, then said simply, “I accept.”
9
Incredulously, wrathfully, Curtis O’Keefe faced Warren Trent.
“You have the effrontery to stand there telling me you’ve sold elsewhere!”
They were in the living room of O’Keefe’s suite. Immediately following the departure of Emile Dumaire, Christine Francis had telephoned to make the appointment which Warren Trent was keeping now. Dodo, her expression uncertain, hovered behind O’Keefe.
“You may call it effrontery,” Warren Trent replied. “As far as I’m concerned it’s information. You may also be interested to know that I have not sold entirely, but have retained a substantial interest in the hotel.”
“Then you’ll lose it!” O’Keefe’s face flushed with rage. It had been many years since anything he wished to buy had been denied him. Even now, obsessed with bitterness and disappointment, he could not believe the rejection to be true. “By God! I swear I’ll break you.”
Dodo reached out. Her hand touched O’Keefe’s sleeve. “Curtie!”
He wrenched the arm free. “Shut up!” A vein pulsed visibly across his temples. His hands were clenched.
“You’re excited, Curtie. You shouldn’t …”
“Damn you! Keep out of this!”
Dodo’s eyes went appealingly to Warren Trent. They had the effect of curbing Trent’s own temper which had been about to erupt.
He told O’Keefe, “You may do what you please. But I’d remind you you have no divine right of purchase. Also, you came here of your own accord with no invitation from me.”
“You’ll rue this day! You and the others, whoever they are. I’ll build! I’ll drive this hotel down, and out of business. Every vestige of my planning will be directed at smashing this place and you with it.”
“If either of us lives so long.” Having contained himself already, Warren Trent felt his own self-control increase as O’Keefe’s diminished. “We may not see it happen, of course, because what you intend will take time. Also, the new people here may give you a run for your money.” It was an uninformed prediction, but he hoped it would prove true.
O’Keefe raged, “Get out!”
Warren Trent said, “This is my house still. While you are my guest you have certain privileges in your own rooms. I’d suggest, though, you don’t abuse them.” With a slight, courteous bow to Dodo, he went out.
“Curtie,” Dodo said.
O’Keefe did not appear to hear. He was breathing heavily.
“Curtie, are you all right?”
“Must you ask stupid questions? Of course I’m all right!” He stormed the length of the room and back.
“It’s only a hotel, Curtie. You got so many others.”
“I want this one!”
“That old man—it’s the only one he’s got …”
“Oh yes! Of course you’d see it that way. Disloyally! Stupidly!” His voice was high, hysterical. Dodo, frightened, had never known him in a mood so uncontrolled before.
“Please, Curtie!”
“I’m surrounded by fools! Fools, fools, fools! You’re a fool! It’s why I’m getting rid of you. Replacing you with someone else.”
He regretted the words the instant they were out. Their impact, even upon himself, was of shock, snuffing out his anger like a suddenly doused flame. There was a second of silence before he mumbled, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Dodo’s eyes were misty. She touched her hair abstractedly in the gesture he had noticed earlier.
“I guess I knew, Curtie. You didn’t have to tell me.”
She went into the adjoining suite, closing the door behind her.
10
An unexpected bonus had revived the spirits of Keycase Milne.
During the morning, Keycase had returned his strategic purchases of yesterday to the Maison Blanche department store. There was no difficulty and he received prompt, courteous refunds. This, at the same time, relieved him of an encumbrance and filled an otherwise empty hour. There were still several more hours to wait, however, until the specially made key, ordered yesterday from the Irish Channel locksmith, would be ready for collection.
He was on the point of leaving the Maison Blanche store when his good fortune occurred.
At a main floor counter, a well-dressed woman shopper, fumbling for a credit card, dropped a ring of keys. Neither she nor anyone else but Keycase, it seemed, observed the loss. Keycase loitered, inspecting neckties at a neighboring counter, until the woman moved on.
He walked the length of the other counter, then, as if seeing the keys for the first time, stopped to pick them up. He observed at once that as well as car keys there were several others which looked as if they fitted house locks. Even more significant was something else which his experienced eyes had spotted initially—a miniature auto license tag. It was the kind mailed to car owners by disabled veterans, providing a return service for lost keys. The tag showed a Louisiana license number.
Holding the keys plainly in sight, Keycase hurried after the woman, who was leaving the store. If his action of a moment earlier had been observed, it was now obvious that he was hastening to restore the keys to their owner.
But on joining the press of pedestrians on Canal Street, he palmed the keys and transferred them to a pocket.
