There was a perceptible pause. The night room clerk was an old-timer, appointed many years ago by Warren Trent. He had an autocratic way of doing his job which few people ever contested. He had also made known to Peter McDermott on a couple of occasions that he resented newcomers, particularly if they were younger, senior to himself, and from the north.
"Well," Peter said, "is there a room or isn't there?"
"I have 1410," the clerk said with his best southern planter's accent, "but I'm about to allocate it to a gentleman who has this moment checked in." He added, "In case you're unaware, we are very close to a full house."
Number 1410 was a room Peter remembered. It was large and airy and faced St. Charles Avenue. He asked reasonably, "If I take 1410, can you find something else for your man?"
"No, Mr. McDermott. All I have is a small suite on five, and the gentleman does not wish to pay a higher rate."
Peter said crisply, "Let your man have the suite at the room rate for tonight. He can be relocated in the morning. Meanwhile I'll use 1410 for a transfer from 1439, and please send a boy up with the key right away."
"Just one minute, Mr. McDermott." Previously the clerk's tone had been aloof; now it was openly truculent. "It has always been Mr. Trent's policy...
"Right now we're talking about my policy," Peter snapped. "And another thing: before you go off duty leave word for the day clerks that tomorrow I want an explanation of why Mr. Wells was shifted from his original room to 1439, and you might add that the reason had better be good."
He grimaced at Christine as he replaced the phone.
5
"You must have been insane," the Duchess of Croydon protested.
"Absolutely, abysmally insane." She had returned to the living room of the Presidential Suite after Peter McDermott's departure, carefully closing the inner door behind her.
The Duke shifted uncomfortably as he always did under one of his wife's periodic tongue lashings. "Damn sorry, old girl. Telly was on. Couldn't hear the fellow. Thought he'd cleared out." He took a deep draught from the whiskey and soda he was holding unsteadily, then added plaintively,
"Besides, with everything else I'm bloody upset."
"Sorry! Upset!" Unusually there was an undernote of hysteria in his wife's voice. "You make it sound as if it's all some sort of game. As if what happened tonight couldn't be the ruination . . ."
"Don't think anything of sort. Know it's all serious. Bloody serious."
Hunched disconsolately in a deep leather armchair he seemed a little man, akin to the bowler-hatted mousy genus which English cartoonists were so fond of drawing.
The Duchess went on accusingly, "I was doing the best I could. The very best, after your incredible folly, to establish that both of us spent a quiet evening in the hotel. I even invented a walk that we went for in case anyone saw us come in. And then crassly, stupidly, you blunder in to announce you left your cigarettes in the car."
"Only one heard me. That manager chap. Wouldn't notice.
"He noticed. I was watching his face." With an effort the Duchess retained her self-control. "Have you any notion of the ghastly mess we're in?
"Already said so." The Duke drained his drink, then contemplated the empty tumbler. "Bloody ashamed too. If you hadn't persuaded me . . . If I hadn't been fuddled . . ."
"You were drunk! You were drunk when I found you, and you still are."
He shook his head as if to clear it. "Sober now." It was his own turn to be bitter. "You would follow me. Butt in. Would not leave things be ...
"Never mind that. It's the other that matters."
He repeated, "You persuaded me . . ."
"There was nothing we could do. Nothing! And there was a better chance my way."
"Not so sure. If the police get their teeth in . .
"We'd have to be suspected first. That's why I made that trouble with the waiter and followed through. It isn't an alibi but it's the next best thing. It's set in their minds we were here tonight ... or would have been if you hadn't thrown it all away. I could weep."
"Be interesting that" the Duke said. "Didn't think you were enough of a woman." He sat upright in the chair and had somehow thrown off the submissiveness, or most of it. It was a chameleon quality which sometimes bewildered those who knew him, setting them to wondering which was the real person.
The Duchess flushed, the effect heightening her statuesque beauty. "That isn't necessary."
"Perhaps not." Rising, the Duke went to aside table where he splashed Scotch generously into his glass, followed by a short snort of soda. With his back turned, he added, "All same, must admit you at bottom most of our troubles."
"I admit nothing of the kind. Your habits are, perhaps, but not mine.
Going to that disgusting gambling joint tonight was madness; and to take that woman . . ."
"Y'already covered that," the Duke said wearily. "Exhaustively. On our way back. Before it happened."
"I wasn't aware that what I said had penetrated."
"Your words, old girl, penetrate thickest mists. I keep trying make them impenetrable. So far haven't succeeded." The Duke of Croydon sipped his fresh drink. "Why'd you marry me?"
"I suppose it was mostly that you stood out in our circle as someone who was doing something worth while. People said the aristocracy was effete.
You seemed to be proving that it wasn't."
He held up his glass, studying it like a crystal ball. "Not proving it now. Eli?"
"If you appear to be, it's because I prop you up."
