Arthur Hailey - Hotel

The money would have to be carried from the hotel. How?

Obviously, not in the attache case which he had brought here from the Duke and Duchess of Croydon's suite. Before anything else was done, that must be destroyed. Keycase set out carefully to do so.

The case was of expensive leather and well constructed. Painstakingly, he took it apart, then, with razor blades, cut it into tiny portions. The work was slow and tedious. Periodically, he stopped to flush portions down the toilet, spacing out his use of the toilet, so as not to attract attention from adjoining rooms.

It took more than two hours. At the end, all that remained of the attache case were its metal locks and hinges. Keycase put them in his pocket.

Leaving his room, he took a walk along the eighth-floor corridor.

Near the elevators were several sand urns. Burrowing into one with his fingers, he pushed the locks and hinges well down. They might be discovered eventually, but not for some time.

By then, it was an hour or two before dawn, the hotel silent. Keycase returned to his room where he packed his belongings, except for the few things he would need immediately before departure. He used the two suitcases he had brought with him on Tuesday morning. Into the larger, he stuffed the fifteen thousand dollars, rolled in several soiled shirts.

Then, still dazed and unbelieving, Keycase slept.

He had set his alarm clock for ten a.m., but either he slept through its warning or it failed to go off. When he awoke, it was almost 11: 30, with the sun streaming brightly into the room.

The sleep accomplished one thing. Keycase was convinced at last that the happenings of last night were real, not illusory. A moment of abject defeat had, with Cinderella magic, turned into shining triumph. The thought sent his spirits soaring.

He shaved and dressed quickly, then completed his packing and locked both suitcases.

He would leave the suitcases in his room, he decided, while he went down to pay his bill and reconnoiter the lobby.

Before doing so, he disposed of his surplus keys - for rooms 449, 641, 803, 1062, and the Presidential Suite. While shaving, he had observed a plumber's inspection plate low on the bathroom wall. Unscrewing the cover, he dropped the keys in. One by one he heard them strike bottom far below.

He retained his own key, 830, for handing in when he left his room for the last time. The departure of "Byron Meader" from the St. Gregory Hotel must be normal in every way.

The lobby was averagely busy, with no sign of unusual activity. Keycase paid his bill and received a friendly smile from the girl cashier. "Is the room vacant now, sir?"

He returned the smile. "It will be in a few minutes. I have to collect my bags, that's all."

Satisfied, he went back upstairs.

In 830 he took a last careful look around the room. He had left nothing; no scrap of paper, no unconsidered trifle such as a match cover, no clue whatever to his true identity. With a damp towel, Keycase wiped the obvious surfaces which might have retained fingerprints. Then, picking up both suitcases, he left.

His watch showed ten past twelve.

He held the larger suitcase tightly. At the prospect of walking through the lobby and out of the hotel, Keycase's pulse quickened, his hands grew clammy.

On the eighth-floor landing he rang for an elevator. Waiting, he heard one coming down. It stopped at the floor above, started downward once more, then stopped again. In front of Keycase, the door of number four elevator slid open.

At the front of the car was the Duke of Croydon.

For a horror-filled instant, Keycase had an impulse to turn and run. He mastered it. In the same split second, sanity told him that the encounter was accidental. Swift glances confirmed it. The Duke was alone. He had not even noticed Keycase. From the Duke's expression, his thoughts were far away.

The elevator operator, an elderly man, said, "Going down!"

Alongside the operator was the hotel bell captain, whom Keycase recognized from having seen him in the lobby. Nodding to the two bags, the bell captain inquired, "Shall I take those, sir?" Keycase shook his head.

As he stepped into the elevator, the Duke of Croydon and a beautiful blond girl eased nearer the rear to make room.

The gates closed. The operator, Cy Lewin, pushed the selector handle to "descend." As he did, with a scream of tortured metal, the elevator car plunged downward, out of control.

11

He owed it to Warren Trent, Peter McDermott decided, to explain personally what had occurred concerning the Duke and Duchess of Croydon.

Peter found the hotel proprietor in his main mezzanine office. The others who had been at the meeting had left. Aloysius Royce was with his employer, helping assemble personal possessions, which he was packing into cardboard containers.

"I thought I might as well get on with this," Warren Trent told Peter. "I won't need this office any more. I suppose it will be yours." There was no rancor in the older man's voice, despite their altercation less than half an hour ago.

Aloysius Royce continued to work quietly as the other two talked.

Warren Trent listened attentively to the description of events since Peter's hasty departure from St. Louis cemetery yesterday afternoon, concluding with the telephone calls, a few minutes ago, to the Duchess of Croydon and the New Orleans police.

"If the Croydons did what you say," Warren Trent pronounced, "I've no sympathy for them. You've handled it well." He growled an afterthought. "At least we'll be rid of those damn dogs."

"I'm afraid Ogilvie is involved pretty deeply."

The older man nodded. "This time he's gone too far. He'll take the consequences, whatever they are, and he's finished here." Warren Trent paused. He seemed to be weighing something in his mind. At length he said, "I suppose you wonder why I've always been lenient with Ogilvie."

"Yes," Peter said, "I have."

"He was my wife's nephew. I'm not proud of the fact, and I assure you that my wife and Ogilvie had nothing in common. But many years ago she asked me to give him a job here, and I did. Afterward, when she was worried about him once, I promised to keep him employed. I've never, really, wanted to undo that."

How did you explain, Warren Trent wondered, that while the link with Hester had been defective and tenuous, it was the only one he had.

"I'm sorry," Peter said. "I didn't know ...

"That I was ever married?" The older man smiled. "Not many do. My wife came with me to this hotel. We were both young. She died soon after. It all seems a long time ago."

It was a reminder, Warren Trent thought, of the loneliness he had endured across the years, and of the greater loneliness soon to come.

Peter said, "Is there anything I can .."

Without warning, the door from the outer office flew open. Christine stumbled in. She had been running, and had lost a shoe. She was breathless, her hair awry. She barely got the words out.

"There's been . . . terrible accident! One of the elevators. I was in the lobby . . . It's horrible! People are trapped ... They're screaming."

At the doorway, already on the run, Peter McDermott brushed her aside.

Aloysius Royce was close behind.

12

Three things should have saved number four elevator from disaster.

One was an overspeed governor on the elevator car. It was set to trip when the car's speed exceeded a prescribed safety limit.

On number four - though the defect had not been noticed - the governor was operating late.

A second device comprised four safety clamps. Immediately the governor tripped, these should have seized the elevator guide rails, halting the car. in fact, on one side of the car two clamps held. But on the other side - due to delayed response of the governor, and because the machinery was old and weakened - the clamps failed.