“Could be seen any time. We got to take a chance on bein’ lucky.”
“If you get away—clear of New Orleans—how far will you go?”
“Be light by six. Figure I’ll be in Miss’sippa. Most likely ’round Macon.”
“That isn’t far,” the Duchess protested. “Only halfway up Mississippi. Not a quarter of the way to Chicago.”
The fat man shifted in his chair, which creaked in protest. “You reckon I should go speedin’? Break a few records? Maybe get some ticket-happy cop tailin’ me?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’m merely concerned to have the car as far from New Orleans as possible. What will you do during the day?”
“Pull off. Lie low. Plenty places in Miss’sippa.”
“And then?”
“Soon’s it’s dark, I hi’ tail it. Up through Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana.”
“When will it be safe? Really safe.”
“Indiana, I reckon.”
“And you’ll stop in Indiana Friday?”
“I guess.”
“So that you’ll reach Chicago Saturday?”
“Sat’day mornin’.”
“Very well,” the Duchess said. “My husband and I will fly to Chicago Friday night. We shall register at the Drake Hotel and wait there until we hear from you.”
The Duke was looking at his hands, avoiding Ogilvie’s eyes.
The house detective said flatly, “You’ll hear.”
“Is there anything you need?”
“I best have a note to the garage. Case I need it. Sayin’ I kin take your car.”
“I’ll write it now.” The Duchess crossed the room to a secretaire. She wrote quickly and a moment later returned with a sheet of hotel stationery, folded. “This should do.”
Without looking at the paper, Ogilvie placed it in an inside pocket. His eyes remained fixed on the Duchess’s face.
There was an awkward silence. She said uncertainly, “It isn’t what you wanted?”
The Duke of Croydon rose and walked stiffly away. Turning his back, he said testily, “It’s the money. He wants money.”
Ogilvie’s fleshy features shaped themselves into a smirk.
“That’s it, Duchess. Ten thousan’ now, like we said. Fifteen more in Chicago, Sat’day.”
The Duchess’s jeweled fingers went swiftly to her temples in a distracted gesture. “I don’t know how … I’d forgotten. There’s been so much else.”
“Don’t matter none. I woulda remembered.”
“It will have to be this afternoon. Our bank must arrange …”
“In cash,” the fat man said. “Nothing bigger’n twenties, an’ not new bills.”
She looked at him sharply. “Why?”
“Ain’t traceable that way.”
“You don’t trust us?”
He shook his head. “In somethin’ like this, it ain’t smart to trust anybody.”
“Then why should we trust you?”
“I got another fifteen grand ridin’.” The odd falsetto voice held an undertone of impatience. “An’ remember—that’s to be cash too, an’ banks don’t open Sat’day.”
“Suppose,” the Duchess said, “that in Chicago we didn’t pay you.”
There was no longer a smile, or even an imitation of one. “I’m sure glad you brought that up,” Ogilvie said. “Just so’s we understand each other.”
“I think I understand, but tell me.”
“What’ll happen in Chicago, Duchess, is this. I’ll stash the car some place, though you won’t know where. I come to the hotel, collect the fifteen g’s. When I done that, you get the keys ’n I tell you where the car is.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“I’m gettin’ to it.” The little pig’s eyes gleamed. “Anythin’ goes wrong—like f’ rinstance you say there’s no cash ‘cos you forgot the banks wasn’t open, I holler cops—right there in Chicago.”
“You’d have a good deal of explaining to do yourself. For example, how you came to drive the car north.”
“No mystery about that. All I’d say is, you paid me a couple hundred—I’d have it on me—to bring the car up. You said it was too far. You and the Duke here wanted to fly. Weren’t until I got to Chicago an’ took a good look at the car, I figured things out. So …” The enormous shoulders shrugged.
“We have no intention,” the Duchess of Croydon assured him, “of failing to keep our part of the bargain. But like you, I wanted to be sure we understood each other.”
Ogilvie nodded. “I reckon we do.”
“Come back at five,” the Duchess said. “The money will be ready.”
When Ogilvie had gone, the Duke of Croydon returned from his self-imposed isolation across the room. There was a tray of glasses and bottles on a sideboard, replenished since last night. Pouring a stiff Scotch, he splashed in soda and tossed the drink down.
