Hotel

A dressing-table drawer yielded a jewelry box which he emptied into the suitcase, adding a movie camera, binoculars and a portable radio. He closed the case and carried it downstairs, then reopened it to add a silver bowl and salver. A tape recorder, which he noticed at the last moment, he carried out to the car in one hand, the larger case in the other.

In all, Keycase had been inside the house barely ten minutes. He stowed the case and recorder in the trunk of his car and drove away. Just over an hour later he had cached the haul in his motel room on Chef Menteur Highway, parked his car once more in its downtown location, and was walking jauntily back to the St. Gregory Hotel.

On the way, with a gleam of humor, he put the keys into a mail box, as the miniature license tag requested. No doubt the tag organization would fulfill its promise and return them to their owner.

The unexpected booty, Keycase calculated, would net him close to a thousand dollars.

He had a coffee and sandwich in the St. Gregory coffee shop, then walked to the Irish Channel locksmith's. The duplicate key to the Presidential Suite was ready and, despite the extortionate price demanded, he paid cheerfully.

Returning, he was conscious of the sun shining benevolently from a cloudless sky. That, and the morning's unexpected bounty, were plainly omens, portents of success for the major mission soon to come. His old assurance, Keycase found, plus a conviction of invincibility, had seeped quietly back.

Across the city, in leisurely disorder, the chimes of New Orleans were ringing the noon hour. Their melodies in counterpoint came dimly through the ninth-floor window - closed and sealed for effective air conditioning - of the Presidential Suite. The Duke of Croydon, unsteadily pouring a Scotch and soda, his fourth since mid-morning, heard the bells and glanced at his watch for confirmation of their message. He shook his head unbelievingly and muttered,

"That's all? . . . Longest day ... ever remember living."

"Eventually it will end." From a sofa where she had been attempting unsuccessfully to concentrate on W. H. Auden's Poems, his wife's rejoinder was less severe than most of her responses of the past several days. The waiting period since the previous night, with the awareness that Ogilvie and the incriminating car were somewhere to the north - but where? - had been a strain on the Duchess too. It was now nineteen hours since the Croydons' last contact with the chief house officer and there had been no word of a development of any kind.

"For God's sake! - couldn't the fellow telephone?" The Duke paced the living room agitatedly as he had, off and on, since early morning.

"We agreed there should be no communication," the Duchess reminded him, still mildly. "It's a good deal safer that way. Besides, if the car is hidden for the daytime, as we hoped, he's probably remaining out of sight."

The Duke of Croydon pored over an opened Esso road map, examining it as he had countless times already. His finger traced a circle around the area surrounding Macon, Mississippi. He said, half to himself, "It's close, still so infernally close. And all of today . . . just waiting . . .

waiting!" Moving away from the map, he muttered, "Fellow could be discovered."

"Obviously he hasn't been, or we would have heard one way or another."

Beside the Duchess was a copy of the afternoon "States-Item", she had sent their secretary down to the lobby for an early edition. As well, they had listened to hourly radio news broadcasts throughout the morning. A radio was turned on softly now, but the announcer was describing damage from a summer storm in Massachusetts and the preceding item had been a White House statement on Vietnam. Both the newspaper and earlier broadcasts had referred to the hit-and-run investigation, but merely to note that it was continuing and nothing new had come to light.

"There were only a few hours for driving last night," the Duchess continued, as if to reassure herself. "Tonight it will be different. He can start immediately it's dark and by tomorrow morning everything should be safe."

"Safe!" Her husband returned morosely to his drink. "I suppose it's the sensible thing to care about. Not what happened. That woman . . . the child. There were pictures . . . suppose you saw."

"We've been over that. It won't do any good again."

He appeared not to have heard. "Funeral today . . . this afternoon ...

at least could go."

"You can't, and you know you won't."

There was a heavy silence in the elegant, spacious room.

It was broken abruptly by the jangle of the telephone. They faced each other, neither attempting to answer. The muscles of the Duke's face jerked spasmodically.

The bell sounded again, then stopped. Through intervening doors they heard the voice of the secretary indistinctly, answering on an extension.