Hotel

The Duchess had seated herself in a straight-backed chair. Ogilvie remained standing.

"Now then," he said. "You two was in that hit-'n-run.

She met his eyes directly. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't play games, lady. This is for real." He took out a fresh cigar and bit off the end. "You saw the papers. There's been plenty on radio, too."

Two high points of color appeared in the paleness of the Duchess of Croydon's cheeks. "What you are suggesting is the most disgusting, ridiculous . . ."

"I told you - cut it out!" The words spat forth with sudden savagery, all pretense of blandness gone. Ignoring the Duke, Ogilvie waved the unlighted cigar under his adversary's nose. "You listen to me, your high-an'-mightiness. This city's burnin' mad - cops, mayor, everybody else. They find who done that last night, who killed that kid an' its mother, then high-tailed it, they'll throw the book, and never mind who it hits, or whether they got fancy titles neither. Now I know what I know, and if I do what by rights I should, there'll be a squad of cops in here so fast you'll hardly see 'em. But I come to you first, in fairness, so's you could tell your side of it to me." The piggy eyes blinked, then hardened. "If you want it the other way, just say so."

The Duchess of Croydon - three centuries and a half of inbred arrogance behind her - did not yield easily. Springing to her feet, her face wrathful, gray-green eyes blazing, she faced the grossness of the house detective squarely. Her tone would have withered anyone who knew her well. "You unspeakable blackguard! How dare you!"

Even the self-assurance of Ogilvie flickered for an instant. But it was the Duke of Croydon who interjected, "It's no go, old girl, I'm afraid. It was a good try." Facing Ogilvie, he said, "What you accuse us of is true. I am to blame. I was driving the car and killed the little girl."

"That's more like it," Ogilvie said. He lit the fresh cigar. "Now we're getting somewhere."

Wearily, in a gesture of surrender, the Duchess of Croydon sank back into her chair. Clasping her hands to conceal their trembling, she asked. "What is it you know?"

"Well now, I'll spell it out." The house detective took his time, leisurely puffing a cloud of blue cigar smoke, his eyes sardonically on the Duchess as if challenging her objection. But beyond wrinkling her nose in distaste, she made no comment.

Ogilvie pointed to the Duke. "Last night, early on, you went to Lindy's Place in Irish Bayou. You drove there in your fancy Jaguar, and you took a lady friend. Leastways, I guess you'd call her that if you're not too fussy."

As Ogilvie glanced, grinning, at the Duchess, the Duke said sharply, "Get on with it!"

"Well" - the smug fat face swung back - "the way I hear it, you won a hundred at the tables, then lost it at the bar. You were into a second hundred - with a real swinging party - when your wife here got there in a taxi."

"How do you know all this?"

"I'll tell you, Duke - I've been in this town and this hotel a long time. I got friends all over. I oblige them, they do the same for me, like letting me know what gives, an' where. There ain't much, out of the way, which people who stay in this hotel do, I don't get to hear about. Most of 'em never know I know, or know me. They think they got their little secrets tucked away, and so they have - except like now."

The Duke said coldly, "I see."

"One thing I'd like to know. I got a curious nature, ma'am. How'd you figure where he was?"

The Duchess said, "You know so much ... I suppose it doesn't matter. My husband has a habit of making notes while he is telephoning. Afterward he often forgets to destroy them."

The house detective clucked his tongue reprovingly. "A little careless habit like that, Duke - look at the mess it gets you in. Well, here's what I figure about the rest. You an' your wife took off home, you drivin', though the way things turned out it might have been better if she'd have drove."

"My wife doesn't drive."

Ogilvie nodded understandingly. "Explains that one. Anyway, I reckon you were lickered up, but good. . ."

The Duchess interrupted. "Then you don't know! You don't know anything for sure! You can't possibly prove..."

"Lady, I can prove all I need to."

The Duke cautioned, "Better let him finish, old girl."

"That's right," Ogilvie said. "Just set an' listen. Last night I seen you come in - through the basement, so's not to use the lobby. Looked right shaken, too, the pair of you. Just come in myself, an' I got to wondering why. Like I said, I got a curious nature."

The Duchess breathed, "Go on."

"Late last night the word was out about the hit-'n-run. On a hunch I went over the garage and took a quiet look-see at your car. You maybe don't know - it's away in a corner, behind a pillar where the jockeys don't see it when they're comin' by."

The Duke licked his lips. "I suppose that doesn't matter now.

"You might have something there," Ogilvie conceded. "Anyway, what I found made me do some scouting across at police headquarters where they know me too." He paused to puff again at the cigar as his listeners waited silently. When the cigar tip was glowing he inspected it, then continued.

