Albert Wells nodded cheerfully. “That’s right. There’s a few other things now, besides.”
“If you’ll pardon my curiosity,” Peter McDermott said, “other things such as what?”
“I’m not sure of all of it.” The little man shifted diffidently in his chair. “There’s a couple of newspapers, some ships, an insurance company, buildings, other bits ’n pieces. I bought a food chain last year. I like new things. It keeps me interested.”
“Yes,” Peter said, “I should imagine it would.”
Albert Wells smiled mischievously. “Matter of fact, there’s something I was going to tell you tomorrow, but I may as well do it now. I just bought this hotel.”
18
“Those are the gentlemen, Mr. McDermott.”
Max, the dining-room head waiter, pointed across the lobby where two men—one of them the police detective, Captain Yolles—were waiting quietly beside the hotel newsstand.
A moment or two earlier, Max had summoned Peter from the dining-room table where, with Christine, he was sitting in dazed silence after Albert Wells’ announcement. Both Christine and himself, Peter knew, had been too astounded either to grasp the news entirely or assess its implications. It had been a relief to Peter to be informed that he was required urgently outside. Hastily excusing himself, he promised to return later if he could. Captain Yolles walked toward him. He introduced his companion as Detective-Sergeant Bennett. “Mr. McDermott, is there some place handy we can talk?”
“This way.” Peter led the two men past the concierge’s counter into the credit manager’s office, unused at night. As they went in, Captain Yolles handed Peter a folded newspaper. It was an early edition of tomorrow’s Times-Picayune. A three-column head read:
CROYDON CONFIRMED U.K. AMBASSADOR
NEWS REACHES HIM IN CRESCENT CITY
Captain Yolles closed the office door. “Mr. McDermott, Ogilvie has been arrested. He was stopped an hour ago, with the car, near Nashville. The Tennessee State Police are holding him and we’ve sent to bring him back. The car is being returned by truck, under wraps. But from an investigation on the spot, there doesn’t seem much doubt it’s the one we want.”
Peter nodded. He was aware of the two policemen watching him curiously.
“If I seem a little slow catching on to all that’s happening,” Peter said, “I should tell you that I’ve just had something of a shock.”
“Concerning this?”
“No. The hotel.”
There was a pause, then Yolles said, “You may be interested to hear that Ogilvie has made a statement. He claims he knew nothing about the car being involved in an accident. All that happened, he says, is that the Duke and Duchess of Croydon paid him two hundred dollars to drive it north. He had that amount of money on him.”
“Do you believe that?”
“It might be true. Then again, it might not. We’ll know better after we’ve done some questioning tomorrow.”
By tomorrow, Peter thought, a good deal might be clearer. Tonight held a quality of unreality. He inquired, “What happens next?”
“We intend to pay a call on the Duke and Duchess of Croydon. If you don’t mind, we’d like you along.”
“I suppose … if you think it necessary.”
“Thank you.”
“There is one other thing, Mr. McDermott,” the second detective said. “We understand that the Duchess of Croydon gave some sort of written permission for their car to be taken from the hotel garage.”
“I was told that, yes.”
“It could be important, sir. Do you suppose anyone kept that note?”
Peter considered. “It’s possible. If you like, I’ll telephone the garage.”
“Let’s go there,” Captain Yolles said.
Kulgmer, the garage night checker, was apologetic and chagrined. “Don’t you know, sir, I said to myself I might need that piece of paper, just to cover me in case anything got asked. And if you’ll believe me, sir, I looked for it tonight before I remembered I must have thrown it out yesterday with the paper from my sandwiches. It isn’t really my fault, though, when you look at it fair.” He gestured to the glass cubicle from which he had emerged. “There’s not much space in there. No wonder things get mixed. I was saying just last week, if that place was only bigger. Now, you take the way I have to do the nightly tally …”
Peter McDermott interrupted, “What did the note from the Duchess of Croydon say?”
“Just that Mr. O. had permission to take away the car. I kind of wondered at the time …”
“Was the note written on hotel stationery?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you remember if the paper was embossed and had ‘Presidential Suite’ at the top?”
“Yes, Mr. McDermott, I do remember that. It was just like you said, and sort of a small size sheet.”
Peter told the detectives, “We have special stationery for that particular suite.”
The second detective queried Kulgmer, “You say you threw the note out with your sandwich wrappings?”
“Don’t see how it could have happened any other way. You see, I’m always very careful. Now, take what happened last year …”
“What time would that be?”
“Last year?”
The detective said patiently, “Last night. When you threw out the sandwich wrapping. What time?”
“I’d say around two in the morning. I usually start my lunch around one. Things have quieted down by then and …”
“Where did you throw them?”
“Same place as always. Over here.” Kulgmer led the way to a cleaners’ closet containing a garbage can. He removed the lid.
“Is there a chance of last night’s stuff still being in there?”
“No, sir. You see, this is emptied every day. The hotel’s fussy about that. That’s right, Mr. McDermott, isn’t it?”
Peter nodded.
