Babs, her elder sister, had embraced Christine; and even Tony, two years younger and hating public affection, consented to be kissed.

The St. Gregory's largest and most elaborate suite known familiarly as the brasshouse - had, in its time, housed a succession of distinguished guests, including presidents and royalty. Most had liked New Orleans because after an initial welcome the city had a way of respecting its visitors' privacy, including INDISCRETIONS, if any. Somewhat less than heads of state, though distinguished in their way, were the suite's present tenants, the Duke and Duchess of Croydon, plus their RETINUE of secretary, the Duchess's maid, and five Bedlington terriers.

Outside the double padded leather doors, decorated with gold fleur-de-lis, Peter McDermott depressed a mother-of-pearl button and heard a muted buzz inside, followed by a less muted chorus of barkings.

Waiting, he reflected on what he had heard and knew about the Croydons.

The Duke of Croydon, scion of an ancient family, had adapted himself to the times with an instinct for the common touch. Within the past decade, and aided by his Duchess - herself a known public figure and cousin of the Queen - he had become AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE and successful troubleshooter for the British government. More recently, however, there had been rumors that the Duke's career had reached a critical point, perhaps because his touch had become a shade too common in some areas, notably those of liquor and other men's wives. There were other reports, though, which said the shadow over the Duke was minor and temporary, and that the Duchess HAD THE SITUATION WELL IN HAND. Supporting this second view were predictions that the Duke of Croydon might soon be named British Ambassador to Washington.

From behind Peter a voice murmured, "Excuse me, Mr. McDermott, can I have a word with you?"

Turning abruptly be recognized Sol Natchez, one of the elderly room-service waiters, who had come quietly down the corridor, a lean CADAVEROUS figure in a short white coat, trimmed with the hotel's colors of red and gold. The man's hair was slicked down flatly and combed forward into an old-fashioned FORELOCK. His eyes were pale and rheumy, and the veins in the back of his hands, which he rubbed nervously, stood out like cords with the flesh sunk deep between them.

"What is it, Sol?"

His voice betraying agitation, the waiter said, "I expect you've come about the complaint - the complaint about me.

McDermott glanced at the double doors. They had not yet opened, nor, apart from the barking, had there been any other sound from within. He said, "Tell me what happened."

The other swallowed twice. Ignoring the question, he said in a pleading hurried whisper, "If I lose this job, Mr. McDermott, it's hard at my age to find another." He looked toward the Presidential Suite, his expression a mixture of anxiety and resentment. "They're not the hardest people to serve

... except for tonight. They expect a lot, but I've never minded, even though there's never a tip."

Peter smiled involuntarily. British nobility seldom tipped, assuming perhaps that the privilege of waiting on them was a reward in itself.

He interjected, "You still haven't told me . .

"I'm gettin' to it, Mr. McDermott." From someone old enough to be Peter's grandfather, the other man's distress was almost embarrassing. "It was about half an hour ago. They'd ordered a late supper, the Duke and Duchess-oysters, champagne, shrimp Creole."

"Never mind the menu. What happened?"

"It was the shrimp Creole, sir. When I was serving it, well, it's something, in all these years it's happened very rarely."

"For heaven's sake!" Peter had one eye on the suite doors, ready to break off the conversation the moment they opened.

"Yes, Mr. McDermott. Well, when I was serving the Creole the Duchess got up from the table and as she came back she jogged my arm. If I didn't know better I'd have said it was deliberate."

"That's ridiculous!"

"I know, sir, I know. But what happened, you see, was there was a small spot - I swear it was no more than a quarter inch - on the Duke's trousers."

Peter said doubtfully, "Is that all this is about?"

"Mr. McDermott, I swear to you that's all. But you'd think - the fuss the Duchess made - I'd committed murder. I apologized, I got a clean napkin and water to get the spot off, but it wouldn't do. She insisted on sending for Mr. Trent ... It

"Mr. Trent is not in the hotel."

He would hear the other side of the story, Peter decided, before making any judgment. Meanwhile he instructed, "If you're all through for tonight you'd better go home. Report tomorrow and you'll be told what will happen."

As the waiter disappeared, Peter McDermott depressed the bell push again.

There was barely time for the barking to resume before the door was opened by a moon-faced, youngish man with pince-nez. Peter recognized him as the Croydons' secretary.

