Arthur Hailey - Hotel

"We'll let them, then. I asked the cashier's office to send me a bill for room 1126-7. It's in the name of Stanley Dixon."

"It's here." Flora plucked a folder from several others on his desk.

"There's also an estimate from the carpenters' shop for damages in the suite. I put the two together."

He glanced over them both. The bill, which included several room service charges, was for seventy-five dollars, the carpenters' estimate for a hundred and ten. Indicating the bill, Peter said, "Get me the phone number for this address. I expect it'll be in his father's name."

There was a folded newspaper on his desk which he had not looked at until now. It was the morning Times-Picayune. He opened it as Flora went out and black headlines flared up at him. The hit-and-run fatality of the night before had become a double tragedy, the mother of the slain child having died in the hospital during the early hours of the morning. Peter read quickly through the report which amplified what the policeman had told them when he and Christine had been stopped at the roadblock. "So far," it revealed, "there are no firm leads as to the death vehicle or its driver. However, police attach credence to the report of an unnamed bystander that a "low black car moving very fast" was observed leaving the scene seconds after the accident." City and state police, the Times-Picayune added, were collaborating in a state-wide search for a presumably damaged automobile fitting this description.

Peter wondered if Christine had seen the newspaper report. Its impact seemed greater because of their own brief contact at the scene.

The return of Flora with the telephone number he had asked for brought his mind back to more immediate things.

He put the newspaper aside and used a direct outside line to dial the number himself. A deep male voice answered, "The Dixon residence."

"I'd like to speak to Mr. Stanley Dixon. Is he at home?"

"May I say who is calling, sir?"

Peter gave his name and added, "The St. Gregory Hotel."

There was a pause, and the sound of unhurried footsteps retreating, then returning at the same pace.

"I'm sorry, sir. Mr. Dixon, junior, is not available."

Peter let his voice take on an edge. "Give him this, message: Tell him if he doesn't choose to come to the telephone I intend to call his father directly."

"Perhaps if you did that . . ."

"Get on with it! Tell him what I said."

There was an almost audible hesitation. Then: "Very well, sir." The footsteps retreated again.

There was a click on the line and a sullen voice announced, "This's Stan Dixon. What's all the fuss?"

Peter answered sharply, "The fuss concerns what happened last night. Does it surprise you?"

"Who are you?"

He repeated his name. "I've talked with Miss Preyscott. Now I'd like to talk to you."

"You're talking now," Dixon said. "You got what you wanted."

"Not this way. In my office at the hotel." There was an exclamation which Peter ignored. "Four o'clock tomorrow, with the other three. You'll bring them along."

The response was fast and forceful. "Like hell I will! Whoever you are, buster, you're just a hotel slob and I don't take orders from you. What's more you'd better watch out because my old man knows Warren Trent."

"For your information I've already discussed the matter with Mr. Trent. He left it for me to handle, including whether or not we shall start criminal proceedings. But I'll tell him you prefer to have your father brought in.

We'll carry on from there."

"Hold it!" There was the sound of heavy breathing, then, with noticeably less belligerence, "I got a class tomorrow at four."

"Cut it," Peter told him, "and have the others do the same. My office is on the main mezzanine. Remember four o'clock sharp."

Replacing the telephone, he found himself looking forward to tomorrow's meeting.

8

The disarranged pages of the morning newspaper lay scattered around the Duchess of Croydon's bed. There was little in the news that the Duchess had not read thoroughly and now she lay back, propped against pillows, her mind working busily. There had never been a time, she realized, when her wits and resourcefulness were needed more.

On a bedside table a room-service tray had been used and pushed aside.

Even in moments of crisis the Duchess was accustomed to breakfasting well. It was a habit carried over from childhood at her family's country seat of Fallingbrook Abbey where breakfast had always consisted of a hearty meal of several courses, often after a brisk cross-country gallop.

The Duke, who had eaten alone in the living room, had returned to the bedroom a few moments earlier. He too had read the newspaper avidly as soon as it arrived. Now, wearing a belted scarlet robe over pajamas, he was pacing restlessly. Occasionally he passed a hand through his still disordered hair.

"For goodness sake, keep still!" The tenseness they shared was in his wife's voice. "I can't possibly think when you're parading like a stallion at Ascot."

He turned, his face lined and despairing in the bright morning light.

"What bloody good will thinking do? Nothing's going to change."

"Thinking always helps - if one does enough and it's the right kind. That's why some people make a success of things and others don't."

His hand went through his hair once more. "Nothing looks any better than it did last night."

"At least it isn't any worse," the Duchess said practically, "and that's something to be thankful for. We're still here - intact."

He shook his head wearily. He had had little sleep during the night. "How does it help?"

"As I see it, it's a question of time. Time is on our side. The longer we wait and nothing happens . . ." She stopped, then went on slowly, thinking aloud, "What we desperately need is to have some attention focused on you.

The kind of attention that would make the other seem so fantastic it wouldn't even be considered."

As if by consent, neither referred to their acrimony of the night before.

The Duke resumed his pacing. "Only thing likely to do that is an announcement confirming my appointment to Washington."

"Exactly-"

"You can't hurry it. If Hal feels he's being pushed, he'll blow the roof off Downing Street. The whole thing's damn touchy, anyway. . ."

"It'll be touchier still if .."

"Don't you think I bloody well know! Do you think I haven't thought we might as well give up!" There was a trace of hysteria in the Duke of Croydon's voice. He lit a cigarette, his hand shaking.

"We shall not give up!" In contrast to her husband, the Duchess's tone was crisp and businesslike. "Even prime ministers respond to pressure if it's from the right quarter. Hal's no exception. I'm going to call London."

"Why?"

"I shall speak to Geoffrey. I intend to ask him to do everything he can to speed up your appointment."

The Duke shook his head doubtfully, though not dismissing the idea out of hand. In the past he had seen plenty of evidence of the remarkable influence exerted by his wife's family. All the same he warned, "We could be spiking our own guns, old girl."

"Not necessarily. Geoffrey's good at pressure when he wants to be. Besides, if we sit here and wait it maybe worse still." Matching action to her words, the Duchess picked up the telephone beside the bed and instructed the operator, "I wish to call London and speak to Lord Selwyn." She gave a Mayfair number.

The call came through in twenty minutes. When the Duchess of Croydon had explained its purpose, her brother, Lord Selwyn, was notably unenthusiastic. From across the bedroom the Duke could hear his brother-in-law's deep protesting voice as it rattled the telephone diaphragm. "By golly, sis, you could be stirring a nest of vipers, and why do it? I don't mind telling you, Simon's appointment to Washington is a dashed long shot right now. Some of those in Cabinet feel he's the wrong man for the time. I'm not saying I agree, but there's no good wearing blinkers, is there?"