Hotel

22

Peter McDermott accompanied the two detectives from the incinerator in the hotel basement to the St. Charles Street door.

"For the time being," Captain Yolles cautioned, "I'd like to keep what's happened tonight as quiet as possible. There'll be questions enough when we charge your man Ogilvie, whatever it's with. No sense in bringing the press around our necks until we have to."

Peter assured him, "If the hotel had any choice, we'd prefer no publicity at all."

Yolles grunted. "Don't count on it."

Peter returned to the main dining room to discover, not surprisingly, that Christine and Albert Wells had gone.

In the lobby he was intercepted by the night manager. "Mr. McDermott, here's a note Miss Francis left for you."

It was in a sealed envelope and read simply:

I've gone home. Come if you can.

- Christine.

He would go, he decided. He suspected that Christine was eager to talk over the events of the day, including this evening's astounding disclosure by Albert Wells.

Nothing else to do tonight at the hotel. Or was there? Abruptly, Peter remembered the promise he had made to Marsha Preyscott on leaving her at the cemetery so unceremoniously this afternoon. He had said he would telephone later, but he had forgotten until now. The crisis of the afternoon was only hours away. It seemed like days, and Marsha somehow remote. But he supposed he should call her, late as it was.

Once more he used the credit manager's office on the main floor and dialed the Preyscott number. Marsha answered on the first ring.

"Oh, Peter," she said, "I've been sitting by the telephone. I waited and waited, then called twice and left my name."

He remembered guiltily the pile of unacknowledged messages on his office desk.

"I'm genuinely sorry, and I can't explain, at least not yet. Except that all kinds of things have been happening."

"Tell me tomorrow."

"Marsha, I'm afraid tomorrow will be a very full day . . .

"At breakfast," Marsha said. "If it's going to be that kind of day, you need a New Orleans breakfast. They're famous. Have you ever had one?"

"I don't usually eat breakfast."

"Tomorrow you will. And Anna's are special. A lot better, I'll bet, than at your old hotel."

It was impossible not to be charmed by Marsha's enthusiasms. And he had, after all, deserted her this afternoon.

"It will have to be early."

"As early as you Re."

They agreed on 7:30 a.m.

A few minutes later he was in a taxi on his way to Christine's apartment in Gentilly.

He rang from downstairs. Christine was waiting with the apartment door open.

"Not a word," she said, "until after the second drink. I just can't take it all in."

"You'd better," he told her. "You haven't heard the half of it."

She had mixed daiquiris, which were chilling in the refrigerator. There was a heaped plate of chicken and ham sandwiches. The fragrance of freshly brewed coffee wafted through the apartment.

Peter remembered suddenly that despite his sojourn in the hotel kitchens, and the talk of breakfast tomorrow, he had eaten nothing since lunch.

"That's what I imagined," Christine said when he told her. "Fall to!"

Obeying, he watched as she moved efficiently around the tiny kitchen. He had a feeling, sitting here, of being at ease and shielded from whatever might be happening outside. He thought: Christine had cared about him enough to do what she had done. More important, there was an empathy between them in which even their silences, as now, seemed shared and understood.

He pushed away the daiquiri glass and reached for a coffee cup which Christine had filled. "All right," he said, "where do we start?"

They talked continuously for almost two hours, all the time their closeness growing. At the end, all they could decide on definitely was that tomorrow would be an interesting day.

"I won't sleep," Christine said. "I couldn't possibly. I know I won't."

"I couldn't either," Peter said. "But not for the reason you mean."

He had no doubts; only a conviction that he wanted this moment to go on and on. He took her in his arms and kissed her.

Later, it seemed the most natural thing in the world that they should make love.