Отель / Hotel

УДК	 372.8
ББК	 81.2 Англ-93
	
	
Х35
Хейли, Артур.
Отель : книга для чтения на английском языке / А.  ХейХ35
ли. — Санкт-Петербург : Антология : КАРО, 2024. — 480 с. — 
(Modern Prose).
ISBN 978-5-9925-0149-0.
Артур Хейли — один из самых популярных писателей современности.
Роман «Отель» — это описание жизни большого роскошного 
отеля. Перед читателем предстает замкнутый мир, в котором люди 
работают, встречаются и расстаются — просто живут.
В книге представлен неадаптированный текст на языке оригинала.
УДК 372.8 
ББК 81.2 Англ-93
© Антология, 2024
© КАРО, 2024
ISBN 978-5-9925-0149-0

Traveller, pray lodge in this unworthy house.
The bath is ready. A peaceful room awaits you.
Come in! Come in!
Translation of a sign at the doorway
of an inn, Takamatsu, Japan.
MONDAY EVENING
1
If he had had his way, Peter McDermott thought, he would
have fired the chief house detective long ago. But he had not
had his way and now, once more, the obese ex-policeman was
missing when he was needed most.
McDermott leaned down from his husky six-and-a-half feet
and jiggled the desk telephone impatiently. “Fifteen things
break loose at once,” he told the girl by the window of the
wide, broadloomed office, “and nobody can find him.”
Christine Francis glanced at her wrist watch. It showed a
few minutes before eleven p.m. “There’s a bar on Baronne
Street you might try.”
Peter McDermott nodded. “The switchboard’s checking
Ogilvie’s hangouts.” He opened a desk drawer, took out
cigarettes and offered them to Christine.
Coming forward, she accepted a cigarette and McDermott
lit it, then did the same for himself. He watched as she inhaled.
Christine Francis had left her own smaller office in the St.
Gregory Hotel executive suite a few minutes earlier. She had
been working late and was on the point of going home when
the light under the assistant general manager’s door had drawn
her in.
F

ARTHUR HAILEY
“Our Mr. Ogilvie makes his own rules,” Christine said. “It’s
always been that way. On W.T.’s orders.”
McDermott spoke briefly into the telephone, then waited
again. “You’re right,” he acknowledged. “I tried to reorganize
our tame detective force once, and my ears were properly pinned
back.”
She said quietly, “I didn’t know that.”
He looked at her quizzically. “I thought you knew
everything.”
And usually she did. As personal assistant to Warren Trent,
the unpredictable and irascible owner of New Orleans’ largest
hotel, Christine was privy to the hotel’s inner secrets as well as
its day-today affairs. She knew, for example, that Peter, who
had been promoted to assistant general manager a month or
two ago, was virtually running the big, bustling St. Gregory,
though at an ungenerous salary and with limited authority.
She knew the reasons behind that, too, which were in a file
marked Confidential and involved Peter McDermott’s personal
life.
Christine asked, “What is breaking loose?”
McDermott gave a cheerful grin which contorted his
rugged, almost ugly features. “We’ve a complaint from the
eleventh floor about some sort of sex orgy; on the ninth the
Duchess of Croydon claims her Duke has been insulted by a
room-service waiter; there’s a report of somebody moaning
horribly in 1439; and I’ve the night manager off sick, with the
other two house officers otherwise engaged.”
He spoke into the telephone again and Christine returned
to the office window which was on the main mezzanine floor.
Head tilted back to keep the cigarette smoke from her eyes, she
looked casually across the city. Directly ahead, through an
avenue of space between adjoining buildings, she could see
into the tight, crowded rectangle of the French Quarter. With
)