“Besides,” Kulgmer said, “I remember the can was almost full last night. You can see there’s hardly anything in there now.”
“Let’s make sure.” Captain Yolles glanced at Peter for approval, then turned the garbage can upside down, emptying its contents. Though they searched carefully, there was no sign either of Kulgmer’s sandwich wrappings or the missing note from the Duchess of Croydon.
Kulgmer left them to attend to several cars entering and leaving the garage.
Yolles wiped his hands on a paper towel. “What happens to the garbage when it leaves here?”
“It goes to our central incinerator,” Peter informed him. “By the time it gets there, it’s in big trolleys, with everything from the whole hotel mixed up together. It would be impossible to identify any one source. In any case, what was collected from here is probably burned by now.”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter,” Yolles said. “All the same, I’d liked to have had that note.”
The elevator stopped at the ninth floor. As the detectives followed him out, Peter observed, “I’m not looking forward to this.”
Yolles reassured him, “We’ll ask a few questions, that’s all. I’d like you to listen carefully to the answers. It’s possible we might need you as a witness later.”
To Peter’s surprise, the doors of the Presidential Suite were open. As they approached, a buzz of voices could be heard.
The second detective said, “Sounds like a party.”
They stopped at the doorway and Peter depressed the bell push. Through a second, partially opened door inside, he could see into the spacious living room. There was a group of men and women, the Duke and Duchess of Croydon among them. Most of the visitors were holding drinks in one hand, notebooks or paper in another.
The Croydons’ male secretary appeared in the interior hallway. “Good evening,” Peter said. “These two gentlemen would like to see the Duke and Duchess.”
“Are they from the press?”
Captain Yolles shook his head.
“Then I’m sorry, it’s impossible. The Duke
is holding a press conference. His appointment as British Ambassador was confirmed this evening.”
“So I understand,” Yolles said. “All the same, our business is important.”
While speaking, they had moved from the corridor into the suite hallway. Now, the Duchess of Croydon detached herself from the group in the living room and came toward them. She smiled agreeably. “Won’t you come in?”
The secretary injected, “These gentlemen are not from the press.”
“Oh!” Her eyes went to Peter with a glance of recognition, then to the other two.
Captain Yolles said, “We’re police officers, madam. I have a badge but perhaps you’d prefer me not to produce it here.” He looked toward the living from where several people were watching curiously.
The Duchess gestured to the secretary who closed the living-room door.
Was it imagination, Peter wondered, or had a flicker of fear crossed the Duchess’s face at the word “police?” Imagined or not, she was in command of herself now.
“May I ask why you are here?”
“There are some questions, madam, that we’d like to ask you and your husband.”
“This is scarcely a convenient time.”
“We’ll do our best to be as brief as possible.” Yolles’ voice was quiet, but its authority unmistakable.
“I’ll inquire if my husband will see you. Please wait in there.”
The secretary led the way to a room off the hallway, furnished as an office. A moment or two later, as the secretary left, the Duchess re-entered, followed by the Duke. He glanced uncertainly from his wife to the others.
“I have informed our guests,” the Duchess announced, “that we shall be away no more than a few minutes.”
Captain Yolles made no comment. He produced a notebook. “I wonder if you’d mind telling me when you last used your car. It’s a Jaguar, I believe.” He repeated the registration number.
“Our car?” The Duchess seemed surprised. “I’m not sure what was the last time we used it. No, just a moment. I do remember. It was Monday morning. It’s been in the hotel garage since then. It’s there now.”
“Please think carefully. Did you or your husband, either separately or together, use the car on Monday evening?”
It was revealing, Peter thought, how, automatically, Yolles addressed his questions to the Duchess and not to the Duke.
Two spots of color appeared on the Duchess of Croydon’s cheeks. “I am not accustomed to having my word doubted. I have already said that the last occasion the car was used was on Monday morning. I also think you owe us an explanation as to what this is all about.”
Yolles wrote in his notebook.
“Are either of you acquainted with Theodore Ogilvie?”
“The name has a certain familiarity …”
“He is the chief house officer of this hotel.”
“I remember now. He came here. I’m not sure when. There was some query about a piece of jewelry which had been found. Someone suggested it might be mine. It was not.”
“And you, sir?” Yolles addressed the Duke directly. “Do you know, or have you had any dealings with, Theodore Ogilvie?”
Perceptibly, the Duke of Croydon hesitated. His wife’s eyes were riveted on his face. “Well …” He stopped. “Only as my wife has described.”
Yolles closed his notebook. In a quiet, level voice he asked, “Would it, then, surprise you to know that your car is at present in the State of Tennessee, where it was driven by Theodore Ogilvie, who is now under arrest? Furthermore, that Ogilvie has made a statement to the effect that he was paid by you to drive the car from New Orleans to Chicago. And, still further, that preliminary investigation indicates your car to have been involved in a hit-and-run fatality, in this city, last Monday night.”
