Arthur Hailey - Hotel

He told himself: When you added something twenty, thirty, forty times; when every time the conclusion you arrived at was the same; when the issue was the kind of issue you were facing now; with all of this, your own responsibility was inescapable.

Since leaving Marsha an hour and a half ago, he had remained in his apartment. He had forced himself - subduing agitation and an impulse for haste - to think rationally, carefully, unexcitedly. He had reviewed, point by point, the accumulated incidents since Monday night. He had searched for alternatives of explanation, both for single happenings and the accumulation of them all. He found none that offered either consistency or sense, save the awful conclusion he had reached so suddenly this afternoon.

Now the reasoning had ended. A decision must be made.

He contemplated placing all that he knew and conjectured before Warren Trent. Then he dismissed the idea as being cowardly, a shirking of his own responsibility. Whatever was to be done, he must do alone.

There was a sense of the fitness of things to be served. He changed quickly from his light suit to a darker one. Leaving, he took a taxi the few blocks to the hotel.

From the lobby he walked, acknowledging salutations, to his office on the main mezzanine. Flora had left for the day. There was a pile of messages on his desk which he ignored.

He sat quietly for a moment in the silent office, contemplating what he must do. Then he lifted the telephone, waited for a line, and dialed the number of the city police.

13

The persistent buzzing of a mosquito, which had somehow found its way into the Jaguar's interior, woke Ogilvie during the afternoon. He came awake slowly and at first had difficulty remembering where he was. Then the sequence of events came back: the departure from the hotel, the drive in early morning darkness, the alarm - unfounded, his decision to wait out the day before resuming the journey north; and finally the rutted, grassy track with a cluster of trees at its end where he had concealed the car.

The hideaway had apparently been well chosen. A glance at his watch showed that he had slept, uninterrupted, for almost eight hours.

With consciousness also came intense discomfort. The car was stiffing, his body stiff and aching from confinement in the cramped rear seat. His mouth was dry and tasted foully. He was thirsty and ravenously hungry.

With grunts of anguish Ogilvie eased his bulk to a sitting position and opened the car door. Immediately, he was surrounded by a dozen more mosquitoes. He brushed them away, then glanced around, taking time to reorient himself, comparing what he saw now with his impressions of the place this morning. Then it had been barely light, and cool; now the sun was high and, even under the shade of the trees, the heat intense.

Moving to the edge of the trees he could see the distant main road with heat waves shimmering above it. Early this morning there had been no traffic. Now there were several cars and trucks, moving swiftly in both directions, the sound of their motors faintly audible.

Closer at hand, apart from a steady hum of insects, there was no sign of activity. Between himself and the main road were only drowsy meadows, the quiet path and the secluded clump of trees. Beneath the latter the Jaguar remained hidden.

Ogilvie relieved himself, then opened a package he had stowed in the trunk of the car before leaving the hotel. It included a Thermos of coffee, several cans of beer, sandwiches, a salad sausage, a jar of pickles, and an apple pie. He ate voraciously, washing down the meal with copious draughts of beer and, later, coffee. The coffee had cooled since the night before but was strong and satisfying.

While eating, he listened to the car radio, waiting for a newscast from New Orleans. When it came there was only a brief reference to the hit-and-run investigation, to the effect that no new developments had been reported.

Afterward, he decided to explore. A few hundred yards away, on the crest of a knoll, was a second clump of trees, somewhat larger than the first.

He crossed an open field toward it and, on the other side of the trees, found a mossy bank and a sluggish, muddy stream. Kneeling beside the stream, he made a rough toilet and afterward felt refreshed. The grass was greener and more inviting than where the car was sheltered and he lay down gratefully, using his suit coat for a pillow.

When he was comfortably settled, Ogilvie reviewed the events of the night and the prospect ahead. Reflection confirmed his earlier conclusion that the encounter with Peter McDermott outside the hotel had been accidental and could now be dismissed. It was predictable that McDermott's reaction, on learning of the chief house officer's absence, would be explosive. But that in itself would not reveal either Ogilvie's destination or his reason for departure.

Of course, it was possible that through some other cause an alarm had been raised since last night, and that even now Ogilvie and the Jaguar were being actively sought. But in light of the radio report it seemed unlikely.

On the whole, the outlook appeared bright, especially when he thought of the money already in safe keeping, and the remainder he would collect tomorrow in Chicago.

Now he had only to wait for darkness.

14

The exhilarated mood of Keycase Milne persisted through the afternoon.

It bolstered his confidence as, shortly after five p.m., he cautiously approached the Presidential Suite.

Once more he had used the service stairs from the eighth floor to the ninth. The duplicate key, manufactured by the Irish Channel locksmith, was in his pocket.

The corridor outside the Presidential Suite was empty. He stopped at the double leather-padded doors, listening intently, but could hear no sound.

He glanced both ways down the corridor then, with a single movement, produced the key and tried it in the lock. Beforehand he had brushed the key with powdered graphite, as a lubricant. It went in, caught momentarily, then turned. Keycase opened one of the double doors an inch.

There was still no sound from inside. He closed the door carefully and removed the key.

It was not his purpose now to enter the suite. That would come later.

Tonight.

His intention had been to reconnoiter and ensure that the key was a good fit, ready for instant use whenever he chose. Later he would begin a vigil, watching for an opportunity his planning had foreseen.

For now, he returned to his room on the eighth floor and there, after setting an alarm clock, slept.

15

Outside it was growing dusk and, excusing himself, Peter McDermott got up from his desk to switch on the office lights. He returned to face, once more, the quietly spoken man in gray flannel, seated opposite. Captain Yolles of the Detective Bureau, New Orleans Police, looked less like a policeman than anyone Peter had ever seen. He continued to listen politely, as a bank manager might consider an application for a loan, to Peter's recital of fact and surmise. Only once during the lengthy discourse had the detective interrupted, to inquire if he could make a telephone call.

Informed that he could, he used an extension on the far side of the office and spoke in a voice so low that Peter heard nothing of what was said.

The absence of any measurable response had the effect of reviving Peter's doubts. At the end, he observed, "I'm not sure all this, or even any of it, makes sense. In fact I'm already beginning to feel a little foolish."

"If more people took a chance on that, Mr. McDermott, it would make police work a lot easier." For the first time Captain Yolles produced pencil and notebook. "If anything should come of this, naturally we'll need a full statement. Meanwhile, there are a couple of details I'd like to have. One is the license number of the car."