6

A few minutes before midday, a 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

If Booker T. had been a different kind of man, if he had gone home 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, would have been destroyed.

The “ifs” were endless. Whatever the cause, the result was here.

The note was dated two days earlier and had been written by the Duchess of Croydon on Presidential Suite stationery. Peter had already checked the handwriting.

Now Peter’s duty was 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.

The reason was simply a tradition that was 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.

8

After his angry outburst then, Curtis O’Keefe had been immediately and genuinely sorry. But his tirade against Dodo had been inexcusable, and he knew it.

Worse, it was impossible to repair. Despite his apologies, the truth remained.

Curtis O’Keefe attributed his feelings to the loss of the hotel. In his long career he had experienced his share of business disappointments. But on this occasion, even after a night’s sleep, the mood persisted.

It made him irritable with God. There was an undertone of criticism in his morning prayers.

Afterward he found Dodo packing his bags as well as her own. When he protested, she assured him, “Curtie, I like doing it. And if I didn’t, who would?”

At breakfast Dodo tried to be cheerful. “Gee, Curtie, we don’t have to be miserable. It isn’t like we’ll never see each other. We can meet in L.A. lots of times.”

But O’Keefe knew that they would not.

The moments slipped by. It was time for Dodo to leave. O’Keefe checked his watch and walked to the connecting doorway. “You’ve very little time, my dear.”

Dodo’s voice floated out. “I have to finish my nails, Curtie.”

When, at last, Dodo walked out from the adjoining room, Curtis O’Keefe thought there should be music. The ash-blond hair was loose about her shoulders. Her wide blue eyes regarded him.

“Goodbye, dearest Curtie.” She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. Without intending to, he held her tightly.

He had an absurd impulse to instruct the bell captain to bring back Dodo’s bags from downstairs, to tell her to stay and never to leave. He dismissed it as sentimental foolishness.

At the doorway she turned and waved back. He could not be sure, but he had an impression she was crying.

Herbie Chandler, who had personally come to accompany such an important guest, closed the door from outside.

On the twelfth-floor landing, the bell captain rang for an elevator. The elevators seemed slow this morning, Herbie Chandler thought.

Impatiently he depressed the call button a second time, holding it down for several seconds. He was still tense, he realized. He had been tense ever since the session yesterday with McDermott, wondering just how and when the call would come, which would mark the end of Herbie’s career at the St. Gregory Hotel.

An elevator had arrived at last. Its doors opened.

There were several people already inside, who eased politely to the rear as Dodo entered. Herbie Chandler followed. The doors closed.

It was number four elevator. The time was eleven minutes past noon.

9

It seemed to the Duchess of Croydon as if she was waiting for a slow-burning fuse to reach an unseen bomb. Since last night, when the police detectives left, there had been no further word.

“You’d almost think,” the Duke of Croydon ventured, “that they’re trying to wear us down by silence.”

“If that’s the case,” the Duchess responded, “well see to it that…”

She was interrupted by the jangling of the telephone. The Duchess reached out her hand, then was stopped by a premonition that this call would be different.

The Duke asked sympathetically, “Would you rather me do it?”

She shook her head. Lifting the telephone, she answered, “Yes?”

She said into the telephone, “Yes, I remember. You were present when those ridiculous charges…”

The Duchess stopped. As she listened, her face paled.

She replaced the receiver. Her hands were trembling.

“The note.” Her voice was scarcely audible. “The hotel manager has it.”

At length her husband asked, “And now?”

“He’s calling the police. He said he decided to notify us first.”

“It’s a little late to talk of decency,” he went into the adjoining bedroom, returning almost at once with a light raincoat and a Homburg hat, “but if I can, I intend to tell to the police before they come to me. I imagine there isn’t much time, so I’ll say what I have to say quickly.”

In a controlled, quiet voice the Duke affirmed, “I want you to know that I’m grateful for all you did. I’ll do all I can to see that you’re not involved.”

The Duchess nodded dully. For one, whose entire life and future had collapsed around him a few moments earlier, the Duke held on remarkably.

“You’ll need money for the lawyer,” he reminded her. “You could start him off with some of that fifteen thousand dollars you wanted to take to Chicago.”

A look of pity crossed the Duke’s face. He said uncertainly, “It may be a long time…” His arms went out toward her.

Coldly, deliberately, she averted her head.

