Arthur Hailey - Hotel

"No, Miss Francis; but he left a number. If it's an emergency I can reach him."

"It's an emergency. Tell Dr. Aarons room 1439, and to hurry, please. Ask how long he'll take to get here, then call me back."

Replacing the phone, Christine turned to the still-struggling figure in the bed. The frail, elderly man was breathing no better than before and she perceived that his face, which a few moments earlier had been ashen gray, was turning blue. The moaning which they had heard outside had begun again; it was the effort of exhaling, but obviously most of the sufferer's waning strength was being consumed by his desperate physical exertion.

"Mr. Wells," she said, trying to convey a confidence she was far from feeling, "I think you might breathe more easily if you kept perfectly still." The bellboy, she noticed, was having success with the window. He had used a coat hanger to break a seal on the catch and now was inching the bottom portion upward.

As if in response to Christine's words, the little man's struggles subsided. He was wearing an old-fashioned flannel nightshirt and Christine put an arm around him, aware of his scrawny shoulders through the coarse material. Reaching for pillows, she propped them behind, so that he could lean back, sitting upright at the same time. His eyes were fixed on hers; they were doe-like, she thought, and trying to convey gratitude. She said reassuringly, "I've sent for a doctor. He'll be here at any moment." As she spoke, the bellboy grunted with an extra effort and the window, suddenly freed, slid open wide. At once a draft of cool fresh air suffused the room. So the storm had moved south, Christine thought gratefully, sending a freshening breeze before it, and the temperature outside must be lower than for days. In the bed Albert Wells gasped greedily at the new air. As he did the telephone rang. Signaling the bellboy to take her place beside the sick man, she answered it.

"Dr. Aarons is on his way, Miss Francis," the operator announced. "He was in Paradis and said to tell you he'll be at the hotel in twenty minutes."

Christine hesitated. Paradis was across the Mississippi beyond Algiers.

Even allowing for fast driving, twenty minutes was optimistic. Also, she sometimes had doubts about the competence of the portly, Sazerac-drinking Dr. Aarons who, as house physician, lived free in the hotel in return for his availability. She told the operator, "I'm not sure we can wait that long. Would you check our own guest list to see if we have any doctors registered?"

"I already did that." There was a touch of smugness in the answer, as if the speaker had studied stories of heroic telephone operators and was determined to live up to them. "There's a Dr. Koenig in 221, and Dr. Uxbridge in 1203."

Christine noted the numbers on a pad beside the telephone. "All right, ring 221, please." Doctors who registered in hotels expected privacy and were entitled to it.

Once in a while, though, emergency justified a break with protocol.

There were several clicks as the ringing continued. Then a sleepy voice with a Teutonic accent answered, "Yes, who is it?"

Christine identified herself. "I'm sorry to disturb you, Dr. Koenig, but one of our other guests is extremely ill." Her eyes went to the bed. For the moment, she noticed, the blueness around the face had gone, but there was still an ashen-gray pallor, with breathing as difficult as ever. She added, "I wonder if you could come."

There was a pause, then the same voice, soft and agreeable: "My dearest young lady, it would be a matter of utmost happiness if, however humbly, I could assist. Alas, I fear that I could not." A gentle chuckle. "You see, I am a doctor of music, here in your beautiful city to 'guest conduct' - it is the word, I think - its fine symphony orchestra.

Despite the urgency, Christine had an impulse to laugh. She apologized,

"I'm sorry for disturbing you."

"Please do not concern yourself. Of course, if my unfortunate fellow guest becomes - how shall I put it? - beyond the help of the other kind of doctors, I could bring my violin to play for him." There was a deep sigh down the telephone. "What finer way to die than to an adagio by Vivaldi or Tartini - superbly executed."

"Thank you. I hope that won't be necessary." She was impatient now to make the next call.

Dr. Uxbridge in 1203 answered the telephone at once in a no-nonsense tone of voice. In reply to Christine's first question he responded, "Yes, I'm a doctor of medicinean internist." He listened without comment while she described the problem, then said tersely, "I'll be there in a few minutes."

The bellboy was still at the bedside. Christine instructed him, "Mr. McDermott is in the Presidential Suite. Go there, and as soon as he's free ask him to come here quickly." She picked up the telephone again.

"The chief engineer, please."

Fortunately there was seldom any doubt about the chief's availability.

Doc Vickery was a bachelor who lived in the hotel and had one ruling passion: the St. Gregory's mechanical equipment extending from foundations to the roof. For a quarter century, since leaving the sea and his native Clydeside, he had overseen the installation of most of it and, in lean times when money for replacement equipment was scarce, had a way of coaxing extra performance out of tired machinery. The chief was a friend of Christine's, and she knew that she was one of his favorites. In a moment his Scottish burr was on the line.

"Aye?"

In a few words she told him about Albert Wells. "The doctor isn't here yet, but he'll probably want oxygen. We've a portable set in the hotel, haven't we?"

"Aye, we've oxygen cylinders, Chris, but we use them just for gas welding."

"Oxygen is oxygen," Christine argued. Some of the things her father had told her were coming back. "It doesn't matter how you wrap it. Could you order one of your night people to have whatever's necessary sent up?"

The chief gave a grunt of agreement. "I will; and soon as I get my breeks on, lassie, I'll be along mysel'. If I don't, some clown will likely open an acetylene tank under your man's nose, and that'll finish him for sure."

"Please hurry!" She replaced the phone, turning back to the bed.

The little man's eyes were closed. No longer struggling, he appeared not to be breathing at all.

There was a light tap at the opened door and a tall, spare man stepped in from the corridor. He had an angular face, and hair graying at the temples. A dark blue suit, conservatively cut, failed to conceal beige pajamas beneath. "Uxbridge," he announced in a quiet, firm voice.

"Doctor," Christine said, "just this moment . ."

The newcomer nodded and from a leather bag, which he put down on the bed, swiftly produced a stethoscope. Without wasting time he reached inside the patient's flannel nightshirt and listened briefly to the chest and back. Then, returning to the bag, in a series of efficient movements he took out a syringe, assembled it, and snapped off the neck of a small glass vial. When he had drawn the fluid from the vial into the syringe, he leaned over the bed and pushed a sleeve of the nightshirt upward, twisting it into a rough tourniquet. He instructed Christine, "Keep that in place; hold it tightly."

With an alcohol swab Dr. Uxbridge cleansed the forearm above a vein and inserted the syringe. He nodded to the tourniquet. "You can release it now." Then, glancing at his watch, he began to inject the liquid slowly.

Christine turned, her eyes seeking the doctor's face. Without looking up, he informed her, "Aminophylline; it should stimulate the heart." He checked his watch again, maintaining a gradual dosage. A minute passed. Two. The syringe was half empty. So far there was no response.

Christine whispered, "What is it that's wrong?"

"Severe bronchitis, with asthma as a complication. I suspect he's had these attacks before."