The Duchess said acidly, “You’re beginning early again, I see.”
“It’s a cleansing agent.” He poured himself a second drink, though this time sipping it more slowly. “Being in the same room with that man makes me feel dirty.”
“Obviously he’s less particular,” his wife said. “Otherwise he might object to the company of a drunken child killer.”
The Duke’s face was white. His hands trembled as he put the drink down. “That’s below the belt, old girl.”
She added, “Who also ran away.”
“By God!—you shan’t get away with that.” It was an angry shout. His hands clenched and for an instant it seemed as if he might strike out. “You were the one!—the one who pleaded to drive on, and afterward not go back. But for you, I would have! It would do no good, you said; what was done was done. Even yesterday I’d have gone to the police. You were against it! So now we have him, that … that leper who’ll rob us of every last vestige …” The voice tailed off.
“Am I to assume,” the Duchess inquired, “that you’ve completed your hysterical outburst?” There was no answer, and she continued, “May I remind you that you’ve needed remarkably little persuasion to act precisely as you have. Had you wished or intended to do otherwise, no opinion of mine need have mattered in the least. As for leprosy, I doubt you’ll contract it since you’ve carefully stood aside, leaving all that had to be done with that man, to be done by me.”
Her husband sighed. “I should have known better than to argue. I’m sorry.”
“If argument’s necessary to straighten your thinking,” she said indifferently, “I’ve no objection.”
The Duke had retrieved his drink and turned the glass idly in his hand. “It’s a funny thing,” he said. “I had the feeling for a while that all this, bad as it was, had brought us together.”
The words were so obviously an appeal that the Duchess hesitated. For her, too, the session with Ogilvie had been humiliating and exhausting. She had a longing, deep within, for a moment’s tranquillity.
Yet, perversely, the effort of conciliation was beyond her. She answered, “If it has, I’m not aware of it.” Then, more astringently: “In any case, we’ve scarcely time for sentimentality.”
“Right!” As if his wife’s words were a signal, the Duke downed his drink and poured another.
She observed scathingly, “I’d be obliged if you’d at least retain consciousness. I assume I shall have to deal with the bank, but there may be papers they’ll require you to sign.”
7
Two self-imposed tasks faced Warren Trent, and neither was palatable.
The first was to confront Tom Earlshore with Curtis O’Keefe’s accusation of the night before. “He’s bleeding you white,” O’Keefe had declared of the elderly head barman. And: “From the look of things it’s been going on a long time.”
As promised, O’Keefe had documented his charge. Shortly after ten A.M., a report—with specific details of observations, dates and times—was delivered to Warren Trent by a young man who introduced himself as Sean Hall of the O’Keefe
Hotels Corporation. The young man, who had come directly to Warren Trent’s fifteenth-floor suite, seemed embarrassed. The hotel proprietor thanked him and settled down to read the seven-page report.
He began grimly, a mood which deepened as he read on. Not only Tom Earlshore’s, but other names of trusted employees appeared in the investigators’ findings. It was distressingly apparent to Warren Trent that he was being cheated by the very men and women whom he had relied on most, including some who, like Tom Earlshore, he had considered personal friends. It was obvious, too, that throughout the hotel the depredation must be even more extensive than was documented here.
Folding the typewritten sheets carefully, he placed them in an inside pocket of his suit.
He knew that if he allowed himself, he could become enraged, and would expose and castigate, one by one, those who had betrayed his trust. There might even be a melancholy satisfaction in doing so.
But excessive anger was an emotion which nowadays left him drained. He would personally confront Tom Earlshore, he decided, but no one else.
The report, however, Warren Trent reflected, had had one useful effect. It released him from an obligation.
Until last night a good deal of his thinking about the St. Gregory had been conditioned by a loyalty which he assumed he owed to the hotel’s employees. Now, by the revealed disloyalty to himself, he was freed from this restraint.
The effect was to open up a possibility, which earlier he had shunned, for maintaining his own control of the hotel. Even now the prospect was still distasteful, which was why he decided to take the lesser of the two unpleasant steps and seek out Tom Earlshore first.
