Arthur Hailey - Hotel

In all his reasoning, too, there remained the thought of Christine.

Within the space of a few days he and Christine seemed to have drawn closer together than at any time before. He remembered that his last thought before leaving for the Preyscott house last evening had been of Christine. Even now, he found himself anticipating keenly the sight and sound of her again.

Strange, he reflected, that he, who a week ago had been resolutely unattached, should feel torn at this moment between two women! Peter grinned ruefully as he paid for the coffee and rose to go home.

The St. Gregory was more or less on the way and instinctively his footsteps took him past it. When he reached the hotel it was a few minutes after one a.m..

There was still activity, he could see, within the lobby. Outside, St. Charles Avenue was quiet, with only a cruising cab and a pedestrian or two in sight. He crossed the street to take a short cut around the rear of the hotel. Here it was quieter still. He was about to pass the entry to the hotel garage when he halted, warned by the sound of a motor and the reflection of headlight beam approaching down the inside ramp. A moment later a low-slung black car swung into sight. It was moving fast and braked sharply, tires squealing, at the street. As the car stopped it was directly in a pool of light. It was a Jaguar, Peter noticed, and it looked as if a fender had been dented; on the same side there was something odd about the headlight too. He hoped the damage had not occurred through negligence in the hotel garage. If it had, he would hear about it soon enough.

Automatically he glanced toward the driver. He was startled to see it was Ogilvie. The chief house officer, meeting Peter's eyes, seemed equally surprised. Then abruptly the car pulled out of the garage and continued on.

Peter wondered why and where Ogilvie was driving; and why a Jaguar instead of the house officer's usual battered Chevrolet? Then, deciding that what employees did away from the hotel was their own business, Peter continued on to his apartment.

Later, he slept soundly.

2

Unlike Peter McDermott, Keycase Milne did not sleep well.

The speed and efficiency with which he obtained precise details of the Presidential Suite key had not been followed by equal success in having a duplicate made for his own use. The connections which Keycase established on arriving in New Orleans had proved less helpful than he expected. Eventually a locksmith on a slum street near the Irish Channel - whom Keycase was assured could be trusted - agreed to do the job, though grumbling at having to follow specifications instead of copying an existing key. But the new key would not be ready until midday Thursday, and the price demanded was exorbitant.

Keycase had agreed to the price, as he had agreed to wait, realizing there was no alternative. But the waiting was especially trying since he was aware that the passage of every hour increased his chances of being traced and apprehended.

Tonight before going to bed he had debated whether to make a new foray through the hotel in the early morning. There were still two room keys in his collection which he had not utilized - 449, the second key obtained at the airport Tuesday morning, and 803 which he had asked for and received at the desk instead of his own key 830. But he decided against the idea, arguing with himself that it was wiser to wait and concentrate on the larger project involving the Duchess of Croydon. Yet Keycase knew, even while reaching the decision, that its major motivation was fear.

In the night, as sleep eluded him, the fear grew stronger, so that he no longer attempted to conceal it from himself with even the thinnest veil of self-deception. But tomorrow, he determined, he would somehow beat fear down and become his own lion-hearted self once more.

He fell at length into an uneasy slumber in which he dreamed that a great iron door, shutting out air and daylight, was inching closed upon him.

He tried to run while a gap remained, but was powerless to move. When the door had closed, he wept, knowing it would never open again.

He awoke shivering, in darkness. His face was wet with tears.

3

Some seventy miles north of New Orleans, Ogilvie was still speculating on his encounter with Peter McDermott. Tlie initial shock had had an almost physical impact. For more than an hour afterward, Ogilvie had driven tensely, yet at times scarcely conscious of the Jaguar's progress, first through the city, then across the Pontchartrain Causeway, and eventually northward on Interstate 59.

His eyes moved constantly to the rear-view mirror. He watched each set of headlights which appeared behind, expecting them to overtake swiftly, with the sound of a pursuing siren. Ahead, around each turn of the road, he prepared to brake at imagined police roadblocks.

His immediate assumption had been that the only possible reason for Peter McDermott's presence was to witness his own incriminating departure. How McDermott might have learned of the plan, Ogilvie had no idea. But apparently he had, and the house detective, like the greenest amateur, had ambled into a trap.

It was only later, as the countryside sped by in the lonely darkness of early morning, that he began to wonder: Could it have been coincidence after all?

Surely, if McDermott had been there with some intent, the Jaguar would have been pursued or halted at a roadblock long before now. The absence of any such attempt made coincidence more likely, in fact almost certain.

At the thought, Ogilvie's spirits rose. He began to think gloatingly of the twenty-five thousand dollars which would be his at the journey's end.

He debated: Since everything had turned out so well thus far, would it be wiser to keep going? In just over an hour it would be daylight. His original plan had been to pull off the road and wait for darkness again before continuing. But there could be danger in a day of inaction. He was only halfway across Mississippi, still relatively close to New Orleans.

Going on, of course, would involve the risk of being spotted, but he wondered just how great the risk was. Against the idea was his own physical strain from the previous day. Already he was tiring, the urge to sleep strong.

It was then it happened. Behind him, appearing as if magically, was a flashing red light. A siren shrieked imperiously.

It was the very thing which for the past several hours he had expected to happen. When it failed to, he had relaxed. Now, the reality was a double shock.

Instinctively, his accelerator foot slammed to the floor. Like a superbly powered arrow, the Jaguar surged forward. The speedometer needle swung sharply . . . to 70, 80, 85. At ninety, Ogilvie slowed for a bend. As he did, the flashing red light drew close behind. The siren, which had stopped briefly, wailed again. Then the red light moved sideways as the driver behind pulled out to pass.

It was useless, Ogilvie knew. Even if he outdistanced pursuit now, he could not avoid others forewarned ahead. Resignedly, he let his speed fall off.

He had a momentary impression of the other vehicle flashing by: a long limousine body, light colored, a dim interior light and a figure bending over another. Then the ambulance was gone, its flashing red beacon diminishing down the road ahead.

The incident left him shaken and convinced of his own tiredness. He decided that no matter how the alternate risks compared, he must pull off and remain there for the day. He was now past Macon, a small Mississippi community which had been his objective for the first night's driving. A glimmer of dawn was beginning to light the sky. He stopped to consult a map and shortly afterward turned off the highway onto a complex of minor roads.

Soon the road surface had deteriorated to a rutted, grassy track. It was rapidly becoming light. Getting out of the car, Ogilvie surveyed the surrounding countryside.