"Over there they got three things to go on. They got a headlight trim ring which musta' come off when the kid and the woman was hit. They got some headlight glass, and lookin' at the kid's clothin', they reckon there'll be a brush trace."

"A what?"

"You rub clothes against something hard, Duchess, specially if it's shiny like a car fender, say, an' it leaves a mark the same way as fingerprints.

The police lab kin pick it up like they do prints - dust it, an' it shows."

"That's interesting," the Duke said, as if speaking of something unconnected with himself. "I didn't know that." "Not many do. In this case, though, I reckon it don't make a lot o' difference. On your car you got a busted headlight, and the trim ring's gone. Ain't any doubt they'd match up, even without the brush trace an' the blood. Oh yeah, I shoulda told you. There's plenty of blood, though it don't show too much on the black paint."

"Oh, my God!" A hand to her face, the Duchess turned away.

Her husband asked, "What do you propose to do?"

The fat man rubbed his hands together, looking down at his thick, fleshy fingers. "Like I said, I come to hear your side of it."

The Duke said despairingly, "What can I possibly say? You know what happened." He made an attempt to square his shoulders which did not succeed. "You'd better call the police and get it over."

"Well now, there's no call for being hasty." The incongruous falsetto voice took on a musing note. "What's done's been done. Rushin' any place ain't gonna bring back the kid nor its mother neither. Besides, what they'd do to you across at headquarters, Duke, you wouldn't like. No sir, you wouldn't like it at all."

The other two slowly raised their eyes.

"I was hoping," Ogilvie said, "that you folks could suggest something."

The Duke said uncertainly, "I don't understand."

"I understand," the Duchess of Croydon said. "You want money, don't you?

You came here to blackmail us."

If she expected her words to shock, they did not succeed. The house detective shrugged. "Whatever names you call things, ma'am, don't matter to me. All I come for was to help you people outa trouble. But I got to live too."

"You'd accept money to keep silent about what you know?"

"I reckon I might."

"But from what you say," the Duchess pointed out, her poise for the moment recovered, "it would do no good. The car would be discovered in any case."

"I guess you'd have to take that chance. But there's some reasons it might not be. Something I ain't told you yet.

"Tell us now, please."

Ogilvie said, "I ain't figured this out myself completely. But when you hit that kid you was going away from town, not to it."

"We'd made a mistake in the route," the Duchess said. "Somehow we'd become turned around. It's easily done in New Orleans, with the streets winding as they do. Afterward, using side streets, we went back."

"I thought it might be that," Ogilvie nodded understandingly. "But the police ain't figured it that way. They're looking for somebody who was headed out. That's why, right now, they're workin' on the suburbs and the outside towns. They may get around to searchin' downtown, but it won't be yet."

"How long before they do?"

"Maybe three, four days. They got a lot of other places to look first."

"How could that help us - the delay?"

"It might," Ogilvie said. "Providin' nobody twigs the car - an' seein' where it is, you might be lucky there. An' if you can get it away."

"You mean out of the state?"

"I mean out o' the South."

"That wouldn't be easy?"

"No, ma'am. Every state around - Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, all the rest'll be watching for a car damaged the way yours is."

The Duchess considered. "Is there any possibility of having repairs made first? If the work were done discreetly we could pay well."

The house detective shook his head emphatically. "You try that, you might as well walk over to headquarters right now an' give up. Every repair shop in Louisiana's been told to holler 'cops' the minute a car needing fixin' like yours comes in. They'd do it, too. You people are hot."

The Duchess of Croydon kept firm, tight rein on her racing mind. It was essential, she knew, that her thinking remain calm and reasoned. In the last few minutes the conversation had become as seemingly casual as if the discussion were of some minor domestic matter and not survival itself. She intended to keep it that way. Once more, she was aware, the role of leadership had fallen to her, her husband now a tense but passive spectator of the exchange between the evil fat man and herself. No matter.

What was inevitable must be accepted. The important thing was to consider all eventualities. A thought occurred to her.

"The piece from our car which you say the police have. What is it called?"

"A trim ring.

"Is it traceable?"

Ogilvie nodded affirmatively. "They can figure what kind o' car it's from - make, model, an' maybe the year, or close to it. Same thing with the glass. But with your car being foreign, it'll likely take a few days."

"But after that," she persisted, "the police will know they're looking for a Jaguar?"

"I reckon that's so."

Today was Tuesday. From all that this man said, they had until Friday or Saturday at best. With calculated coolness the Duchess reasoned - the situation came down to one essential. Assuming the hotel man was bought off, their only chance - a slim one - lay in removing the car quickly. If it could be got north, to one of the big cities where the New Orleans tragedy and search would be unknown, repairs could be made quietly, the incriminating evidence removed. Then, even if suspicion settled on the Croydons later, nothing could be proved. But how to get the car away?