The Pontalba Lounge was on the hotel’s main floor, accessible from the lobby through double swing doors ornamented in leather and bronze. Inside, three carpeted steps led down to an L-shaped area containing tables and booths with comfortable, upholstered seating.
Unlike most cocktail lounges, the Pontalba was brightly lighted. This meant that patrons could observe each other as well as the bar itself, which extended across the junction of the L. In front of the bar were a half-dozen padded stools for unaccompanied drinkers who could, if they chose, pivot their seats around to survey the field.
It was twenty-five minutes before noon when Warren Trent entered from the lobby. The lounge was quiet, with only a youth and a girl in one of the booths and two men with lapel convention badges talking in low voices at a table nearby. The usual press of lunchtime drinkers would begin arriving in another fifteen minutes, after which the opportunity to speak quietly to anyone would be gone. But ten minutes, the hotel proprietor reasoned, should be sufficient for what he had come to do.
Observing him, a waiter hurried forward but was waved away. Tom Earlshore, Warren Trent observed, was behind the bar with his back to the room and intent upon a tabloid newspaper he had spread out on the cash register. Warren Trent walked stiffly across and occupied one of the bar stools. He could see now that what the elderly bartender was studying was a Racing Form.
He said, “Is that the way you’ve been using my money?”
Earlshore wheeled, his expression startled. It changed to mild surprise, then apparent pleasure as he realized the identity of his visitor.
“Why, Mr. Trent, you sure give a fellow the jumps.” Tom Earlshore deftly folded the Racing Form, stuffing it into a rear pants pocket. Beneath his domed bald head, with its Santa Claus fringe of white hair, the seamed leathery face creased into a smile. Warren Trent wondered why he had never before suspected it was an ingratiating smile.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen you in here, Mr. Trent. Too long.”
“You’re not complaining, are you?”
Earlshore hesitated. “Well, no.”
“I should have thought that being left alone has given you a lot of opportunities.”
A fleeting shadow of doubt crossed the head barman’s face. He laughed as if to reassure himself. “You always liked your little joke, Mr. Trent. Oh, while you’re in there’s something I’ve got to show you. Been meaning to come in to your office, but never got around to it.” Earlshore opened a drawer beneath the bar and took out an envelope from which he extracted a colored snapshot. “This is one of Derek—that’s my third grandchild. Healthy young tyke—like his mother, thanks to what you did for her a long time ago. Ethel—that’s my daughter, you remember—often asks after you; always sends her best wishes, same as the rest of us at home.” He put the photograph on the bar.
Warren Trent picked it up and deliberately, without looking down, handed it back.
Tom Earlshore said uncomfortably, “Is anything wrong, Mr. Trent?” When there was no answer: “Can I mix you something?”
About to refuse, he changed his mind. “A Ramos gin fizz.”
“Yessir! Coming right up!” Tom Earlshore reached swiftly for the ingredients. It had always been a pleasure to watch him at work. Sometimes in the past, when Warren Trent entertained guests in his suite, he would have Tom come up to handle drinks, mostly because his bartending was a performance which matched the quality of his potions. He had an organized economy of movement and the swift dexterity of a juggler. He exercised his skill now, placing the drink before the hotel proprietor with a final flourish.
Warren Trent sipped and nodded.
Earlshore asked, “It’s all right?”
“Yes,” Warren Trent said. “It’s as good as any you’ve ever made.” His eyes met Earlshore’s. “I’m glad of that because it’s the last drink you’ll ever mix in my hotel.”
The uneasiness had changed to apprehension. Earlshore’s tongue touched his lips nervously. “You don’t mean that, Mr. Trent. You couldn’t mean it.”
Ignoring the remark, the hotel proprietor pushed his glass away. “Why did you do it, Tom? Of all people why did it have to be you?”
“I swear to God I don’t know …”
“Don’t con me, Tom. You’ve done that long enough.”
“I tell you, Mr. Trent …”
“Stop lying!” The snapped command cut sharply through the quietness.
Within the lounge the peaceful hum of conversation stopped. Watching the alarm in the barman’s shifting eyes, Warren Trent guessed that behind him heads were turning. He was conscious of a rising anger he had intended to control.