Before either of them could speak a woman's voice called out from the suites interior. "Whoever it is, tell them not to keep buzzing." For all the PEREMPTORY tone, Peter thought, it was an attractive voice with a rich huskiness which excited interest.

"I beg your pardon," he told the secretary. "I thought perhaps you hadn't heard." He introduced himself, then added, "I understand there has been some trouble about our service. I came to see if I could help."

The secretary said, "We were expecting Mr. Trent."

"Mr. Trent is away from the hotel for the evening."

While speaking they had moved from the corridor into the hallway of the suite, a tastefully appointed rectangle with deep broadloom, two upholstered chairs, and a telephone side table beneath a Morris Henry Hobbs engraving of old New Orleans. The double doorway to the corridor formed one end of the rectangle. At the other end, the door to the large living room was partially open. On the right and left were two other doorways, one to the selfcontained kitchen and another to an office-bed-sitting room, at present used by the Croydons' secretary.

The two main, connecting bedrooms of the suite were accessible both through the kitchen and living room, an arrangement CONTRIVED so that a surreptitious bedroom visitor could be spirited in and out by the kitchen if need arose.

"Why can't he be sent for?" The question was addressed without preliminary as the living-room door opened and the Duchess of Croydon appeared, three of the Bedlington terriers enthusiastically at her heels.

With a swift FINGERSNAP, instantly obeyed, she silenced the dogs and turned her eyes questioningly on Peter. He was aware of the handsome, high-cheekboned face, familiar through a thousand photographs. Even in casual clothes, he observed, the Duchess was superbly dressed.

"To be perfectly honest, Your Grace, I was not aware that you required Mr. Trent personally."

Gray-green eyes regarded him appraisingly. "Even in Mr. Trent's absence I should have expected one of the senior executives."

Despite himself, Peter flushed. There was a superb HAUTEUR about the Duchess of Croydon which - in a perverse way - was curiously appealing. A picture flashed into his memory. He had seen it in one of the illustrated magazines - the Duchess putting a stallion at a high fence. Disdainful of risk, she had been securely and superbly in command. He had an impression, at this moment, of being on foot while the Duchess was mounted.

"I'm assistant general manager. That's why I came personally."

There was a glimmer of amusement in the eyes which held his own. "Aren't you somewhat young for that?"

"Not really. Nowadays a good many young men are engaged in hotel management." The secretary, he noticed, had disappeared discreetly.

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-two."

The Duchess smiled. When she chose - as at this moment - her face became animated and warm. It was not difficult, Peter thought, to become aware of the fabled charm. She was five or six years older than himself, he calculated, though younger than the Duke who was in his late forties. Now she asked, "Do you take a course or something?"

"I have a degree from Cornell University - the School of Hotel Administration. Before coming here I was an assistant manager at the Waldorf." It required an effort to mention the Waldorf, and he was tempted to add: from where I was fired in IGNOMINY, and BLACK-LISTED by the chain hotels, so that I am fortunate to be working here, which is an independent house. But he would not say it, of course, because a private hell was something you lived with alone, even when someone else's casual questions nudged old, raw wounds within yourself.

The Duchess retorted, "The Waldorf would never have tolerated an incident like tonight's."

"I assure you, ma'am, that if we are at fault the St. Gregory will not tolerate it either." The conversation, he thought, was like a game of tennis, with the ball LOBBED from one court to the other. He waited for it to come back.

"If you were at fault? Are you aware that your waiter poured shrimp Creole over my husband?"

It was so obviously an exaggeration, he wondered why. It was also uncharacteristic since, until now, relations between the hotel and the Croydons had been excellent.

"I was aware there had been an accident which was probably due to carelessness. In that event I'm here to apologize for the hotel."

"Our entire evening has been ruined," the Duchess insisted. "My husband and I decided to enjoy a quiet evening in our suite here, by ourselves. We were out for a few moments only, to take a walk around the block, and we returned to supper - and this!"

Peter nodded, outwardly sympathetic but mystified by the Duchess's attitude. It seemed almost as if she wanted TO IMPRESS THEincidentON HIS MIND so he would not forget it.

He suggested, "Perhaps if I could CONVEY OUR APOLOGIES to the Duke . . ."