HOTEL
midnight an hour away, it was early yet for the Quarter, and
lights in front of late night bars, bistros, jazz halls, and strip
joints – as 4well as behind darkened shutters – would burn
well into tomorrow morning.
Somewhere to the north, over Lake Pontchartrain
probably, a summer storm was brewing in the darkness. The
beginnings of it could be sensed in muted rumblings and an
occasional flash of light. With luck, if the storm moved south
toward the Gulf of Mexico, there might be rain in New Orleans
by morning.
The rain would be welcome, Christine thought. For three
weeks the city had sweltered in heat and humidity, producing
tensions all around. There would be relief in the too. This
afternoon the chief engineer had complained again, “If I canna’
shut down part of the air conditioning soon, I willna’ be
responsible for my bearings.”
Peter McDermott put down the telephone and she asked,
“Do you have a name for the room where the moaning is?”
He shook his head and lifted the phone again. “I’ll find out.
Probably someone having a nightmare, but we’d better make
sure.”
As she dropped into an upholstered leather chair facing
the big mahogany desk, Christine realized suddenly how very
tired she was. In the ordinary way she would have been home
at her Gentilly apartment hours ago. But today had been
exceptionally full, with two conventions moving in and a heavy
influx of other guests, creating problems, many of which had
found their way to her desk.
“All right, thanks.” McDermott scribbled a name and hung
up. “Albert Wells, Montreal.”
“I know him,” Christine said. “A nice little man who stays
here every year. If you like, I’ll check that one out.”
He hesitated, eying Christine’s slight, rim figure.


ARTHUR HAILEY
The telephone shrilled and he answered it. “I’m sorry, sir,”
the operator said, “we can’t locate Mr. Ogilvie.”
“Never mind. Give me the bell captain.” Even if he
couldn’t fire the chief house detective, McDermott thought,
he would do some hell raising in the morning. Meanwhile
he would send someone else to look after the disturbance
on the eleventh and handle the Duke and Duchess incident
himself.
“Bell captain,” the phone said, and he recognized the flat
nasal voice of Herbie Chandler. Chandler, like Ogilvie, was
another of the St. Gregory’s old-timers and reputedly controlled
more sideline rackets than anyone else on staff.
McDermott explained the problem and asked Chandler to
investigate the complaint about an alleged sex orgy. As he had
half expected, there was an immediate protest. “That ain’t my
job, Mr. Mac, and we’re still busy down here.” The tone was
typical Chandler – half fawning, half insolent.
McDermott instructed, “Never mind the argument, I want
that complaint attended to.” Making another decision: “And
something else: send a boy with a pass key to meet Miss
Francis on the main mezzanine.” He replaced the phone before
there could be any more discussion.
“Let’s go.” His hand touched Christine’s shoulders lightly.
“Take the bellboy with you, and tell your friend to have his
nightmares under the covers.”
2
Herbie Chandler, his weasel-face betraying an inner
uneasiness, stood thoughtfully by the bell captain’s upright
desk in the St. Gregory lobby.
Set centrally, beside one of the fluted concrete columns
which extended to the heavily ornamented ceiling high above,
the bell captain’s post commanded a view of the lobby’s
(

HOTEL
comings and goings. There was plenty of movement now. The
conventioneers had been in and out all evening and, as the
hours wore on, their determined gaiety had increased with
their liquor intake.
As Chandler watched out of habit, a group of noisy revelers
came through the Carondelet Street door: three men and two
women; they held drinking glasses, the kind that Pat O’Brien’s
bar charged tourists a dollar for over in the French Quarter,
and one of the men was stumbling badly, supported by the
others. All three men wore convention name tags. GOLD
CROWN COLA the cards said, with their names beneath. Others
in the lobby made way good-naturedly and the quintet weaved
into the main floor bar.
Occasional new arrivals were still trickling in – from late
planes and trains, and several were being roomed now by
Chandler’s platoon of bellboys, though the “boys” was a
figure of speech since none was younger than forty, and
several graying veterans had been with the hotel a quarter
century or more. Herbie Chandler, who held the power of
hiring and firing his bell staff, preferred older men. Someone
who had to struggle and grunt a bit with heavy luggage was
likely to earn bigger tips than a youngster who swung bags
as if they contained nothing more than balsa wood. One oldtimer, who actually was strong and wiry as a mule, had a way
of setting bags down, putting a hand over his heart, then
picking them up with a shake of his head and carrying on.
The performance seldom earned less than a dollar from
conscience-stricken guests who were convinced the old man
would have a coronary around the next corner. What they
did not know was that ten per cent of their tip would find its
way into Herbie Chandler’s pocket, plus the flat two dollars
daily which Chandler exacted from each bellboy as the price
of retaining his job.
:

