Hotel

"Ah!" The older lawyer nodded understandingly.

"Let me make one thing clear." Mr. Dempster removed his glasses and began polishing them carefully. "I am not suggesting that there be any basic change in hotel policy. My opinion, as a businessman, is that local viewpoints and customs must be respected. What I am concerned with is that if such a situation arises, it should not produce a similar result."

Again there was a silence.

Abruptly, Peter McDermott was aware that the focus of attention had shifted to himself. He had a sudden, chilling instinct that here, without warning, a crisis had occurred - the first and perhaps the most significant of his new regime. How he handled it could affect the hotel's future and his own. He waited until he was absolutely sure of what he intended to say.

"What was said a moment ago" - Peter spoke quietly, nodding toward the younger lawyer. - "is unfortunately true. A delegate to a convention in this hotel, with a confirmed reservation, was refused accommodation. He was a dentist - I understand, a distinguished one - and incidentally a Negro.

I regret to say that I was the one who turned him away. I have since made a personal decision that the same thing will never happen again."

Emile Dumaire said, "As executive vice-president, I doubt if you'll be put in the position . . ."

"Or to permit a similar action by anyone else in a hotel where I am in charge."

The banker pursed his lips. "That's a mighty sweeping statement."

Warren Trent turned edgily to Peter. "We've been over all this."

"Gentlemen." Mr. Dempster replaced his glasses. "I made it clear, I thought, that I was not suggesting any fundamental change."

"But I am, Mr. Dempster." If there was to be a showdown, Peter thought, better to have it now, and done with. Either he would run the hotel or not.

This seemed as good a time as any to find out.

The man from Montreal leaned forward. "Let me be sure I understand your position."

An inner cautioning voice warned Peter he was being reckless. He ignored it. "My position is quite simple. I would insist on complete desegregation of the hotel as a condition of my employment."

"Aren't you being somewhat hasty in dictating terms?"

Peter said quietly, "I assume your question to mean that you are aware of certain personal matters.

Mr. Dempster nodded. "Yes, we are."

Christine, Peter observed, had her eyes intently on his face. He wondered what she was thinking.

"Hasty or not," he said, "I think it's fair to let you know where I stand."

Mr. Dempster was once more polishing his glasses. He addressed the room at large. "I imagine we all respect a firmly held conviction. Even so, it seems to me that this is the kind of issue where we might temporize. If Mr. McDermott will agree, we can postpone a firm decision now. Then, in a month or two, the subject can be reconsidered."

If Mr. McDermott will agree. Peter thought: With diplomatic skill, the man from Montreal had offered him a way out.

It followed an established pattern. Insistence first, conscience appeased, a belief declared. Then mild concession. A reasonable compromise reached by reasonable men. The subject can be reconsidered. What could be more civilized, more eminently sane? Wasn't it the moderate, nonviolent kind of attitude which most people favored? The dentists, for example. Their official letter, with the resolution deploring the hotel's action in the case of Dr. Nicholas, had arrived today.

It was also true: there were difficulties facing the hotel. It was an unpropitious time. A change of management would produce a crop of problems, never mind inventing new ones. To wait, perhaps, would be the wisest choice.

But then, the time for drastic change was never right. There were always reasons for not doing things. Someone, Peter remembered, had said that recently. Who?

Dr. Ingram. The fiery dentists' president who resigned because he believed that principle was more important than expediency, who had quit the St. Gregory Hotel last night in righteous anger.

Once in a while, Dr. Ingram had said, you have to weigh what you want against what you believe in ... You didn't do it, McDermott, when you had the chance. You were too worried about this hotel, your job ...

Sometimes, though, you get a second chance. If it happens to you take it.

"Mr. Dempster," Peter said, "the law on civil rights is perfectly clear.

Whether we delay or circumvent it for a while, in the end the result will be the same."

"The way I hear it," the man from Montreal remarked, "there's a good deal of argument about States' rights."

Peter shook his head impatiently. His gaze swung round the table. "I believe that a good hotel must adapt itself to changing times. There are matters of human rights that our times have awakened to. Far better that we should be ahead in realizing and accepting these things than that they be forced upon us, as will happen if we fail to act ourselves. A moment ago I made the statement that I will never be a party again to turning away a Dr. Nicholas. I am not prepared to change my mind."

Warren Trent snorted. "They won't all be Dr. Nicholas."

"We preserve certain standards now, Mr. Trent. We shall continue to preserve them, except that they will be more embracive."

"I warn you! You will run this hotel into the ground."

"There seem to be more ways than one of doing that."

At the rejoinder, Warren Trent flushed.

Mr. Dempster was regarding his hands. "Regrettably, we seem to have reached an impasse. Mr. McDermott, in view of your attitude, we may have to reconsider . . ." For the first time, the man from Montreal betrayed uncertainty. He glanced at Albert Wells.

The little man was hunched down in his chair. He seemed to shrink as attention turned toward him. But his eyes met Mr. Dempster's.

