Winter at Death's Hotel (28 page)

She picked up her letters at Reception and went up in the lift, leaning on her crutch and sorting through them. Two from Arthur, one mailed in Minneapolis and one on the train. Oh, dear, he must be beyond Chicago already; how had she lost track? She knew, of course: the missing garment, the noises, her fears, working for Minnie at City Hall.

Under the letters was an envelope from the hotel. From another guest? She started to open it, found that she had reached her floor, and so clumped out. It was hardly correct to read it in the corridor, so she went on to her rooms and let herself in. Ethel was in the bedroom, sewing.

“I've decided not to leave New York just yet, Ethel.”

“Yes, madame.”

“Mr. Doyle is all the way beyond Chicago, it's no good our going to the expense to travel all that way, as he's coming back quite close—Philadelphia—rather soon.” It was an aspect of the tour he'd objected to, and she agreed that it was foolish—both inconvenient and inefficient: he went to Chicago and then backtracked to several other cities, then south to St. Louis and so east again from there. Louisa thought that Marie Corelli's plan of going out from and back to New York was a much better one, but of course she wouldn't say that to Arthur. So now she said to Ethel, “Perhaps we'll leave in a few days and meet him in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.”

“Of course, madame.”

Louisa went back into the sitting room and fell into a sofa and opened the hotel envelope. She expected a personal note from some new acquaintance; instead, there was a bill. It was dated the day before and covered the time since Arthur had left.

Only
a
formality, I suppose.

But her eyes went to the bottom, where it said “Balance” and “Payable upon receipt,” and there was a figure that made her heart pump—a hundred and seventy-seven dollars and eleven cents!

Of course, it had to be a mistake.

But the mistake was hers. She had been eating all her meals in the hotel, and so had Ethel; she had had meals sent up when she wanted. She had bought things for the children every day on the mezzanine and charged them to her room. She had sent telegrams. She had sent boys off with packages to be mailed to England.

And she had been charged for three visits by the doctor and five by Galt!

And two dollars a night for Ethel's room upstairs!

She knew she was blushing, and she knew why: she was angry, and she was ashamed. She had assumed that all the bills would wait until Arthur returned to pay them.

I
was
leaving
it
to
him. Leaving it to the man to fix. Only a woman…

She jumped up and cried out when she landed on her ankle. Well, all right, she'd been a weak-minded fool; she'd been
stupid.
She'd fix that. But it was beyond bearing that she had been charged for Ethel's room when Ethel was there only because she, Louisa, had tripped on their damned carpet! And that she should be charged for the doctor! And for Galt!

“I shall be downstairs, Ethel.”

“Yes, madame.”

She marched into Carver's office and put the bill down on his desk and said, “I demand an explanation for these charges.”

Carver looked more like a reptile than ever. She expected a red, forked tongue to slip out between his lips and flicker toward her. He ignored her obvious anger, however, and purred, “The charges are quite usual, Mrs. Doyle.”

“You said my stay here would be without charge until my ankle was better.”

“And you have not been charged for your suite—one of our better suites, in fact.”

“But you have charged me for my maid's room.”

“Your maid wasn't in the arrangement.”

“Did you think I was going to stay here with a bad ankle and no maid?”

“That was quite up to you, of course, Mrs. Doyle.”

“And the doctor! Four visits at two dollars per visit!”

“Perfectly normal.”

“But…but…and then Galt! A dollar a visit by Galt. Nothing was said about Galt costing me.”

“It wasn't part of his usual duties, Mrs. Doyle. I couldn't ask him to do it for free, could I?” His hands had come up into Uriah Heep pose.

“I was going to give him something when I left—when Mr. Doyle returned.”

Carver looked shocked, actually got a little pale. “You weren't, surely, planning to stay until Mr. Doyle gets back!”

“What about it?”

“Mr. Doyle is to be gone for a month! You can't, I mean you mustn't think, you shouldn't assume… Mrs. Doyle, our arrangement was that you were welcome here
at
no
cost
for
your
personal
living
space
until you could get around on your foot, and I've been watching you, and you're getting around.”

“Where? When? I'm on crutches, Mr. Carver!”

“One crutch. Both yesterday and the day before, you got into a cab that was to take you to City Hall. Yesterday, I'm told, you went for a carriage ride with a policeman! I've seen you myself, Mrs. Doyle, walking around the lobby.”

“That Irish toady at the door—I suppose he told you about the carriage.” She drew herself up. She knew that that was what she should do; she had read the very expression in any number of books. “Very well. I will leave the hotel.”

He started to look delighted, then looked wary. “I didn't say you had to do that.”

“You can hardly want a crippled woman taking up ‘one of your better suites' when you could be getting
money
for it, Mr. Carver. No, I shall find another place,
with
my maid, and of course without the expensive medical services this place offers! Naturally, I shall see my lawyers about recovering my exorbitant costs here. And damages, as well.” She didn't have lawyers, of course, but Arthur's publisher did.

“Oh, that isn't wise…”

“I've held off suing you until I saw how matters turned out. Now I've seen. You're a money-grubbing snake, and the only thing you'll feel is the weight of the law. So be it.” Should she turn about and march out now? She wanted an exit with some drama to it. How would Irving do it?

But Carver was wringing his hands and whining: the gist of it was that she'd misunderstood him.

“Oh?”

“I didn't mean for you to
go
. It wouldn't look, it wouldn't be nice, for a guest to leave in, um, anger. I see now that the charges for the doctor and the other one must have come as a surprise; of course, we can make an adjustment. Let's say—half?”

“Let's say none.”

“Oh, well, really…”

“Did I send for the doctor? Never! Did I ask for Galt? I did not. I thought you were sending them both out of the goodness of your hard little heart, or at least because you thought you wanted to be seen to do the right thing. And now you want
me
to pay for it! Really, Mr. Carver, you have the gall of a vendor of patent medicines. No, I shall sue.”

