Hotel

Yolles wrote in his notebook.

"Are either of you acquainted with Theodore Ogilvie?"

"The name has a certain familiarity . . ."

"He is the chief house officer of this hotel."

"I remember now. He came here. I'm not sure when. There was some query about a piece of jewelry which had been found. Someone suggested it might be mine. It was not."

"And you, sir?" Yolles addressed the Duke directly. "Do you know, or have you had any dealings with, Theodore Ogilvie?"

Perceptibly, the Duke of Croydon hesitated. His wife's eyes were riveted on his face. "Well. He stopped. "Only as my wife has described."

Yolles closed his notebook, in a quiet, level voice he asked, "Would it, then, surprise you to know that your car is at present in the State of Tennessee, where it was driven by Theodore Ogilvie, who is now under arrest? Furthermore, that Ogilvie has made a statement to the effect that he was paid by you to drive the car from New Orleans to Chicago. And, still further, that preliminary investigation indicates your car to have been involved in a hit-and-run fatality, in this city, last Monday night."

"Since you ask," the Duchess of Croydon said, "I would be extremely surprised. In fact it's the most ridiculous series of fabrications I ever heard."

"There is no fabrication, madam, in the fact that your car is in Tennessee and Ogilvie drove it there."

"If he did so, it was without the authority or knowledge either of my husband or myself. Furthermore if, as you say, the car was involved in an accident on Monday night, it seems perfectly obvious that the same man took the car and used it for his own purposes on that occasion."

"Then you accuse Theodore Ogilvie . . ."

The Duchess snapped, "Accusations are your business. You appear to specialize in them. I will, however, make one to the effect that this hotel has proved disgracefully incompetent in protecting the property of its guests." The Duchess swung toward Peter McDermott. "I assure you that you will hear a great deal more of this."

Peter protested, "But you wrote an authorization. It specified that Ogilvie could take the car."

The effect was as if he had slapped the Duchess across the face. Her lips moved uncertainly. Visibly, she paled. He had reminded her, he realized, of the single incriminating factor she had overlooked.

The silence seemed endless. Then her head came up.

"Show it to me!"

Peter said, "Unfortunately, it's been ..."

He caught a gleam of mocking triumph in her eyes.

19

At last, after more questions and banalities, the Croydons' press conference had ended.

As the outside door of the Presidential Suite closed behind the last to leave, pent-up words burst from the Duke of Croydon's lips. "My God, you can't do it! You couldn't possibly get away with ..."

"Be quiet!" The Duchess of Croydon glanced around the now silent living room. "Not here. I've come to mistrust this hotel and everything about it."

"Then where? For God's sake, where?"

"We'll go outside. Where no one can overhear. But when we do, please behave less excitably than now."

She opened the connecting door to their bedrooms where the Bedlington terriers had been confined. They tumbled out excitedly, barking as the Duchess fastened their leads, aware of what the sign portended. In the hallway, the secretary dutifully opened the suite door as the terriers led the way out.

In the elevator, the Duke seemed about to speak but his wife shook her head. Only when they were outside, away from the hotel and beyond the hearing of other pedestrians, did she murmur, "Now!"

His voice was strained, intense. "I tell you it's madness! The whole mess is already bad enough. We've compounded and compounded what happened at first. Can you conceive what it will be like now, when the truth finally comes out?"

"Yes, I've some idea. If it does."

He persisted, "Apart from everything else - the moral issue, all the rest - you'd never get away with it."

"Why not?"

"Because it's impossible. Inconceivable. We are already worse off than at the beginning. Now, with this . His voice choked."

"We are not worse off. For the moment we are better off. May I remind you of the appointment to Washington."

"You don't seriously suppose we have the slightest chance of ever getting there?"

"There is every chance."

Preceded eagerly by the terriers, they had walked along St. Charles Avenue to the busier and brightly lighted expanse of Canal Street, Now, turning southeast toward the river, they affected interest in the colorful store windows as groups of pedestrians passed in both directions.

The Duchess's voice was low. "However distasteful, there are certain facts that I must know about Monday night. The woman you were with at Irish Bayou. Did you drive her there?"

The Duke flushed. "No. She went in a taxi. We met inside. I intended afterward ..."

"Spare me your intentions. Then, for all she knew, you could have come in a taxi yourself."

"I hadn't thought about it. I suppose so."