With a slight shrug her husband turned, then went out quietly, closing the outer door behind him.

For a moment or two the Duchess sat passively, considering the future and weighing the disgrace ahead. Then, habit reasserting itself, she rose. She would arrange for the lawyer, which seemed necessary at once. Later, she decided calmly, she would examine the means of suicide.

Meanwhile, the money, which had been mentioned, should be put in a safer place.

It took only a few minutes, mainly of unbelief, to discover that the case was gone. When she considered the possibility of informing the police, the Duchess of Croydon convulsed in hysterical laughter.

The Duke of Croydon seemed to have been waiting for the elevator on the ninth floor for several minutes. Now, at last, he could hear a car approaching from above, its doors opened.

He stepped into number four elevator.

There were several people already inside, including an attractive blond girl and the hotel bell captain, who recognized the Duke.

“Good day, your Grace.”

The Duke of Croydon nodded absently as the doors slid closed.

10

It had taken Keycase Milne most of last night and this morning to decide that what had occurred was reality and not a hallucination. There was a temptation to check out at once. Keycase resisted it. The night cashier would remember and could describe him. The best time to check out was mid-morning or later, when plenty of other people would be leaving too.

Still dazed and unbelieving, Keycase slept.

He woke up at 11:30. He shaved and dressed quickly, then completed his packing and locked both suitcases.

He would leave the suitcases in his room, he decided, while he went down to pay his bill.  He took only one key, his own key, 830, for handing in when he left his room for the last time.

The lobby was averagely busy, Keycase paid his bill and received a friendly smile from the girl cashier. “Is the room vacant now, sir?”

“It will be in a few minutes. I have to collect my bags, that’s all.”

In 830 he took a last careful look around the room, then, picking up both suitcases, he left.

His watch showed ten past twelve.

On the eighth-floor landing he rang for an elevator. Waiting, he heard one coming down. It stopped at the floor above, started downward once more, then stopped again. In front of Keycase, the door of number four elevator slid open.

At the front of the car was the Duke of Croydon.

For a horror-filled instant, Keycase had an impulse to turn and run. In the same split second, sanity told him that the encounter was accidental.

The elevator operator, an elderly man, said, “Going down!”

Alongside the operator was the hotel bell captain. Nodding to the two bags, the bell captain inquired, “Shall I take those, sir?” Keycase shook his head.

As he stepped into the elevator, the Duke of Croydon and a beautiful blond girl eased nearer the rear to make room.

The gates closed. The operator, Cy Lewin, pushed the selector handle to “descend.” As he did, with a scream of tortured metal, the elevator car plunged downward, out of control.

11

He owed it to Warren Trent, Peter McDermott decided, to explain personally what had occurred concerning the Duke and Duchess of Croydon.

Peter McDermott found the hotel proprietor in his main mezzanine office. Aloysius Royce was with his employer, helping assemble personal possessions, which he was packing into cardboard containers.

“I won’t need this office any more. I suppose it will be yours.” Warren Trent told Peter, but he had come for another reason.

Warren Trent listened attentively to the description of events since Peter’s departure from St. Louis cemetery yesterday afternoon, concluding with the telephone calls, a few minutes ago, to the Duchess of Croydon and the New Orleans police.

“I’ve no sympathy for the Croydons. You’ve handled it well. At least we’ve got rid of those dogs.”

“I’m afraid Ogilvie is involved pretty deeply.”

“This time he’s gone too far. He’ll take the consequences. I suppose you wonder why I’ve always been lenient with Ogilvie.”

“Yes,” Peter said.

“He was my wife’s nephew. I assure you that my wife and Ogilvie had nothing in common. But many years ago she asked me to give him a job here, and I promised to keep him employed. I’ve never, really, wanted to undo that.”

How did you explain, Warren Trent wondered, that it was the only link with Hester he had.

“I’m sorry,” Peter said. “I didn’t know…”

“That I was ever married?” The older man smiled. “Not many do. My wife came with me to this hotel. We were both young. She died soon after.”

It was a reminder, Warren Trent thought, of the loneliness he had endured across the years, and of the greater loneliness soon to come.

Without warning, the door from the outer office flew open. Christine stumbled in breathless. She barely got the words out.

“There’s been… terrible accident! One of the elevators. I was in the lobby… It’s horrible! People are trapped… They’re screaming.”

Peter McDermott brushed her aside. Aloysius Royce was close behind.