“Since you ask,” the Duchess of Croydon said, “I would be extremely surprised. In fact it’s the most ridiculous series of fabrications I ever heard.”
“There is no fabrication, madam, in the fact that your car is in Tennessee and Ogilvie drove it there.”
“If he did so, it was without the authority or knowledge either of my husband or myself. Furthermore if, as you say, the car was involved in an accident on Monday night, it seems perfectly obvious that the same man took the car and used it for his own purposes on that occasion.”
“Then you accuse Theodore Ogilvie …”
The Duchess snapped, “Accusations are your business. You appear to specialize in them. I will, however, make one to the effect that this hotel has proved disgracefully incompetent in protecting the property of its guests.” The Duchess swung toward Peter McDermott. “I assure you that you will hear a great deal more of this.”
Peter protested, “But you wrote an authorization. It specified that Ogilvie could take the car.”
The effect was as if he had slapped the Duchess across the face. Her lips moved uncertainly. Visibly, she paled. He had reminded her, he realized, of the single incriminating factor she had overlooked.
The silence seemed endless. Then her head came up.
“Show it to me!”
Peter said, “Unfortunately, it’s been …”
He caught a gleam of mocking triumph in her eyes.
19
At last, after more questions and banalities, the Croydons’ press conference had ended.
As the outside door of the Presidential Suite closed behind the last to leave, pent-up words burst from the Duke of Croydon’s lips. “My God, you can’t do it! You couldn’t possibly get away with …”
“Be quiet!” The Duchess of Croydon glanced around the now silent living room. “Not here. I’ve come to mistrust this hotel and everything about it.”
“Then where? For God’s sake, where?”
“We’ll go outside. Where no one can overhear. But when we do, please behave less excitably than now.”
She opened the connecting door to their bedrooms where the Bedlington terriers had been confined. They tumbled out excitedly, barking as the Duchess fastened their leads, aware of what the sign portended. In the hallway, the secretary dutifully opened the suite door as the terriers led the way out.
In the elevator, the Duke seemed about to speak but his wife shook her head. Only when they were outside, away from the hotel and beyond the hearing of other pedestrians, did she murmur, “Now!”
His voice was strained, intense. “I tell you it’s madness! The whole mess is already bad enough. We’ve compounded and compounded what happened at first. Can you conceive what it will be like now, when the truth finally comes out?”
“Yes, I’ve some idea. If if does.”
He persisted, “Apart from everything else—the moral issue, all the rest—you’d never get away with it.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s impossible. Inconceivable. We are already worse off than at the beginning. Now, with this …” His voice choked.
“We are not worse off. For the moment we are better off. May I remind you of the appointment to Washington.”
“You don’t seriously suppose we have the slightest chance of ever getting there?”
“There is every chance.”
Preceded eagerly by the terriers, they had walked along St. Charles Avenue to the busier and brightly lighted expanse of Canal Street. Now, turning southeast toward the river, they affected interest in the colorful store windows as groups of pedestrians passed in both directions.
The Duchess’s voice was low. “However distasteful, there are certain facts that I must know about Monday night. The woman you were with at Irish Bayou. Did you drive her there?”
The Duke flushed. “No. She went in a taxi. We met inside. I intended afterward …”
“Spare me your intentions. Then, for all she knew, you could have come in a taxi yourself.”
“I hadn’t thought about it. I suppose so.”
“After I arrived—also by taxi, which can be confirmed if necessary—I noticed that when we went to our car, you had parke
d it well away from that awful club. There was no attendant.”
“I put it out of the way deliberately. I suppose I thought there was less chance of your getting to hear.”
“So at no point was there any witness to the fact that you were driving the car on Monday night.”
“There’s the hotel garage. When we came in, someone could have seen us.”
“No! I remember you stopped just inside the garage entrance, and you left the car, as we often do. We saw no one. No one saw us.”
“What about taking it out?”
“You couldn’t have taken it out. Not from the hotel garage. On Monday morning we left it on an outside parking lot.”
“That’s right,” the Duke said. “I got it from there at night.”
The Duchess continued, thinking aloud, “We shall say, of course, that we did take the car to the hotel garage after we used it Monday morning. There will be no record of it coming in, but that proves nothing. As far as we are concerned, we have not seen the car since midday Monday.”
The Duke was silent as they continued to walk. With a gesture he reached out, relieving his wife of the terriers. Sensing a new hand on their leash, they strained forward more vigorously than before.
At length he said, “It’s really quite remarkable how everything fits together.”
“It’s more than remarkable. It’s meant to be that way. From the beginning, everything has worked out. Now …”
“Now you propose to send another man to prison instead of me.”
“No!”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t do it, even to him.”
“As far as he is concerned, I promise you that nothing will happen.”
“How could you be sure?”
“Because the police would have to prove he was driving the car at the time of the accident. They can’t possibly do it, any more than they can prove it was you. Don’t you understand? They may know that it was one or the other of you. They may believe they know which. But believing is not enough. Not without proof.”
“You know,” he said, with admiration, “there are times when you are absolutely incredible.”