The corridor was deserted and silent..
Keycase had already studied the hotel layout and the system of numbering rooms. Taking the key of 641 from an inside pocket, he held it casually in his hand and walked unhurriedly to where he knew the room to be.
The key was the first he had obtained at Moisant Airport. Keycase, above all else, had an orderly mind.
The door of 641 was in front of him. He stopped. No light from beneath. No sound from within. He produced gloves and slipped them on.
He felt his senses sharpen. Making no sound, he inserted the key. The key turned. The door opened noiselessly. Removing the key, he went in, gently closing the door behind him.
Faint shadows of dawn relieved the inside darkness. Keycase stood still, orienting himself as his eyes became accustomed to the partial light. The grayness was one reason why skilled hotel thieves chose this time of day to operate. The light was sufficient to see and avoid obstacles but, with luck, not to be observed. There were other reasons. It was a low-point in the life of any hotel—the night staff still on duty were less alert as the end of their shift approached. Day workers had not yet come on. Guests—even partyers and stay-out-lates—were back in their rooms and most likely to be sleeping. Dawn, too, gave people a sense of security, as if the perils of the night were over.
Keycase could see the shape of a dressing table directly ahead. To the right was the shadow of a bed. From the sound of even breathing, its occupant was well asleep.
The dressing table was the place to look for money first.
He moved cautiously, his feet exploring in an arc ahead for anything which might cause him to trip. He reached out, touching the dressing table as he came to it. Finger tips explored the top.
His gloved fingers encountered a small pile of coins. Forget it!—pocketing loose change meant noise. But where there were coins there was likely to be a wallet. Ah!—he had found it. It was interestingly bulky.
A bright light in the room snapped on.
It happened so suddenly, without any warning sound, that Keycase’s quick thinking—on which he prided himself—failed him entirely.
Reaction was instinctive. He dropped the wallet and spun around guiltily, facing the light.
The man who had switched on the bedside lamp was in pajamas, sitting up in bed. He was youngish, muscular, and angry.
He said explosively, “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”
Keycase stood, foolishly gaping, unable to speak.
Probably, Keycase reasoned afterward, the awakened sleeper needed a second or two himself to collect his wits, which was why he failed to perceive the initial guilty response of his visitor. But for the moment, conscious of having lost a precious advantage, Keycase swung belatedly into action.
Swaying as if drunkenly, he declaimed, “Wadya mean, wha’m I doin’? Wha’ you doin’ in my bed?” Unobtrusively, he slipped off the gloves.
“Damn you!—this is my bed. And my room!”
Moving closer, Keycase loosed a blast of breath, whiskey laden from his gargling. He saw the other recoil. Keycase’s mind was working quickly now, icily, as it always had. He had bluffed his way out of dangerous situations like this before.
It was important at this point, he knew, to become defensive, not continuing an aggressive tone, otherwise the legitimate room owner might become frightened and summon help. Though this one looked as if he could handle any contingency himself.
Keycase said stupidly, “Your room? You sure?”
The man in bed was angrier than ever. “You lousy drunk! Of course I’m sure it’s my room!”
“This ’s 614?”
“You stupid jerk! It’s 641.”
“Sorry ol’ man. Guess’s my mistake.” From under his arm Keycase took the newspaper, carried to convey the impression of having come in from the street. “Here’sa mornin’ paper. Special ’livery.”
“I don’t want your goddam newspaper. Take it and get out!”
It had worked! Once more the well-planned escape route had paid off.
Already he was on the way to the door. “Said I’m sorry, ol’ man. No need to get upset. I’m goin’.”
He was almost out, the man in bed still glaring. He used a folded glove to turn the doorknob. Then he had made it. Keycase closed the door behind him.
Listening intently, he heard the man inside get out of bed, footsteps pad to the door, the door rattle, the protective chain go on. Keycase continued to wait.
For fully five minutes he stood in the corridor, not stirring, waiting to hear if the man in the room telephoned downstairs. It was essential to know. If he did, Keycase must return to his own room at once, before a hue and cry. But there was no sound, no telephone call. The immediate danger was removed.
Later, though, it might be a different story.
When Mr. 641 awoke again in the full light of morning he would remember what had occurred. Thinking about it, he might ask himself some questions. For example: Why was it that even if someone arrived at the wrong room, their key fitted and they were able to get in? And once in, why stand in darkness instead of switching on a light? There was also Keycase’s initial guilty reaction. An intelligent man, wide awake, might reconstruct that part of the scene and perhaps reassess it. In any case there would be reason enough for an indignant telephone call to the hotel management.
Management—probably represented by a house detective would recognize the signs instantly. A routine check would follow. Whoever was in room 614 would be contacted and, if possible, the occupants of both rooms brought face to face. Each would affirm that neither had ever seen the other previously. The house dick would not be surprised, but it would confirm his suspicion that a professional hotel thief was at large in the building. Word would spread quickly. At the outset of Keycase’s campaign, the entire hotel staff would be alert and watchful.
It was likely, too, that the hotel would contact the local police. They, in turn, would ask the FBI for information about known hotel thieves who might be moving around the country. Whenever such a list came, it was a certainty that the name of Julius Keycase Milne would be on it. There would be photographs—police mug shots for showing around the hotel to desk clerks and others.