Earlshore swallowed. “Please, Mr. Trent. I’ve worked here thirty years. You’ve never talked to me like this.” His voice was barely audible.
From the inside jacket pocket where he had placed it earlier, Warren Trent produced the O’Keefe investigators’ report. He turned two pages and folded back a third, covering a portion with his hand. He instructed, “Read!”
Earlshore fumbled with glasses and put them on. His hands were trembling. He read a few lines then stopped. He looked up. There was no denial now. Only the instinctive fear of a cornered animal.
“You can’t prove anything.”
Warren Trent slammed his hand upon the surface of the bar. Uncaring of his own raised voice, he let his rage erupt. “If I choose to, I can. Make no mistake of that. You’ve cheated and you’ve stolen, and like all cheats and thieves you’ve left a trail behind you.”
In an agony of apprehension Tom Earlshore sweated. It was as if suddenly, with explosive violence, his world which he had believed secure had split apart. For more years than he could remember he had defrauded his employer—to a point where he had long ago become convinced of his own invulnerability. In his worst forebodings he had never believed this day could come. Now he wondered fearfully if the hotel owner had any idea how large the accumulated loot had been.
Warren Trent’s forefinger stabbed the document between them on the bar. “These people smelled out the corruption because they didn’t make the mistake—my mistake—of trusting you, believing you a friend.” Momentarily emotion stopped him. He continued, “But if I dug, I’d find evidence. There’s plenty more besides what’s here. Isn’t there?”
Abjectly Tom Earlshore nodded.
&nb
sp; “Well, you needn’t worry; I don’t intend to prosecute. If I did, I’d feel I was destroying something of myself.”
A flicker of relief crossed the elderly barman’s face; he tried, as quickly, to conceal it. He pleaded, “I swear if you’ll give me another chance it’ll never happen again.”
“You mean that now you’ve been caught—after years of thievery and deceit—you’ll kindly stop stealing.”
“It’ll be hard for me, Mr. Trent—to get another job at my time. I’ve a family ….”
Warren Trent said quietly, “Yes, Tom. I remember that.”
Earlshore had the grace to blush. He said awkwardly, “The money I earned here—this job by itself was never enough. There were always bills; things for the children …”
“And the bookmakers, Tom. Let’s not forget them. The bookmakers were always after you, weren’t they?—wanting to be paid.” It was a random shot but Earlshore’s silence showed it had found a target.
Warren Trent said brusquely, “There’s been enough said. Now get out of the hotel and don’t ever come here again.”
More people were entering the Pontalba Lounge now, coming in through the doorway from the lobby. The hum of conversation had resumed, its volume rising. A young assistant bartender had arrived behind the bar and was dispensing drinks which waiters were collecting. He studiedly avoided looking at his employer and former superior.
Tom Earlshore blinked. Unbelievingly he protested, “The lunchtime trade …”
“It’s no concern of yours. You don’t work here any more.”
Slowly, as the inevitability penetrated, the ex-head barman’s expression changed. His earlier mask of deference slipped away. A twisted grin took its place as he declared, “All right, I’ll go. But you won’t be far behind, Mr. High-and-Mighty Trent, because you’re getting thrown out too, and everybody around here knows it.”
“Just what do they know?”
Earlshore’s eyes gleamed. “They know you’re a useless, washed-up old half-wit who couldn’t manage the inside of a paper bag, never mind a hotel. It’s the reason you’ll lose this place for dead damned sure, and when you do I’m one of a good many who’ll laugh their guts out.” He hesitated, breathing heavily, his mind weighing the consequences of caution and recklessness. The urge to retaliate won out. “For more years’n I remember, you acted like you owned everybody in this place. Well, maybe you did pay a few more cents in wages than some others, and hand out bits of charity the way you did to me, making like Jesus Christ and Moses rolled in one. But you didn’t fool any of us. You paid the wages to keep out the unions, and the charity made you feel great, so people knew it was more for you than for them. That’s when they laughed at you, and took care of themselves the way I did. Believe me, there’s been plenty going on—stuff you’ll never learn about.” Earlshore stopped, his face revealing a suspicion he had gone too far.