“Wait!” She had started away;
I
shall
sue
had seemed a good exit line. Nonetheless, she turned back. Carver said, “Let me make you a proposition.” He smiled—a terrible mistake. “The hotel will, mmm,
absorb
the medical expenses, if you'll agree that from now on, you'll pay for Galt and Dr. Strauss at the usual rates. All rightee?”

“And?”

“And, ah, if you will go on the American plan for your meals, meaning you will accept the table d'hôte, including the dessert of the day; then we'll charge you only for that and make it, mm, retroactive to your accident.” He hurried on. “But the maid either goes on the American plan, too, and you pay for her, or she eats upstairs in the employees' dining room with the other servants!”

“I need my maid to help me to the restaurant! Or would you prefer that I not eat?”

“You did need her, yes, you certainly did, of course, but
you
don't need her now
. You're getting around real good!”

She tried to draw herself up again, but her ankle hurt. She settled for lifting her chin (about which she'd also read) and said, “What, then, would be the amount I would owe you?”

“Well, well—let's see…” He sat, mumbled some sort of apology and asked her to sit—she did not—and began to scribble on her bill with a pencil. “Well—we can make the dining-room bills…mmm…three times nine—twenty-seven dollars. And take off for the doctor and Galt—that's…eight plus five is thirteen—um, that's forty dollars off.” He looked up, cringing and threatening at the same time. “I can't reduce what you spent on the mezzanine for clothes and toys and things.”

“Nor would I expect you to.”

“Hmp. Well, then—how does a hundred and thirty-seven sound?”

“Ridiculously high.”

“Mrs. Doyle!”

“I will not pay for my maid's lodging! She was as essential to my recovery as…as…as your useless doctor.”

“But Mrs. Doyle, when you think of what it's costing me for your suite…!” Something happened to his face—the arrival of an idea—and he smiled and looked like a crocodile. “I'll make a deal with you.”

“I think not.”

“We've got some very nice single rooms in the annex. If you move to one of those, I'll throw in lodging
and
meals for your maid for gratis. How about it?”

“What is the annex?”

“Next to the hotel. It's part of the hotel; there's connecting doors. We bought it eight years ago because we had so many clients. It's every bit as fine as the hotel itself.”

She knew that that couldn't be true. She was vaguely aware of a door on the mezzanine through which she'd seen people coming and going. She knew instinctively that the annex would be a come-down from the hotel. The idea of going there rather hurt her feelings. At the same time, if she could save the entire cost of Ethel…

“
En
suite
?” she said.

“The convenience is right there off the room. The bath is just down the hall a few steps.”

Just down the hall! She pictured herself walking down a corridor in her dressing gown. And she remembered how she'd grown up, in a tiny house with six other people and a privy out behind.

What came out of her mouth was not anything about the bath, however; it was one of those seemingly random cannons that ricochet off the birth of an idea. She said, “Have you ever had a guest complain about noises in the rooms, Mr. Carver?”

“Noises? This is the quietest hotel in New York.”

“I've heard that people hear noises.”

“Our walls are two feet thick.” He was looking in a drawer for something. “This hotel was designed along the most modern lines to provide—ah…” He pulled out one of the brochures they'd been given when they arrived. “It's all in there.”

She ignored the brochure. “People hear ghosts.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“I see by your face that it isn't ridiculous at all, Mr. Carver. What your face tells me is that you have had people complain, and you're terrified. What is it—rats?”

“The New Britannic does not have rats! Don't even whisper the word. Do you know what a first-class hotel would suffer if somebody said there were
rats
?” He put his head on his hand; for a moment, looking down at his thinning hair and scabby scalp, Louisa felt sorry for him. He said, “There can't possibly be rats. Or anything else!”

“People hear things.
I
heard things.”

He looked up quickly. “You did? What?”

“A kind of click. And one day when I was in the bath, I heard…a sort of thump.” She reddened, dug with the toe of her crutch at his carpet, said, “A piece of my clothing was stolen, too.”

Now he looked truly pale. He swallowed. “We'll pay you what it cost.”

“It isn't that. It's the
mysteriousness
of it!”

“It isn't rats. We don't have rats.” He stood, but he didn't look at her; he fidgeted, rattled something in his pocket, licked his hips. “It's hard to get good help. Our housemaids, they stay a long time but they die and so on, we have to find new ones, there's always a bad apple. You know, pilfering. We always make good on that. Just scribble it on a piece of paper so I have a record; we'll reimburse you at once. Cash. You don't need to say what garment it was.” He said that as if he already knew.

But she was thinking about the annex. Did people hear noises in the annex? She was going to ask him, but then she was sure he'd lie to her, so she said instead, “What was the annex before it became the annex?”

“A private house. Very elegant. Absolutely up to the highest standard. Completely refurbished before we offered it to the traveling public—electricity, hot water, central heat…” He petered out, as if his own boiler had grown cold.

“I'll take your offer, including the annex, if you'll reduce my bill to an even hundred dollars.” A hundred dollars was about all she had left, even with the money—such as it was—that Arthur had wired. She felt her heart beating very fast. She'd never bargained for anything before. “I deserve some reduction for having to stay here in the first place, with the noises and the pilfering and…all.”

He moved his lower jaw to one side and stared at her, his head twisted so that he was looking upward at her out of the corners of his eyes. He looked sinister and shifty. “You won't say anything about hearing noises or losing clothing, will you?”

“You mean, will I sell my silence for thirty-seven dollars? Hardly.”

“People hear talk like that, they get ideas.”

“I am always discreet, Mr. Carver. However, I won't stoop to promising silence on a matter of…of
public
health.
”