"Charlie," Albert Wells said, "I reckon we should let the young fellow do it his way." He nodded toward Peter.

Without the slightest change of expression, Mr. Dempster announced, "Mr. McDermott, your conditions are met."

The meeting was breaking up. In contrast to the earlier accord, there was a sense of constraint and awkwardness. Warren Trent ignored Peter, his expression sour. The older lawyer looked disapproving, the younger noncommittal. Emile Dumaire was talking earnestly with Mr. Dempster. Only Albert Wells seemed slightly amused at what had taken place.

Christine went to the door first. A moment later she returned, beckoning Peter. Through the doorway he saw that his secretary was waiting in the outer office. Knowing Flora, it would be something out of the ordinary that had brought her here. He excused himself and went outside.

At the doorway, Christine slipped a folded piece of paper into Peter's hand. She whispered, "Read it later." He nodded and thrust the paper into a pocket.

"Mr. McDermott," Flora said, "I wouldn't have disturbed you . . ."

"I know. What's happened?"

"There's a man in your office. He says he works in the incinerator and has something important that you want. He won't give it to me or away.

Peter looked startled. "I'll come as quickly as I can."

"Please hurry!" Flora seemed embarrassed. "I hate to say this, Mr. McDermott, but the fact is . . . well, he smells."

6

A few minutes before midday, a lanky, slow-moving maintenance worker named Billyboi Noble lowered himself into a shallow pit beneath the shaft of number four elevator. His business there was routine cleaning and inspection, which he had already performed this morning on elevators numbers one, two, and three. It was a procedure for which it was not considered necessary to stop the elevators and, as Billyboi worked, he could see the car of number four - alternately climbing and descending high above.

7

Momentous issues, Peter McDermott reflected, could hinge upon the smallest quirk of fate.

He was alone in his office. Booker T. Graham, suitably thanked and glowing from his small success, had left a few minutes earlier.

The smallest quirk of fate.

If Booker T. had been a different kind of man, if he had gone home - as others would have done - at the appointed time, if he had been less diligent in searching, then the single sheet of paper, now staring up at Peter from his desk blotter, would have been destroyed.

The "ifs" were endless. Peter himself had been involved.

His visits to the incinerator, he gathered from their conversation, had had the effect of inspiring Booker T. Early this morning, it appeared, the man had even clocked out and continued to work without any expectation of overtime. When Peter summoned Flora and issued instructions that the overtime be paid, the look of devotion on Booker T. face had been embarrassing.

Whatever the cause, the result was here.

The note, face upward on the blotter, was dated two days earlier. Written by the Duchess of Croydon on Presidential Suite stationery, it authorized the hotel garage to release the Croydons' car to Ogilvie "at any time he may think suitable."

Peter had already checked the handwriting.

He had asked Flora for the Croydons' file. It was open on his desk. There was correspondence about reservations, with several notes in the Duchess's own hand. A handwriting expert would no doubt be precise. But even without such knowledge, the similarity was unmistakable.

The Duchess had sworn to police detectives that Ogilvie removed the car without authority. She denied Ogilvie's accusation that the Croydons paid him to drive the Jaguar away from New Orleans. She had suggested that Ogilvie, not the Croydons, had been driving last Monday night at the time of the hit-and-run. Questioned about the note, she challenged, "Show it to me!"

It could now be shown.

Peter McDermott's specific knowledge of the law was confined to matters affecting a hotel. Even so, it was obvious that the Duchess's note was incriminating in the extreme. Equally obvious was Peter's own duty - to inform Captain Yolles at once that the missing piece of evidence had been recovered.

With his hand on the telephone, Peter hesitated.

He felt no sympathy for the Croydons. From the accumulated evidence, it seemed clear that they had committed a dastardly crime, and afterward compounded it with cowardice and lies. In his mind, Peter could see the old St. Louis cemetery, the procession of mourners, the larger coffin, the tiny white one behind ...

The Croydons had even cheated their accomplice, Ogilvie. Despicable as the fat house detective was, his crime was less than theirs. Yet the Duke and Duchess were prepared to inflict on Ogilvie the larger blame and punishment.

None of this made Peter hesitate. The reason was simply a tradition - centuries old, the credo of an innkeeper of politeness to a guest.

Whatever else the Duke and Duchess of Croydon might be, they were guests of the hotel.

He would call the police. But he would call the Croydons first.

Lifting the telephone, Peter asked for the Presidential Suite.

8

Curtis O'Keefe had personally ordered a late room service breakfast for himself and Dodo, and it had been delivered to his suite an hour ago. Most of the meal, however, still remained untouched. Both he and Dodo had made a perfunctory attempt to sit down together to eat, but neither, it seemed, could muster an appetite. After a while, Dodo asked to be excused, and returned to the adjoining suite to complete her packing. She was due to leave for the airport in twenty minutes, Curtis O'Keefe, an hour later.