The woman was still in sight. Keycase followed her at a cautious distance. After two blocks she crossed Canal Street and entered a beauty parlor. From outside, Keycase saw her approach a receptionist who consulted an appointment book, after which the woman sat down to wait. With a sense of elation, Keycase hurried to a telephone.
A local telephone call established that the information he sought was obtainable from the state capital at Baton Rouge. Keycase made the long-distance call, asking for the Motor Vehicle Division. The operator answering knew at once the extension he required.
Holding the keys in front of him, Keycase read out the license number from the miniature tag. A bored clerk informed him that the car was registered to one, F. R. Drummond, with an address in the Lakeview district of New Orleans.
In Louisiana, as in other states and provinces of North America, motor vehicle ownership was a matter of public record, obtainable in most instances by no greater effort than a telephone call. It was a nugget of knowledge which Keycase had used advantageously before.
He made one more telephone call, dialing the listed number for F. R. Drummond. As he had hoped, after prolonged ringing there was no answer.
It was necessary to move speedily, Keycase calculated that he had an hour, perhaps a little more. He hailed a taxi which took him quickly to where his car was parked. From there, with the aid of a street map, he drove to Lakeview, locating without difficulty the address he had jotted down.
He surveyed the house from half a block away. It was a well-cared-for two-story residence with a double garage and spacious garden. The driveway was sheltered by a large cypress tree, fortuitously blocking the view from neighboring houses on either side.
Keycase drove his car boldly under the tree and walked to the front door. It opened easily to the first key he tried.
Inside, the house was silent. He called out loudly, “Anybody home?” If there had been an answer, he was ready with a prepared excuse about the door being ajar and having come to the wrong address. There was none.
He scouted the main floor rooms quickly, then went upstairs. There were four bedrooms, all unoccupied. In a closet of the largest were two fur coats. He pulled them out, piling them on the bed. Another closet revealed suitcases. Keycase selected a large one and bundled the furs in. A dressing-table drawer yielded a jewelry box which he emptied into the suitcase, adding a movie camera, binoculars and a portable radio. He closed the case and carried it downstairs, then reopened it to add a silver bowl and salver. A tape recorder, which he noticed at the last moment, he carried out to the car in one hand, the larger case in the other.
In all, Keycase had been inside the house barely ten minutes. He stowed the case and recorder in the trunk of his car and drove away. Just over an hour later he had cached the haul in his motel room on Chef Menteur Highway, parked his car once more in its downtown location, and was walking jauntily back to the St. Gregory Hotel.
On the way, with a gleam of humor, he put the keys into a mail box, as the miniature license tag requested. No doubt the tag organization would fulfill its promise and return them to their owner.
The unexpected booty, Keycase calculated, would net him close to a thousand dollars.
He had a coffee and sandwich in the St. Gregory coffee shop, then walked to the Irish Channel locksmith’s. The duplicate key to the Presidential Suite was ready and, despite the extortionate price demanded, he paid cheerfully.
Returning, he was conscious of the sun shining benevolently from a cloudless sky. That, and the morning’s unexpected bounty, were plainly omens, portents of success for the major mission soon to come. His old assurance, Keycase found, plus a conviction of invincibility, had seeped quietly back.
11
Across the city, in leisurely disorder, the chimes of New Orleans were ringing the noon hour. Their melodies in counterpoint came dimly through the ninth-floor window—closed and sealed for effective air conditioning—of the Presidential Suite. The Duke of Croydon, unsteadily pouring a Scotch and soda, his fourth since mid-morning, heard the bells and glanced at his watch for confirmation of their message. He shook his head unbelievingly and muttered, “That’s all? … Longest day … ever remember living.”
“Eventually it will end.” From a sofa where she had been attempting unsuccessfully to concentrate on W. H. Auden’s Poems, his wife’s rejoinder was less severe than most of her responses of the past several days. The waiting period since the previous night, with the awareness that Ogilvie and the incriminating car were somewhere to the north—but where?—had been a strain on the Duchess too. It was now nineteen hours since the Croydons’ last contact with the chief house officer and there had been no word of a development of any kind.
“For God’s sake!—couldn’t the fellow telephone?” The Duke paced the living room agitatedly as he had, off and on, since early morning.
“We agreed there should be no communication,” the Duchess reminded him, still mildly. “It’s a good deal safer that way. Besides, if the car is hidden for the daytime, as we hoped, he’s probably remaining out of sight.”