ARTHUR HAILEY
The bell captain’s private toll system caused plenty of lowtoned growlings, even though a fast-moving bellboy could
still make a hundred and fifty dollars a week for himself when
the was full. On such occasions, as tonight, Herbie Chandler
often stayed at his post well beyond the usual hour. Trusting
no one, he liked to keep an eye on his percentage and had an
uncanny knack of sizing up guests, estimating exactly what
each trip to the upstairs floors would yield. In the past a few
individualists had tried holding out on Herbie by reporting
tips to be less than they really were. Reprisals were unfailingly
swift and ruthless, and a month’s suspension on some trumpedup charge usually brought non-conformists into line.
There was another cause, too, for Chandler’s presence in the
hotel tonight, and it accounted for his unease which had been
steadily growing since Peter McDermott’s telephone call a few
minutes earlier. McDermott had instructed: investigate a complaint
on the eleventh floor. But Herbie Chandler had no need to
investigate because he knew roughly what was happening on the
eleventh. The reason was simple: he had arranged it himself.
Three hours earlier the two youths had been explicit in
their request and he had listened respectfully since the fathers
of both were wealthy local citizens and frequent guests of the
hotel. “Listen, Herbie,” one of them said, “there’s a fraternity
dance tonight – the same old crap, and we’d like something
different.”
He had asked, knowing the answer, “How different?”
“We’ve taken a suite.” The boy flushed. “We want a couple
of girls.”
It was too risky, Herbie decided at once. Both were little
more than boys, and he suspected they had been drinking. He
began, “Sorry, gentlemen,” when the second youth cut in.
“Don’t give us any crap about not being able to, because we
know you run the call girls here.”
*

HOTEL
Herbie had bared his weasel teeth in what passed for a
mile. “I can’t imagine where you got that idea, Mr. Dixon.”
The one who had spoken first insisted, “We can pay, Herbie.
You know that.”
The bell captain hesitated, despite his doubts his mind
working greedily. Just lately his sideline revenues had been
slower than usual. Perhaps, after all, the risk was slight.
The one named Dixon said, “Let’s quit horsing around.
How much?”
Herbie looked at the youths, remembered their fathers,
and multiplied the standard rate by two. “A hundred
dollars.”
There was a momentary pause. Then Dixon said decisively,
“You got a deal.” He added persuasively to his companion,
“Listen, we’ve already paid for the booze. I’ll lend you the rest
of your split.”
“Well ...”
“In advance, gentlemen.” Herbie moistened his thin lips
with his tongue. “Just one other thing. You’ll have to make
sure there’s no noise. If there is, and we get complaints, there
could be trouble for all of us.”
There would be no noise, they had assured him, but now, it
seemed, there had been, and his original fears were proving
uncomfortably true.
An hour ago the girls had come in through the front entrance
as usual, with only an inner few of the hotel’s staff aware that
they were other than registered guests. If all had gone well,
both should have left by now, as unobtrusively as they had
come.
The eleventh floor complaint, relayed through McDermott
and specifically referring to a sex orgy, meant that something
had gone seriously wrong. What? Herbie was reminded
uncomfortably of the reference to booze.
9

It was hot and humid in the lobby despite the overworked
air conditioning, and Herbie took out a silk handkerchief to
mop his perspiring forehead. At the same time he silently cursed
his own folly, wondering whether, at this stage, he should go
upstairs or stay well away.
ARTHUR HAILEY
3
Peter McDermott rode the elevator to the ninth floor, leaving
Christine who was to continue to the fourteenth with her
accompanying bellboy. At the opened elevator doorway he
hesitated. “Send for me if there’s any trouble.”
“If it’s essential I’ll scream.” As the sliding doors came
between them her eyes met his own. For a moment he stood
thoughtfully watching the place where they had been, then,
long-legged, and alert, strode down the carpeted corridor
toward the Presidential Suite.
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
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