Hotel

"Hang onto that black suit, son! You can get a job helping out at funerals." For the first time Dr. Ingram chuckled. "Despite everything, McDermott, I like you. Got any teeth need fixing?"

Peter shook his head. "If you don't mind, I'd sooner know what your plans are. As soon as possible." There would be immediate things to do, once the cancellation was confirmed. The loss to the hotel was going to be disastrous, as Royall Edwards had pointed out at lunch. But at least some of the preparations for tomorrow and the next day could be halted at once.

Dr. Ingram said crisply, "You've leveled with me; I'll do the same for you.

I've called an emergency executive session for five this afternoon." He glanced at his watch. "That's in two and a half hours. Most of our senior officers will have arrived by then."

"No doubt we'll be in touch."

Dr. Ingram nodded. His grimness had returned. "Because we've relaxed a minute, McDermott, don't let it fool you. Nothing has changed since this morning, and I intend to kick you people where it hurts."

11

Surprisingly, Warren Trent reacted almost with indifference to the news that the Congress of American Dentistry might abandon its convention and stage a protest withdrawal from the hotel.

Peter McDermott had gone immediately to the main mezzanine executive suite after leaving Dr. Ingram. Christine - a trifle coolly, he thought - had told him the hotel proprietor was in.

Warren Trent, Peter sensed, was noticeably less tense than on other occasions recently. At ease behind the black marble-topped desk in the sumptuous managing director's office, he betrayed none of the irascibility so apparent the previous day. There were moments, while listening to Peter's report, that a slight smile played around his lips, though it seemed to have little to do with events on hand. It was rather, Peter thought, as if his employer were savoring some private pleasure known only to himself.

At the end, the hotel proprietor shook his head decisively. "They won't go. They'll talk, but that will be the end of it."

"Dr. Ingram seems quite serious."

"He maybe, but others won't. You say there's a meeting this afternoon; I can tell you what will happen. They'll debate around for a while, then there'll be a committee formed to draft a resolution. Later - tomorrow probably - the committee will report back to the executive. They may accept the report, they may amend it; either way they'll talk some more.

Later still - perhaps the next day - the resolution will be debated on the convention floor. I've seen it all before - the great democratic process.

They'll still be talking when the convention's over."

"I suppose you could be right," Peter said. "Though I'd say it's a pretty sick point of view."

He had spoken recklessly and braced himself for an explosive response.

It failed to occur. Instead Warren Trent growled, "I'm practical, that's all. People will cluck about so-called principles till their tongues dry out. But they won't inconvenience themselves if they can avoid it."

Peter said doggedly, "It might still be simpler if we changed our policy.

I can't believe that Dr. Nicholas, if we'd admitted him, would have undermined the hotel."

"He might not. But the riff-raff who'd follow would. Then we'd be in trouble."

"It's been my understanding we're that way already." Perversely, Peter was conscious of indulging in verbal brinksmanship. He speculated on just how far he could go. And why - today - he wondered, was his employer in such comparative good humor?

Warren Trent's patrician features creased sardonically. "We may have been in trouble for a while. In a day or two, however, that will not be true."

Abruptly he asked: "Is Curtis O'Keefe still in the hotel?"

"So far as I know. I'd have heard if he'd checked out."

"Good!" The hovering smile remained. "I've some information that may interest you. Tomorrow I shall tell O'Keefe and his entire hotel chain to go jump in Lake Pontchartrain."

From his vantage point at the bell captain's upright desk, Herbie Chandler watched covertly as the four young men entered the St. Gregory from the street outside. It was a few minutes before four p.m.

Two of the group Herbie recognized as Lyle Dumaire and Stanley Dixon, the latter scowling as he led the way toward the elevators. A few seconds later they were out of sight.

On the telephone yesterday, Dixon had assured Herbie that the bell captain's part in the previous night's embroilment would not be divulged.

But Dixon, Herbie realized uneasily, was merely one of four. How the others - and perhaps Dixon too - would react under questioning, possibly threats, was something else again.

As he had for the past twenty-four hours, the bell captain continued to brood with growing apprehension.