Arthur Hailey - Hotel

Christine's reaction was of relief that the considerable expense of the private nursing had ended. She suspected that a realization of its cost had had a good deal to do with Albert Wells' decision.

As she followed him into the room, he asked, "Did you knock before?"

She admitted that she had.

"Had an idea I'd heard something. I guess my mind was on this." He pointed to a table near the window. On it was a large and intricate jigsaw puzzle, of which about two thirds was completed. "Or maybe," he added, "I thought it was Bailey."

Christine asked curiously, "Who's Bailey?"

The old man's eyes twinkled. "If you stay a minute, you'll meet him.

Leastways, either him or Barnum."

She shook her head, not understanding. Walking toward the window, she leaned over the jigsaw puzzle, inspecting it. There were sufficient pieces in place to recognize the scene depicted as New Orleans - the city at dusk, viewed from high above, with the shining river winding through. She said,

"I used to do these once, a long time ago. My father helped me."

Beside her, Albert Wells observed, "There are some who'd say it isn't much of a pastime for a grown man. Mostly, though, I set out one of these when I want to think. Sometimes I discover the key piece, and the answer to what I'm thinking about, around the same time."

"A key piece? I've never heard of that."

"It's just an idea of mine, miss. I reckon there's always one - to this, and most other problems you can name. Sometimes you think you've found it, and you haven't. When you do, though, all of a sudden you can see a whole lot clearer, including how other things fit in around."

Abruptly there was a sharp, authoritative knock at the outer door. Albert Wells' lips formed the word, "Bailey!"

She was surprised, when the door opened, to see a uniformed hotel valet. He had a collection of suits on hangers over one shoulder; in front he held a pressed blue serge suit which, from its old-fashioned cut, undoubtedly belonged to Albert Wells. With practiced speed the valet hung the suit in a closet and returned to the door where the little man was waiting. The valet's left hand held the suits on his shoulder; his right came up automatically, palm outstretched.

"I already took care of you," Albert Wells said. His eyes betrayed amusement. "When the suit was picked up this morning."

"Not me, you didn't, sir." The valet shook his head decisively.

"No, but your friend. It's the same thing."

The man said stoically, "I wouldn't know anything about that. "

"You mean he holds out on you?"

The outstretched hand went down. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on now!" Albert Wells was grinning broadly. "You're Bailey. I tipped Barnum."

The valet's eyes flickered to Christine. As he recognized her, a trace of doubt crossed his face. Then he grinned sheepishly. "Yes, sir." He went out, closing the door behind him.

"Now what in the world was all that about?"

The little man chuckled. "You work in a hotel, and don't know the Barnum and Bailey dodge?"

Christine shook her head,

"It's a simple thing, miss. Hotel valets work in pairs, but the one who picks up a suit is never the one who delivers it back. They figure it that way, so mostly they get tipped twice. Afterward they pool the tips and divvy up."

"I can see how it works," Christine said. "But I've never thought about it."

"Nor do most others. Which is why it costs them a double tip for the same service." Albert Wells rubbed his sparrow-beak nose ruminatively. "With me it's a kind of game - to see how many hotels there are where the same thing happens."

She laughed. "How did you find out?"

"A valet told me once - after I let him know I'd rumbled. He told me another thing. You know in hotels with dial telephones, from some phones you can dial rooms directly. So Barnum or Bailey - whichever one's which for that day - will dial the rooms he has deliveries for. If there's no answer, he waits and calls again later. If there is an answer - which means someone's in - he'll hang up without saying anything. Then a few minutes later he'll deliver your suit and pick up the second tip."

"You don't like tipping, Mr. Wells?"

"It isn't so much that, miss. Tipping's like dying; it's here to stay, so what good's worrying? Anyway I tipped Barnum well this morning - sort of paying in advance for the bit of fun I had with Bailey just now. What I don't like, though, is to be taken for a fool."

"I shouldn't imagine that happens often." Christine was beginning to suspect that Albert Wells needed a good deal less protection than she had at first supposed. She found him, though, as likeable as ever.

He acknowledged: "That's as maybe. There's one thing, though, I'll tell you. There's more of that kind of malarkey goes on in this hotel than most."

"Why do you think so?"

"Because mostly I keep my eyes open, miss, and I talk to people. They tell me things they maybe wouldn't you."

"What kind of things?"

"Well, for one, a good many figure they can get away with anything. It's because you don't have good management, I reckon. It could be good, but it isn't, and maybe that's why your Mr. Trent is in trouble right now."

"It's almost uncanny," Christine said. "Peter McDermott told me exactly the same thing - almost in those words." Her eyes searched the little man's face.

For all his lack of worldliness, he seemed to have a homespun instinct for getting at the truth.

Albert Wells nodded approvingly. "Now there's a smart young man. We had a talk yesterday."

This disclosure surprised her. "Peter came here?"

"That's right."

"I didn't know." But it was the kind of thing, she reasoned, that Peter McDermott would do - an efficient follow-up to whatever it was he was concerned with personally. She had observed before, his capacity for thinking largely, yet seldom omitting detail.

"Are you going to marry him, miss?"

The abrupt question startled her. She protested, "Whatever gave you that idea?" But to her embarrassment she felt her face was flushing.

Albert Wells chuckled. There were moments, Christine thought, when he had the mien of a mischieveous elf.

"I sort of guessed - by the way you said his name just now. Besides, I'd figured the two of you must see a lot of each other, both working where you do; and if that young man has the kind of sense I think, he'll find out he doesn't have to look much further."

"Mr. Wells, you're outrageous! You you read people's minds, then you make them feel terrible." But the warmth of her smile belied the reproof. "And please stop calling me 'miss.' My name is Christine."

He said quietly, "That's a special name for me. It was my wife's, too."

"Was?"

He nodded. "She died, Christine. So long ago, sometimes I get to thinking the times we had together never really happened. Not the good ones or the hard, and there were plenty of both. But then, once in a while, it seems as if all that happened was only yesterday. It's then I get weary, mostly of being so much alone. We didn't have children." He stopped, his eyes reflective. "You never know how much you share with someone until the sharing ends. So you and your young man - grab on to every minute there is.

Don't waste a lot of time; you never get it back."

She laughed. "I keep telling you he isn't my young man. At least, not yet."

"If you handle things right, he can be."

"Perhaps." Her eyes went to the partially completed jigsaw puzzle. She said slowly, "I wonder if there is a key piece to everything - the way you say.

And when you've found it, if you really know, or only guess, and hope."

Then, almost before she knew it, she found herself confiding in the little man, relating the happenings of the past - the tragedy in Wisconsin, her aloneness, the move to New Orleans, the adjusting years, and now for the first time the possibility of a full and fruitful life. She revealed, too, the breakdown of this evening's arrangements and her disappointment at the cause.