What he ought to do was pack up and run. If he hurried, he could be clear of the city in less than an hour.
Except that it wasn’t quite that simple. He had invested money—the car, the motel, his hotel room, the B-girl. Now, funds were running low. He must show a profit—a good one—out of New Orleans. Think again, Keycase told himself. Think hard.
So far he had considered the worst that could happen. Look at it the other way.
Even if the sequence of events he had thought of occurred, it might take several days. The New Orleans police were busy. According to the morning paper, all available detectives were working overtime on an unsolved hit-and-run case—a double killing the whole city was excited about. It was unlikely the police would take time out from that when, in the hotel, no crime had actually been committed. They’d get around to it eventually, though. They always did.
So how long did he have? Being conservative, another clear day; probably two. He considered carefully. It would be enough.
By Friday morning he could have cleaned up and be clear of the city, covering his tracks behind him.
The decision was made. Now, what next—at this moment? Return to his own room on the eighth floor, leaving further action until tomorrow, or carry on? The temptation not to continue was strong. The incident of a moment ago had shaken him far more—if he was honest with himself—than the same kind of thing ever used to. His own room seemed a safe and comfortable haven.
Then he decided grimly: he must go on. He had once read that when a military airplane pilot crashed through no fault of his own, he was at once sent up again before he could lose his nerve. He must follow the same principle.
The very first key he had obtained had failed him. Perhaps it was an omen, indicating that he should rev
erse the order and try the last. The Bourbon Street B-girl had given him 1062. Another omen!—his lucky two. Counting the flights as he went, Keycase ascended the service stairs.
The man named Stanley, from Iowa, who had fallen for the oldest sucker routine on Bourbon Street, was at last asleep. He had waited for the big-hipped blonde, hopefully at first, then, as the hours passed, with diminishing confidence plus a discomfiting awareness that he had been taken, but good. Finally, when his eyes would stay open no longer, he rolled over into a deep, alcoholic sleep.
He neither heard Keycase enter, nor move carefully and methodically around the room. He continued to sleep soundly as Keycase extracted the money from his wallet, then pocketed his watch, signet ring, gold cigarette case, matching lighter and diamond cuff links. He did not stir as Keycase, just as quietly, left.
It was mid-morning before Stanley from Iowa awoke, and another hour before he was aware—through the miasma of a whopping hangover—of having been robbed. When at length the extent of this new disaster penetrated, adding itself to his present wretchedness plus the costly and unproductive experience of the night before, he sat in a chair and blubbered like a child.
Long before then, Keycase cached his gains.
Leaving 1062, Keycase had decided it was becoming too light to risk another entry elsewhere, and returned to his own room, 830. He counted the money. It amounted to a satisfactory ninety-four dollars, mostly fives and tens, and all used bills which meant they could not be identified. Happily he added the cash to his own wallet.
The watch and other items were more complex. He had hesitated at first about the wisdom of taking them, but had given in to greed and opportunity. It meant, of course, that an alarm would be raised sometime today. People might lose money and not be certain how or where, but the absence of jewelry pointed conclusively to theft. The possibility of prompt police attention was now much more likely, and the time he had allowed himself might be lessened, though perhaps not. He found his confidence increasing, along with more willingness now to take risks if needed.
Among his effects was a small businessman’s valise—the kind you could carry in and out of a hotel without attracting attention. Keycase packed the stolen items in it, observing that they would undoubtedly bring him a hundred dollars from a reliable fence, though in real value they were worth much more.
He waited, allowing time for the hotel to awaken and the lobby to become reasonably occupied. Then he took the elevator down and walked out with the bag to the Canal Street parking lot where he had left his car the night before. From there he drove carefully to his rented room in the motel on Chef Menteur Highway. He made one stop en route, raising the hood of the Ford and pretending engine trouble while he retrieved the motel key hidden in the carburetor air filter. At the motel he stayed only long enough to transfer the valuables to another locked bag. On the way back to town he repeated the pantomime with the car, replacing the key. When he had parked the car—on a different parking lot this time—there was nothing, either on his person or in his hotel room, to connect him with the stolen loot.
He now felt so good about everything, he stopped for breakfast in the St. Gregory coffee shop.
It was afterward, coming out, that he saw the Duchess of Croydon.
She had emerged, a moment earlier, from an elevator into the hotel lobby. The Bedlington terriers—three on one side, two on the other—frisked ahead like spirited outriders. The Duchess held their leashes firmly and with authority, though her thoughts were clearly elsewhere, her eyes focused forward, as if seeing through the hotel walls and far beyond. The superb hauteur, her hallmark, was as evident as always. Only the observant might have noticed lines of strain and weariness in her face which cosmetics and an effort of will power had not obscured entirely.
Keycase stopped, at first startled and unbelieving. His eyes reassured him: it was the Duchess of Croydon. Keycase, an avid reader of magazines and newspapers, had seen too many photographs not to be sure. And the Duchess was staying, presumably, in this hotel.
