Hotel

The Duke had left his cigarettes in the car.

But if the Croydons had stayed in the suite, then merely walked around the block . . .

Of course, the cigarettes might have been left earlier in the day.

Somehow Peter didn't think so.

Oblivious of the other two, he concentrated.

Why did the Croydons wish to conceal the use of their car on Monday night? Why create an appearance - apparently false - of having spent the evening in the hotel? Was the complaint about spilled shrimp Creole a staged device - deliberately involving Natchez, then Peter - intended to uphold this fiction? Except for the Duke's chance remark, which angered the Duchess, Peter would have accepted it as true.

Why conceal the use of their car?

Natchez had said a moment ago: It's a funny thing ... the accident . .

. must have happened just before I had that bit of trouble.

The Croydons' car was a Jaguar.

Ogilvie.

He had a sudden memory of the Jaguar emerging from the garage last night.

As it stopped, momentarily under a light, there had been something strange. He recalled noticing. But what? With an awful coldness he remembered: it was the fender and headlight, both were damaged. For the first time the significance of police bulletins of the past few days struck home.

"Peter," Marsha said, "you've suddenly gone white."

He scarcely heard.

It was essential to get away, to be somewhere alone where he could think.

He must reason carefully, logically, unhurriedly. Above all, there must be no hasty, ready-made conclusions.

There were pieces of a puzzle. Superficially, they appeared to relate. But they must be considered, reconsidered, arranged, and rearranged. Perhaps discarded.

The idea was impossible. It was simply too fantastic to be true. And yet ...

As if from a distance, he heard Marsha's voice. "Peter! Something's wrong.

What is it?"

Sol Natchez, too, was looking at him strangely.

"Marsha," Peter said, "I can't tell you now. But I have to."

"Go where?"

"Back to the hotel. I'm sorry. I'll try to explain later."

Her voice showed disappointment. "I'd planned we'd have tea."

"Please believe me! It's important."

"If you must go, I'll drive you."

"No." Driving with Marsha would involve talking, explanations. "Please.

I'll call you later."

He left them standing, bewildered, looking after him.

Outside, on Basin Street, he hailed a cruising cab. He had told Marsha that he was going to the hotel but, changing his mind, he gave the driver the address of his apartment.

It would be quieter there.

To think. To decide what he should do.

It was approaching late afternoon when Peter McDermott summarized his reasoning.

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.