Hotel

11

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

Peter found the hotel proprietor in his main mezzanine office. The others who had been at the meeting had left. Aloysius Royce was with his employer, helping assemble personal possessions, which he was packing into cardboard containers.

"I thought I might as well get on with this," Warren Trent told Peter. "I won't need this office any more. I suppose it will be yours." There was no rancor in the older man's voice, despite their altercation less than half an hour ago.

Aloysius Royce continued to work quietly as the other two talked.

Warren Trent listened attentively to the description of events since Peter's hasty 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.

"If the Croydons did what you say," Warren Trent pronounced, "I've no sympathy for them. You've handled it well." He growled an afterthought. "At least we'll be rid of those damn dogs."

"I'm afraid Ogilvie is involved pretty deeply."

The older man nodded. "This time he's gone too far. He'll take the consequences, whatever they are, and he's finished here." Warren Trent paused. He seemed to be weighing something in his mind. At length he said, "I suppose you wonder why I've always been lenient with Ogilvie."

"Yes," Peter said, "I have."

"He was my wife's nephew. I'm not proud of the fact, and 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 did. Afterward, when she was worried about him once, I promised to keep him employed. I've never, really, wanted to undo that."

How did you explain, Warren Trent wondered, that while the link with Hester had been defective and tenuous, it was the only one 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 all seems a long time ago."

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

Peter said, "Is there anything I can .."

Without warning, the door from the outer office flew open. Christine stumbled in. She had been running, and had lost a shoe. She was breathless, her hair awry. 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."

At the doorway, already on the run, Peter McDermott brushed her aside.

Aloysius Royce was close behind.