The Duchess said firmly, "That will not be necessary."

He was about to take his leave when the door to the living room, which had remained ajar, opened fully. It framed the Duke of Croydon.

In contrast to his Duchess, the Duke was untidily dressed, in a creased white shirt and the trousers of a tuxedo. Instinctively Peter McDermott's eyes sought the tell-tale stain where Natchez, in the Duchess's words, had "poured shrimp Creole over my husband." He found it, though it was barely visible - a tiny spot which a valet could have removed instantly. Behind the Duke, in the spacious living room a television set was turned on.

The Duke's face seemed flushed, and more lined than some of his recent photographs showed. He held a glass in his hand and when he spoke his voice was blurry. "Oh, beg pardon." Then, to the Duchess: "I say, old girl. Must have left my cigarettes in the car."

She responded sharply, "I'll bring some." There was a curt dismissal in her voice and with a nod the Duke turned back into the living room. It was a curious, uncomfortable scene and for some reason it had heightened the Duchess's anger.

Turning to Peter, she snapped, "I insist on a full report being made to Mr. Trent, and you may inform him that I expect a personal apology."

Still perplexed, Peter went out as the suite door closed firmly behind him.

But he was allowed no more time for reflection. In the corridor outside, the bellboy who had accompanied Christine to the fourteenth floor was waiting. "Mr. McDermott," he said urgently, "Miss Francis wants you in 1439, and please hurry!"

Some fifteen minutes earlier, when Peter McDermott had left the elevator on his way to the Presidential Suite, the bellboy grinned at Christine. "Doing a bit of detectiving, Miss Francis?"

"If the chief house officer was around," Christine told him, "I wouldn't have to."

The bellboy, Jimmy Duckworth, a balding stubby man whose married son worked in the St. Gregory accounting department, said contemptuously, "Oh, him!"

A moment later the elevator stopped at the fourteenth floor.

"It's 1439, Jimmy," Christine said, and automatically both turned right.

There was a difference, she realized, in the way the two of them knew the geography of the hotel: the bellboy through years of ushering guests from the lobby to their rooms; herself, from a series of mental pictures which familiarity with the printed plans of each floor of the St. Gregory had given her.

Five years ago, she thought, if someone at the University of Wisconsin had asked what twenty-year-old Chris Francis, a bright CO-ED with a FLAIR FOR modern languages, was likely to be doing a LUSTRURN later, not even the wildest guess would have had her working in a New Orleans hotel. That long ago her knowledge of the Crescent City was of the slightest, and her interest less. She had learned in school about the Louisiana Purchase and had seen A Streetcar Named Desire. But even the last was out of date when she eventually came. The streetcar had become a diesel bus, and Desire was an obscure thoroughfare on the east side of town, which tourists seldom saw.

She supposed, in a way, it was this lack of knowledge which brought her to New Orleans. After the accident in Wisconsin, dully and with only the vaguest of reasoning, she had sought a place where she could be unknown and which, as well, was unfamiliar to herself. Familiar things, their touch and sight and sound, had become an ache of heart - all encompassing - which filled the waking day and penetrated sleep. Strangely - and in a way it shamed her at the time - there were never nightmares; only the steady procession of events as they had been that memorable day at Madison airport. She had been there to see her family leave for Europe: her mother, gay and excited, wearing the bon voyage orchid which a friend had telegraphed; her father, relaxed and amiably complacent that for a month the real and imagined ailments of his patients would be someone else's concern. He had been puffing a pipe which he knocked out on his shoe when the flight was called.

Babs, her elder sister, had embraced Christine; and even Tony, two years younger and hating public affection, consented to be kissed.

"So long, Hami" Babs and Tony had called back, and Christine smiled at the use of the silly, affectionate name they gave her because she was the middle of their trio sandwich. And they had all promised to write, even though she would join them in Paris two weeks later when term ended. At the last her mother had held Chris tightly, and told her to take care. And a few minutes later the big prop-jet had TAXIED out and taken off with a roar, majestically, though it barely cleared the runway before it fell back, one wing low, becoming a whirling, somersaulting Catherine wheel, and for a moment a dust cloud, and then a torch, and finally a silent pile of fragments-machinery and what was left of human flesh.