Hotel

"Why not?"

"Because it's impossible. Inconceivable. We are already worse off than at the beginning. Now, with this . His voice choked."

"We are not worse off. For the moment we are better off. May I remind you of the appointment to Washington."

"You don't seriously suppose we have the slightest chance of ever getting there?"

"There is every chance."

Preceded eagerly by the terriers, they had walked along St. Charles Avenue to the busier and brightly lighted expanse of Canal Street, Now, turning southeast toward the river, they affected interest in the colorful store windows as groups of pedestrians passed in both directions.

The Duchess's voice was low. "However distasteful, there are certain facts that I must know about Monday night. The woman you were with at Irish Bayou. Did you drive her there?"

The Duke flushed. "No. She went in a taxi. We met inside. I intended afterward ..."

"Spare me your intentions. Then, for all she knew, you could have come in a taxi yourself."

"I hadn't thought about it. I suppose so."

"After I arrived - also by taxi, which can be confirmed if necessary - I noticed that when we went to our car, you had parked it well away from that awful club. There was no attendant."

"I put it out of the way deliberately. I suppose I thought there was less chance of your getting to hear."

"So at no point was there any witness to the fact that you were driving the car on Monday night."

"There's the hotel garage. When we came in, someone could have seen us."

"No! I remember you stopped just inside the garage entrance, and you left the car, as we often do. We saw no one. No one saw us."

"What about taking it out?"

"You couldn't have taken it out. Not from the hotel garage. On Monday morning we left it on an outside parking lot."

"That's right," the Duke said. "I got it from there at night."

The Duchess continued, thinking aloud, "We shall say, of course, that we did take the car to the hotel garage after we used it Monday evening. There will be no record of it coming in, but that proves nothing. As far as we are concerned, we have not seen the car since midday Monday."

The Duke was silent as they continued to walk. With a gesture he reached out, relieving his wife of the terriers. Sensing a new hand on their leash, they strained forward more vigorously than before.

At length he said, "It's really quite remarkable how everything fits together."

"It's more than remarkable. It's meant to be that way. From the beginning, everything has worked out. Now. . ."

"Now you propose to send another man to prison instead of me."

"No!"

He shook his head. "I couldn't do it, even to him."

"As far as he is concerned, I promise you that nothing will happen."

"How could you be sure?"

"Because the police would have to prove he was driving the car at the time of the accident. They can't possibly do it, any more than they can prove it was you. Don't you understand? They may know that it was one or the other of you. They maybelieve they know which. But believing is not enough. Not without proof."

"You know," he said, with admiration, "there are times when you are absolutely incredible."

"I'm practical. And speaking of being practical, there's something else you might remember. That man Ogilvie has had ten thousand dollars of our money.

At least we should get something for it."

"By the way," the Duke said, "where is the other fifteen thousand?"

"Still in the small suitcase which is locked and in my bedroom. We'll take it with us when we go. I already decided it might attract attention to return it to the bank here."

"You really do think of everything."

"I didn't with that note. When I thought they had it ... I must have been mad to write what I did."

"You couldn't have foreseen."

They had reached the end of the brightly lighted portion of Canal Street.

Now they turned, retracing their steps toward the city center.

"It's diabolical," the Duke of Croydon said. His last drink had been at noon. As a result, his voice was a good deal clearer than in recent days.

"It's ingenious, devilish, and diabolical. But it might, it just might work."

20

"That woman is lying," Captain Yolles said. "But it'll be hard to prove, if we ever do." He continued to pace, slowly, the length of Peter McDermott's office. They had come here - the two detectives, with Peter - after an ignominious departure from the Presidential Suite. So far Yolles had done little more than pace and ponder while the other two waited.

"Her husband might break," the second detective suggested. "If we could get him by himself."

Yolles shook his head. "There isn't a chance. For one thing, she's too smart to let it happen. For another, with them being who and what they are, we'd be walking on eggshells." He looked at Peter. "Don't ever kid yourself there isn't one police procedure for the poor and another for the rich and influential."

Across the office, Peter nodded, though with a sense of detachment.

Having done what duty and conscience required, what followed now, he felt, was the business of the police. Curiosity, however, prompted a question. "The note that the Duchess wrote to the garage . . ."

"If we had that," the second detective said, "it'd be a clincher."

"Isn't it enough for the night checker - and Ogilvie, I suppose - to swear that the note existed?"

Yolles said, "She'd claim it was a forgery, that Ogilvie wrote it himself." He mused, then added, "You said it was on special stationery.

Let me see some."

Peter went outside and in a stationery cupboard found several sheets.

They were a heavy bond paper, light blue, with the hotel name and crest embossed. Below, also embossed, were the words Presidential Suite.

Peter returned and the policemen examined the sheets.

"Pretty fancy," the second detective said.

Yolles asked, "How many people have access to this?"

"In the ordinary way, just a few. But I suppose a good many others could get hold of a sheet if they really wanted to.

Yolles grunted. "Rules that out."

"There is one possibility," Peter said. For the moment, with a sudden thought, his detachment vanished.

"What?"

"I know you asked me this, and I said that once garbage had been cleared - as it was from the garage - there was no chance of retrieving anything. I really thought . . . it seemed so impossible, the idea of locating one piece of paper. Besides, the note wasn't so important then."

He was aware of the eyes of both detectives intently on his face.

"We do have a man," Peter said. "He's in charge of the incinerator. A lot of the garbage he sorts by hand. It would be a long shot and it's probably too late . . ."

"For Christ's sake!" Yolles snapped. "Let's get to him."

They walked quickly to the main floor, then used a staff doorway to reach a freight elevator which would take them the rest of the way down. The elevator was busy on a lower level where Peter could hear packages being unloaded. He shouted down for the crew to hurry.

While they were waiting, the second detective, Bennett, said, "I hear you've had some other trouble this week."

"There was a robbery early yesterday. With all this, I'd almost forgotten."

"I was talking with one of our people. He was with your senior house dick

... what's his name?"

"Finegan. He's acting chief." Despite the seriousness, Peter smiled. "Our regular chief is otherwise engaged."

"About the robbery, there wasn't much to go on. Our people checked your guest list, didn't turn up anything. Today, though, a funny thing happened.

There was a break-in in Lakeview - private home. A key job. The woman lost her keys downtown this morning. Whoever found them must have gone straight there. It had all the signs of your robbery here, including the kind of stuff taken, and no prints."