His mind raced. The Duchess of Croydon’s gem collection was among the world’s most fabulous. Whatever the occasion, she never appeared anywhere without being resplendently jeweled. Even now his eyes narrowed at the sight of her rings and a sapphire clip, worn casually, which must be priceless. The Duchess’s habit meant that, despite precautions, there would always be a part of her collection close at hand.
A half-formed idea—reckless, audacious, impossible … or was it? … was taking shape in Keycase’s mind.
He continued watching as, the terriers preceding, the Duchess of Croydon swept through the St. Gregory lobby and into the sunlit street.
2
Herbie Chandler arrived early at the hotel, but for his own advantage, not the St. Gregory’s.
Among the bell captain’s sideline rackets was one referred to—in the many hotels where it existed—as “the liquor butt hustle.”
Hotel guests who entertained in their rooms, or even drank alone, often had an inch or two of liquor left in bottles at the time of their departure. When packing their bags, most of these guests refrained from including the liquor ends, either through fear of leakage or to avoid airline excess baggage charges. But human psychology made them balk at pouring good liquor away and usually it was left, intact, on dressing tables of the vacated rooms.
If a bellboy observed such a residue when summoned to carry a guest’s bags at checkout time, he was usually back within a few minutes to collect it. Where guests carried their own bags, as many preferred to do nowadays, the floor maid would usually notify a bellboy, who would cut her in on his eventual share of profit.
The dribs and drabs of liquor found their way to the corner of a basement storeroom, the private domain of Herbie Chandler. It was preserved as such through the agency of a storekeeper who, in turn, received help from Chandler with certain larcenies of his own.
The bottles were brought here, usually in laundry bags which bellboys could carry within the hotel without arousing comment. In the course of a day or two the amount collected was surprisingly large.
Every two or three days—more frequently if the hotel was busy with conventions—the bell captain consolidated his hoard, as he was doing now.
Herbie sorted the bottles containing gin into a single group. Selecting two of the more expensive labels, and employing a small well-worn funnel, he emptied the other miscellaneous brands into them. He ended with the first bottle full and the second three quarters full. He capped them both, putting the second bottle aside for topping up at the next consolidation. He repeated the process with bourbon, Scotch, and rye. In all, there were seven full bottles and several partial ones. A lonely few ounces of vodka he emptied, after a moment’s hesitation, into the gin.
Later in the day the seven full bottles would be delivered to a bar a few blocks from the St. Gregory. The bar owner, only mildly concerned with scruples about quality, served the liquor to customers, paying Herbie half the going price of regularly bottled supplies. Periodically, for those involved within the hotel, Herbie would declare a dividend—usually as small as he dared make it.
Recently the liquor butt hustle had been doing well, and today’s accumulation would have pleased Herbie if he had not been preoccupied with other thoughts. Late last night there had been a telephone call from Stanley Dixon. The young man had relayed his own version of the conversation between himself and Peter McDermott. He had also reported the appointment—for himself and his cronies—in McDermott’s office at four P.M. the following afternoon, which was now today. What Dixon wanted to find out was: Just how much did McDermott know?
Herbie Chandler had been unable to supply an answer, except to warn Dixon to be discreet and admit nothing. But, ever since, he had been wondering what exactly happened in rooms 1126–7 two nights earlier, and just how well informed—concerning the bell captain’s own part in it—the assistant general manager was.
It was another nine hours until four o’clock. They wou
ld, Herbie expected, pass slowly.
3
As he did most mornings, Curtis O’Keefe showered first and prayed afterward. The procedure was typically efficient since he came clean to God and also dried off thoroughly in a towel robe during the twenty minutes or so he was on his knees.
Bright sunshine, entering the comfortable air-conditioned suite, gave the hotelier a sense of well being. The feeling transferred itself to his loquacious prayers which took on the air of an intimate man-to-man chat. Curtis O’Keefe did not forget, however, to remind God of his own continuing interest in the St. Gregory Hotel.
Breakfast was in Dodo’s suite. She ordered for them both, after frowning at length over a menu, followed by a protracted conversation with room service during which she changed the entire order several times. Today the choice of juice seemed to be causing her the most uncertainty and she vacillated—through an exchange with the unseen order taker lasting several minutes—-over the comparative merits of pineapple, grapefruit, and orange. Curtis O’Keefe amusedly pictured the havoc which the prolonged call was causing at the busy room-service order desk eleven floors below.
Waiting for the meal to arrive, he leafed through the morning newspapers—the New Orleans Times-Picayune and an airmailed New York Times. Locally, he observed, there had been no fresh developments in the hit-and-run case that had eclipsed most other Crescent City news. In New York, he saw, on the Big Board, O’Keefe Hotels stock had slipped three quarters of a point. The decline was not significant—merely a normal fluctuation, and there was sure to be an offsetting rise when word of the chain’s new acquisition in New Orleans leaked out, as it probably would before too long.
The thought reminded him of the annoying two days he would have to wait for confirmation. He regretted that he had not insisted on a decision last night; but now, having given his word, there was nothing to do but bide his time patiently. He had not the least doubt of a favorable decision from Warren Trent. There could, in fact, be no possible alternative.