Hotel

8

The disarranged pages of the morning newspaper lay scattered around the Duchess of Croydon's bed. There was little in the news that the Duchess had not read thoroughly and now she lay back, propped against pillows, her mind working busily. There had never been a time, she realized, when her wits and resourcefulness were needed more.

On a bedside table a room-service tray had been used and pushed aside.

Even in moments of crisis the Duchess was accustomed to breakfasting well. It was a habit carried over from childhood at her family's country seat of Fallingbrook Abbey where breakfast had always consisted of a hearty meal of several courses, often after a brisk cross-country gallop.

The Duke, who had eaten alone in the living room, had returned to the bedroom a few moments earlier. He too had read the newspaper avidly as soon as it arrived. Now, wearing a belted scarlet robe over pajamas, he was pacing restlessly. Occasionally he passed a hand through his still disordered hair.

"For goodness sake, keep still!" The tenseness they shared was in his wife's voice. "I can't possibly think when you're parading like a stallion at Ascot."

He turned, his face lined and despairing in the bright morning light.

"What bloody good will thinking do? Nothing's going to change."

"Thinking always helps - if one does enough and it's the right kind. That's why some people make a success of things and others don't."

His hand went through his hair once more. "Nothing looks any better than it did last night."

"At least it isn't any worse," the Duchess said practically, "and that's something to be thankful for. We're still here - intact."

He shook his head wearily. He had had little sleep during the night. "How does it help?"

"As I see it, it's a question of time. Time is on our side. The longer we wait and nothing happens . . ." She stopped, then went on slowly, thinking aloud, "What we desperately need is to have some attention focused on you.

The kind of attention that would make the other seem so fantastic it wouldn't even be considered."

As if by consent, neither referred to their acrimony of the night before.

The Duke resumed his pacing. "Only thing likely to do that is an announcement confirming my appointment to Washington."

"Exactly-"

"You can't hurry it. If Hal feels he's being pushed, he'll blow the roof off Downing Street. The whole thing's damn touchy, anyway. . ."

"It'll be touchier still if .."

"Don't you think I bloody well know! Do you think I haven't thought we might as well give up!" There was a trace of hysteria in the Duke of Croydon's voice. He lit a cigarette, his hand shaking.

"We shall not give up!" In contrast to her husband, the Duchess's tone was crisp and businesslike. "Even prime ministers respond to pressure if it's from the right quarter. Hal's no exception. I'm going to call London."

"Why?"

"I shall speak to Geoffrey. I intend to ask him to do everything he can to speed up your appointment."

The Duke shook his head doubtfully, though not dismissing the idea out of hand. In the past he had seen plenty of evidence of the remarkable influence exerted by his wife's family. All the same he warned, "We could be spiking our own guns, old girl."

"Not necessarily. Geoffrey's good at pressure when he wants to be. Besides, if we sit here and wait it maybe worse still." Matching action to her words, the Duchess picked up the telephone beside the bed and instructed the operator, "I wish to call London and speak to Lord Selwyn." She gave a Mayfair number.

The call came through in twenty minutes. When the Duchess of Croydon had explained its purpose, her brother, Lord Selwyn, was notably unenthusiastic. From across the bedroom the Duke could hear his brother-in-law's deep protesting voice as it rattled the telephone diaphragm. "By golly, sis, you could be stirring a nest of vipers, and why do it? I don't mind telling you, Simon's appointment to Washington is a dashed long shot right now. Some of those in Cabinet feel he's the wrong man for the time. I'm not saying I agree, but there's no good wearing blinkers, is there?"

"If things are left as they are, how long will a decision take?"

"Hard to say for sure, old thing. The way I hear, though, it could be weeks."

"We simply cannot wait weeks," the Duchess insisted. "You'll have to take my word, Geoffrey, it would be a ghastly mistake not to make an effort now."

"Can't see it myself." The voice from London was distinctly huffy.

Her tone sharpened. "What I'm asking is for the famfly's sake as well as our own. Surely you can accept my assurance on that."

There was a pause, then the cautious question, "Is Simon with you?"

"Yes.

"What's behind all this? What's he been up to?"

"Even if there were an answer," the Duchess of Croydon responded, "I'd scarcely be so foolish as to give it on the public telephone."

There was a silence once more, then the reluctant admission, "Well, you usually know what you're doing. I'll say that."

The Duchess caught her husband's eye. She gave a barely perceptible nod before inquiring of her brother, "Am I to understand, then, that you'll act as I ask?"

"I don't like it, sis. I still don't like it." But he added, "Very well, I'll do what I can."

In a few more words they said goodbye.

The bedside telephone had been replaced only a moment when it rang again.

Both Croydons started, the Duke moistening his lips nervously. He listened as his wife answered.

"Yes?"

A flat nasal voice inquired, "Duchess of Croydon?"

"This is she."

"Ogilvie. Chief house officer." There was the sound of heavy breathing down the line, and a pause as if the caller were allowing time for the information to sink in.

The Duchess waited. When nothing further was said she asked pointedly,

"What is it you want?"

"A private talk. With your husband and you." It was a blunt unemotional statement, delivered in the same flat drawl.

"If this is hotel business I suggest you have made an error. We are accustomed to dealing with Mr. Trent."

"Do that this time, and you'll wish you hadn't." The cold, insolent voice held an unmistakable confidence. It caused the Duchess to hesitate. As she did, she was aware her hands were shaking.

She managed to answer, "It is not convenient to see you right now.

"When?" Again a pause and heavy breathing.

Whatever this man knew or wanted, she realized, he was adept at maintaining a psychological advantage.

She answered, "Possibly later."

"I'll be there in an hour." It was a declaration, not a question.

"It may not be .."

Cutting off her protest, there was a click as the caller hung up.

"Who was it? What did they want?" The Duke approached tensely. His gaunt face seemed paler than before.

Momentarily, the Duchess closed her eyes. She had a desperate yearning to be relieved of leadership and responsibility for them both; to have someone else assume the burden of decision. She knew it was a vain hope, just as it had always been for as long as she could remember. When you were born with a character stronger than those around you, there was no escaping. In her own family, though strength was a norm, others looked to her instinctively, following her lead and heeding her advice. Even Geoffrey, with his real ability and headstrong ways, always listened to her in the end, as he had just now. As reality returned, the moment passed. Her eyes opened.

"It was a hotel detective. He insists on coming here in an hour. "

"Then he knows! My God - he knows!"

"Obviously he's aware of something. He didn't say what."

Unexpectedly the Duke of Croydon straightened, his head moving upright and shoulders squaring. His hands became steadier, his mouth a firmer line. It was the same chameleon change he had exhibited the night before.

He said quietly, "It might go better, even now, if I went . .

if I admitted . . ."

"No! Absolutely and positively no!" His wife's eyes flashed. "Understand one thing. Nothing you can possibly do could improve the situation in the slightest." There was a silence between them, then the Duchess said broodingly, "We shall do nothing. We will wait for this man to come, then discover what he knows and intends."

Momentarily it seemed as if the Duke would argue. Then, changing his mind, he nodded dully. Tightening the scarlet robe around him, he padded out to the adjoining room. A few minutes later he returned carrying two glasses of neat Scotch. As he offered one to his wife she protested, "You know it's much too early . . ."

"Never mind that. You need it." With a solicitousness she was unused to, he pressed the glass into her hand.

Surprised, yet yielding, she held the glass and drained it. The undiluted liquor burned, snatching away her breath, but a moment later flooded her with welcome warmth.