"Washington?" The word was a question. ,
"We could manage it," the Duchess said. "If I could keep you sober and in your own bed."
"Aha!" Her husband laughed hollowly. "A damn cold bed at that."
"I already said that isn't necessary."
"Ever wondered why I married you?"
"I've formed opinions."
"Tell you most important." He drank again, as if for courage, then said thickly, "Wanted you in that bed. Fast. Legally. Knew was only way."
"I'm surprised you bothered. With so many others to choose from - before and since."
His bloodshot eyes were on her face. "Didn't want others. Wanted you.
Still do."
She snapped, "That's enough! This has gone far enough."
He shook his head. "Something you should hear. Your pride, old girl.
Magnificent. Savage. Always appealed to me. Didn't want to break it.
Share it. You on your back. Thighs apart. Passionate. Trembling . .
"Stop it! Stop it! You ... you lecher!" Her face was white, her voice high pitched. "I don't care if the police catch you! I hope they do! I hope you get ten years!"
6
After his quickly concluded dispute with Reception, Peter McDermott recrossed the fourteenth floor corridor to 1439.
"If you approve," he informed Dr. Uxbridge, "we'll transfer your patient to another room on this floor."
The tall, sparely built doctor who had responded to Christine's emergency call nodded. He glanced around the tiny ha-ha room with its mess of heating and water pipes. "Any change can only be an improvement."
As the doctor returned to the little man in the bed, beginning a new five-minute period of oxygen, Christine reminded Peter, "What we need now is a nurse."
"We'll let Dr. Aarons arrange that." Peter mused aloud: "The hotel will have to make the engagement, I suppose, which means we'll be liable for payment. Do you think your friend Wells is good for it?"
They had returned to the corridor, their voices low.
"I'm worried about that. I dont think he has much money." When she was concentrating, Peter noticed, Christine's nose had a charming way of crinkling. He was aware of her closeness and a faint, fragrant perfume.
"Oh well," he said, "we won't be too deep in debt by morning. We'll let the credit department look into it then."
When the key arrived, Christine went ahead to open the new room, 1410.
"It's ready," she announced, returning.
"The best thing is to switch beds," Peter told the others. "Let's wheel this one into 1410 and bring back a bed from there." But the doorway, they discovered, was an inch too narrow.
Albert Wells, his breathing easier and with returning color, volunteered,
"I've walked all my life, I can do a little bit now." But Dr. Uxbridge shook his head decisively.
The chief engineer inspected the difference in widths.
I'll take the door off its hinges," he told the sick man. Then ye'll go out like a cork from a bottle."
"Never mind," Peter said. "There's a quicker way - if jou're agreeable, Mr. Wells."
The other smiled, and nodded.
Peter bent down, put a blanket around the elderly man's shoulders and picked him up bodily.
"You've strong arms, son," the little man said.
Peter smiled. Then, as easily as if his burden were a child, he strode down the corridor and into the new room.
Fifteen minutes later all was functioning as if on nyloned bearings. The oxygen equipment had been successfully transferred, though its use was now less urgent since the air conditioning in the more spacious quarters of 1410 had no competition from hot pipes, hence the air was sweeter. The resident physician, Dr. Aarons, had arrived, portly, jovial, and breathing bourbon in an almost-visible cloud. He accepted with alacrity the offer of Dr. Uxbridge to drop in in a consultant capacity the following day, and also grasped eagerly a further suggestion that cortisone might prevent a recurrence of the earlier attack. A private duty nurse, telephoned affectionately by Dr. Aarons ("Such wonderful news, my dear! We're going to be a team again.") was reportedly on the way.
As the chief engineer and Dr. Uxbridge took their leave, Albert Wells was sleeping gently.
Following Christine into the corridor, Peter carefully closed the door on Dr. Aarons who, while waiting for his nurse, was pacing the room in his own accompaniment, pianissimo, of the Toreador Song from Carmen.
The latch clicked, cutting the minstrelsy off.
It was a quarter to twelve.
Walking toward the elevators, Christine said, "I'm glad we let him stay."
Peter seemed surprised. "Mr. Wells? Why wouldn't we?"
"Some places wouldn't. You know how they are: the least thing out of the ordinary, and no one can be bothered. All they want is people to check in, check out, and pay the bill - that's all."
"Those are sausage factories. A real hotel is for hospitality and succor if a guest needs it. The best ones started that way.
Unfortunately too many people in this business have forgotten."
She regarded him curiously. "You think we've forgotten here?"
"You're damn right we have! A lot of the time, anyway. If I had my way there'd be a good many changes . . ." He stopped, embarrassed at his own forcefulness. "Never mind. Most of the time I keep such traitorous thoughts to myself."
"You shouldn't, and if you do you should be ashamed." Behind Christine's words was the knowledge that the St. Gregory was inefficient in many ways and in recent years had coasted under the shadow of its former glories.