The Duke of Croydon pored over an opened Esso road map, examining it as he had countless times already. His finger traced a circle around the area surrounding Macon, Mississippi. He said, half to himself, “It’s close, still so infernally close. And all of today … just waiting … waiting!” Moving away from the map, he muttered, “Fellow could be discovered.”
“Obviously he hasn’t been, or we would have heard one way or another.” Beside the Duchess was a copy of the afternoon States-Item; she had sent their secretary down to the lobby for an early edition. As well, they had listened to hourly radio news broadcasts throughout the morning. A radio was turned on softly now, but the announcer was describing damage from a summer storm in Massachusetts and the preceding item had been a White House statement on Vietnam. Both the newspaper and earlier broadcasts had referred to the hit-and-run investigation, but merely to note that it was continuing and nothing new had come to light.
“There were only a few hours for driving last night,” the Duchess continued, as if to reassure herself. “Tonight it will be different. He can start immediately it’s dark and by tomorrow morning everything should be safe.”
“Safe!” Her husband returned morosely to his drink. “I suppose it’s the sensible thing to care about. Not what happened. That woman … the child. There were pictures … suppose you saw.”
“We’ve been over that. It won’t do any good again.”
He appeared not to have heard. “Funeral today … this afternoon … at least could go.”
“You can’t, and you know you won’t.”
There was a heavy silence in the elegant, spacious room.
It was broken abruptly by the jangle of the telephone. They faced each other, neither attempting to answer. The muscles of the Duke’s face jerked spasmodically.
The bell sounded again, then stopped. Through intervening doors they heard the voice of the secretary indistinctly, answering on an extension.
A moment later the secretary knocked and came in diffidently. He glanced toward the Duke. “Your Grace, it’s one of the local newspapers. They say that they have had”—he hesitated at an unfamiliar term—”a flash bulletin which appears to concern you.”
With an effort the Duchess recovered her poise. “I will take the call. Hang up the extension.” She picked up the telephone near her. Only a close observer would have noticed that her hands were trembling.
She waited for the click as the extension was replaced, then announced, “The Duchess of Croydon speaking.”
A man’s crisp voice responded, “Ma’am, this is the States-Item city desk. We’ve a flash from Associated Press and there’s just been a follow-up …” The voice stopped. “Pardon me.” She heard the speaker say irritably, “Where in hell is that … Hey, toss over that flimsy, Andy.”
There was a rustle of paper, then the voice resuming. “Sorry, ma’am. I’ll read this to you.
“LONDON (AP)—Parliamentary sources here today name the Duke of Croydon, noted British government trouble shooter, as Britain’s next ambassador to Washington. Initial reaction is favorable. An official announcement is expected soon.
There’s more, ma’am. I won’t bother you with it. Why we called was to see if your husband has a statement, then with your permission we’d like to send a photographer to the hotel.”
Momentarily the Duchess closed her eyes, letting waves of relief, like soothing anodynes, wash over her.
The voice on the telephone cut in, “Ma’am,
are you still there?”
“Yes.” She forced her mind to function.
“About a statement, what we’d like …”
“At the moment,” the Duchess injected, “my husband has no statement, nor will he have unless and until the appointment is officially confirmed.”
“In that case …”
“The same applies to photography.”
The voice sounded disappointed. “We’ll run what we have, of course, in the next edition.”
“That is your privilege.”
“Meanwhile, if there’s an official announcement we’d like to be in touch.”
“Should that occur, I’m sure my husband will be glad to meet the press.”
“Then we may telephone again?”
“Please do.”
After replacing the telephone, the Duchess of Croydon sat upright and unmoving. At length, a slight smile hovering around her lips, she said, “It’s happened. Geoffrey has succeeded.”
Her husband stared incredulously. He moistened his lips. “Washington?”
She repeated the gist of the AP bulletin. “The leak was probably deliberate, to test reaction. It’s favorable.”
“I wouldn’t have believed that even your brother …”
“His influence helped. Undoubtedly there were other reasons. Timing. Someone with your kind of background was needed. Politics fitted. Don’t forget either that we knew the possibility existed. Fortunately, everything chanced to fall together.”
“Now that it’s happened …” He stopped, unwilling to complete the thought.
“Now that it’s happened—what?”
“I wonder … can I carry it through?”
“You can and you will. We will.”
He moved his head doubtfully. “There was a time …”
“There is still a time.” The Duchess’s voice sharpened with authority. “Later today you will be obliged to meet the press. There will be other things. It will be necessary for you to be coherent and remain so.”