Hotel

15

"I might be able to help more," Royall Edwards observed pointedly, "if someone told me what this is all about."

The St. Gregory's comptroller addressed himself to the two men facing him across the long, accounting office table. Between them, ledgers and files were spread open and the entire office, normally shrouded in darkness at this time of night, was brightly lit. Edwards himself had switched on the lights an hour ago on bringing the two visitors here, directly from Warren Trent's fifteenth-floor suite.

The hotel proprietor's instructions had been explicit. "These gentlemen will examine our books. They will probably work through until tomorrow morning. I'd like you to stay with them. Give them everything they ask for. Hold no information back."

In issuing the instructions, Royall Edwards reflected, his employer had seemed more cheerful than for a long time. The cheerfulness, however, did not appease the comptroller, already piqued at being summoned from his home where he had been working on his stamp collection, and further irritated by not being taken into confidence concerning whatever was afoot. He also resented - as one of the hotel's most consistent nine-to-fivers - the idea of working all night.

The comptroller knew, of course, about the mortgage deadline of Friday and the presence of Curtis O'Keefe in the hotel, with its obvious implications. Presumably this latest visitation was related to both, though in what way was hard to guess. A possible clue was luggage tags on both visitors' bags, indicating they had flown to New Orleans from Washington, D.C. Yet instinct told him that the two accountants - which obviously they were - had no connection with government. Well, he would probably know all the answers eventually. Meanwhile it was annoying to be treated like some minor clerk.

There had been no response to his remark that he might be able to help more if better informed, and he repeated it.

The older of the two visitors, a heavy-set middle-aged man with an immobile face, lifted the coffee cup beside him and drained it. "One thing I always say, Mr. Edwards, there's nothing quite like a good cup of coffee. Now you take most hotels, they just don't brew coffee the right way. This one does. So I reckon there can't be much wrong with a hotel that serves coffee like that. What do you say, Frank?"

"I'd say if we're to get through this job by morning, we'd better have less chit-chat." The second man answered dourly, without looking up from a trial balance sheet he was studying intently.

The first made a placating gesture with his hands. "You see how it is, Mr. Edwards? I guess Frank's right; he often is. So, much as I'd like to explain the whole thing, maybe we'd better keep right on."

Aware of being rebuffed, Royall Edwards said stiffly, "Very well."

"Thank you, Mr. Edwards. Now I'd like to go over your inventory system - purchasing, card control, present stocks, your last supply check, all the rest. Say, that was good coffee. Could we have some more?"

The comptroller said, "I'll telephone down." He observed dispiritedly that it was already close to midnight. Obviously they were going to be here for hours more.