a service elevator to the second floor, walked on past the auditor's offices and the switchboard room and entered the outer room of the manager's office. The receptionist nodded promptly when he mentioned his name.
'Oh, yes. They're waiting for you. Go right on in.'
She gestured toward the door marked PRIVATE. Dusty opened it and went in.
The manager was seated behind his desk, crisp and cool looking in a white linen suit. Tolliver, the superintendent of service, sat a little to one side of him, his fumed-oak chair pulled up at the end of the desk. They were studying some papers when Dusty entered, and they continued to study them for a few moments longer. Then, Steelman murmured something under his breath and Tolliver laughed unctuously, and the two of them looked up.
'Sit down, Bill.' Tolliver motioned to a chair. 'No, better pull it up here. We'll get this over with as quickly as possible.'
Dusty sat down, a faint feeling of nausea in his stomach. It was almost a physical shock to come into this air-conditioned, indirectly-lighted room from the blinding heat outside.
Tolliver went on. 'Now this is strictly confidential, Bill. Not a word about it to anyone, you understand? Good. Here's what we want to know. You've been working with Mr. Bascom for about a year. You've been around him more – presumably talked with and observed him more – than any of the rest of us. What can you tell us about him?'
'Tell you?' Dusty smiled puzzledly. 'I guess I don't understand what-'
'Put it this way. Has he done or said anything that would lead you to believe he wasn't strictly on the level?'
'Why – why, no, sir.' Dusty shook his head. 'I mean, well, I don't believe that he has.'
'Has he told you anything about his past, what he did before he came here? Any of his experiences, say, at other hotels?'
'No.'
'To the best of your knowledge, he's an honest man who does his work as it should be done?'
'Yes, sir.' Dusty looked from Tolliver to Steelman. 'I'm not being inquisitive, but maybe if you could tell me what the trouble is I might-'
'Here's the trouble,' the manager said crisply. 'We've received an anonymous letter about Mr. Bascom. It's not at all specific, doesn't give us any details, but it does indicate that Mr. Bascom's character leaves something to be desired. Ordinarily, we'd pay no attention to such a communication. If one of our other clerks was involved, someone we knew something about-'
'Someone you knew something about?' Dusty frowned. 'You mean, you don't know anything about Mr. Bascom?'
'Practically nothing. According to his application blank, he'd always been self-employed, kind of a small-time jobber. He bought novelties and candy and the like from wholesale houses and resold them to retailers. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, of course, but it doesn't tell us much about him. Doesn't give us anything we can check on. And it's the same story with his character references – the director of a YMCA where he lived a few months, the minister of a church he attended. Virtually meaningless. Those people hand out references right and left.'
'But' – Dusty spread his hands – 'but why did you hire him, then?'
Tolliver laughed wryly. 'Doesn't sound much like the Manton, does it, Bill? But you see, Bascom was hired during the war, right back at the beginning of it. We had to take what we could get, and very few questions asked. Afterwards, since he seemed to have worked out very well, we simply let matters ride. We can't very well start questioning him about his background at this late date. Always assuming, of course, that questioning would do any good.'
'It wouldn't' said Steelman. 'When a man's applying for a job, he tells everything he can that will be a credit to him. No, we have to go on accepting Bascom at his word, which is just about what it boils down to. Or we have to let him go.'
'I'd hate to do that,' Tolliver said, 'with nothing more against him than an anonymous note. I – yes, Bill?'
'I was just going, to say that the bonding company must have investigated him. As long as they feel-'
'He isn't bonded. We've never felt it necessary to bond the night clerk. He carries a very small change bank, doesn't handle much cash. He doesn't have access to any valuables. So…'
'Let's see,' said Steelman. 'Do you have many one-shift guests, Rhodes? People who arrive after midnight and leave before seven?'
'Not very many. If you wanted to check the transcript-' 'We already have. I was wondering whether Mr. Bascom ever ordered you to make up those checked-out rooms instead of leaving them for the maids.'
'You mean have I helped him steal the price of the room?' Dusty said. 'No, sir, I haven't.'
'Now, Bill' – Tolliver frowned. 'That wasn't Mr. Steelman's question.'
'I'm sorry,' Dusty said. 'No, sir, Mr. Bascom has never told me to do anything like that. He knows that I wouldn't do it if he did ask me. If he was going to pull anything crooked, he'd get rid of me before…'
His voice trailed away, leaving the sentence unfinished. Steelman glanced at him shrewdly.
'Go on, Rhodes. He's been riding you, trying to get rid of you?'
'Well,' Dusty hesitated. 'Yes, sir, he has. But I'm not sure he doesn't mean it for my own good. You see he thinks – he seems to think – that I ought to go back to college.'
'Mmm. I wonder,' said Steelman. 'If he could get another bellboy on the job, work out a deal with him… Tolly, do you remember that night team they caught out in Denver a while back? Stealing rent. Refunding – right into their own pockets. Carting out linens and supplies by the armload. God only knows how many thousands of dollars they cleaned up.'
'I remember,' Tolliver nodded. 'But with nothing more against the man than this one letter, which doesn't really tell us anything, I'd be very reluctant to jump to any conclusions. After all, Bascom worked with a number of other bellboys before Bill came here. His work is audited daily, and we run comparison reaudits from month to month. It seems to me that if he was pulling anything, we'd have found out about it in ten years time.'
'Perhaps he hasn't pulled anything. Maybe he's just getting ready to.'
'Well,' said Tolliver. 'Maybe.'
'I don't like it, Tolly.' Steelman's lips thinned fretfully. 'A letter like this concerning the one man we know nothing about. If a man's been a crook once – and this indicates that he has – he's very apt to be one again. He feels a sudden pinch, has to get money in a hurry, and he's off to the races.'
'Yes, I suppose so,' Tolliver nodded. 'What about that, Bill? Does Mr. Bascom have any money problems that you know of?'
'No, sir. He's never mentioned any.'
'Well, there's still another angle,' the manager went on. 'Suppose the author of this letter is trying to blackmail Bascom. He doesn't want him dismissed from his job, so he says just enough to disturb us. As he sees it, we'll be impelled to make some mention of the matter and Bascom will be frightened into paying off. Otherwise, there'll be another letter with more details.'
Tolliver frowned solemnly. Then, suddenly, his mouth twisted and he bent forward laughing. 'Excuse me, John, but – ha, ha, ha – when I try to picture poor old Bascom in the toils of a blackmailer, I – ha, ha – I-'
'Well,' Steelman grinned a trifle sheepishly. 'Maybe I'd better start reading westerns instead of detective stories. I can't see the prim old boy in the role myself. Seriously, however…'
'We've gotten crank letters before, John. It's not unnatural, after all the years he's been with us, that one should eventually crop up about Bascom. If we get another one, we certainly ought to take some action, but I don't see how we can at this point. For the present, we can just keep our eyes and ears open – that means you particularly, Bill – and -'
'What about putting Bascom on a day shift?'
'If you say so, but I wouldn't like to. He doesn't have the zip, the polish for a front-office day job. Aside from that, it takes a long time to break a man in on the night paper work.
Steelman nodded. 'All right, Tolly. I'll leave it up to you. You don,'t think you should mention the letter to Bascom? Very casually, of course. If he's on the level, there's no harm done, and if he isn't, well, it might keep him out of trouble.'
