Hotel

As she often did for lunch, Christine had room service send a sandwich and coffee to her desk. During the course of it Warren Trent appeared, but stayed only to read the mail before setting out on one of his prowls of the hotel which, as Christine knew, might last for hours. Observing the strain in the hotel proprietor's face, she found herself concerned for him, and noticed that he walked stiflly, a sure sign that sciatica was causing him pain.

At half-past two, leaving word with one of the secretaries in the outer office, Christine left to visit Albert Wells.

She took an elevator to the fourteenth floor then, turning down the long corridor, saw a stocky figare approaching. It was Sam Jakubiec, the credit manager. As he came nearer, she observed that he was holding a slip of paper and his expression was dour.

Seeing Christine, he stopped. "I've been to see your invalid friend, Mr. Wells."

"If you looked like that, you couldn't have cheered him up much."

"Tell you the truth," Jakubiec said, "he didn't cheer me up either. I got this out of him, but lord knows how good it is. "

Christine accepted the paper the credit manager had been holding. It was a soiled sheet of hotel stationery with a grease stain in one comer. On the sheet, in rough sprawling handwriting, Albert Wells had written and signed an order on a Montreal bank for two hundred dollars.

"In his quiet sort of way," Jakubiec said, "he's an obstinate old cuss.

Wasn't going to give me anything at first. Said he'd pay his bill when it was due, and didn't seem interested when I told him we'd allow some extra time if he needed it."

"People are sensitive about money," Christine said. "Especially being short of it."

The credit man clucked his tongue impatiently. "Hell! Most of us are short of money. I always am. But people go around thinking it's something to be ashamed of when if they'd only level, a lot of the time they could be helped out."

Christine regarded the improvised bank draft doubtfully. "Is this legal?"

"It's legal if there's money in the bank to meet it. You can write a check on sheet music or a banana skin if you feel like it. But most people who have cash in their accounts at least carry printed checks.

Your friend Wells said he couldn't find one."

As Christine handed the paper back, "You know what I think," Jakubiec said, "I think he's honest and he has the money - but only just and he's going to put himself in a hole finding it. Trouble is, he already owes more than half of this two hundred, and that nursing bill is soon going to swallow the rest."

"What are you going to do?"

The credit manager rubbed a hand across his baldness.

"First of all, I'm going to invest in a phone call to Montreal to find out if this is a good check or a dud."

"And if it isn't good, Sam?"

"He'll have to leave - at least as far as I'm concerned. Of course, if you want to tell Mr. Trent and he says differently" - Jakubiec shrugged - "that's something else again."

Christine shook her head. "I don't want to bother W.T. But I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me before you do anything."

"Be glad to, Miss Francis." The credit manager nodded, then, with short vigorous steps, continued down the corridor.

A moment later Christine knocked at the door of room 1410.

It was opened by a uniformed, middle-aged nurse, serious-faced and wearing heavy horn-rimmed glasses. Christine identified herself and the nurse instructed, "Wait here, please. I'll inquire if Mr. Wells will see you."

There were footsteps inside and Christine smiled as she heard a voice say insistently, "Of course I'll see her. Don't keep her waiting."

When the nurse returned, Christine suggested, "If you'd like to have a few minutes off, I can stay until you come back."

"Well . . ." The older woman hesitated, thawing a little.

The voice from inside said, "You do that. Miss Francis knows what she's up to. If she didn't I'd have been a goner last night."

"All right," the nurse said. "I'll just be ten minutes and if you need me, please call the coffee shop."

Albert Wells beamed as Christine came in. The little man was reclining, diminutively, against a mound of pillows. His appearance - the scrawny figure draped by a fresh old-fashioned nightshirt - still conveyed the impression of a sparrow, but today a perky one, in contrast to his desperate frailness of the night before. He was still pale, but the ashen pallor of the previous day had gone. His breathing, though occasionally wheezy, was regular and apparently without great effort.

He said, "This is good of you to come 'n see me, miss."

"It isn't a question of being good," Christine assured him. "I wanted to know how you were."

"Thanks to you, much better." He gestured to the door as it closed behind the nurse. "But she's a dragon, that one."

"She's probably good for you." Christine surveyed the room approvingly.