dumping me off in 'F'."

The captain said, "Try riding to fourth on 'C' and then walk down a deck
and come out through the linen room."

"Can't I just ride up the guest elevator, Jack?"

The captain stared at Sextus. "Our Mr. Forsyte wouldn't approve. Now,
move!"

He turned to Sextus and said acidly, "Just one of our little extra
problems." He moved off with a disgusted shake of his carefully barbered
head.

The nature of the bell-captain's special problem sounded interesting,
but the details confused Sextus. _Ride to four on "C", walk down to
three and out by the linen closet._ Sounded like three-dimensional
chess.

His cage arrived and he returned to his suite. He removed his shoes,
stripped to the waist and sank gratefully into the soft bed, nestling
the last bottle of his suitcase reserve in the crook of his bare arm.

He considered the sealed envelope marked: TO MY SUCCESSOR. URGENT
MATTERS.

First he opened a fresh bottle and then the envelope. He flipped through
the papers. There were some tax reports ready for signature, two union
contracts up for renegotiation and an estimate on re-doing 520 rooms in
vectors "B" and "F". Vectors? Did they mean "Wings"?

The last paper was a personal letter, apparently addressed to him.
Before he could begin it the phone at his bedside jangled. Operator
said, "Would you take this, please, Mr. Forsyte? I dispatched a house
man, but the guest is hysterical."

Without awaiting his permission she cut in the woman. "Hello, manager?
There's a man in my bed!"

"What is your room number, madame?" Sextus asked with drowsy detachment.

"I'm in H-408," she said, and on the "8" her voice ran up the scale in a
quivering crescendo that launched Sextus briskly from his bed. H-408 was
his floor and his wing, luckily. He tore out of the suite and down the
hall without shirt or shoes.

The door stood ajar, and he pushed it open. In the middle of the floor,
still gabbling into the phone, stood a lumpy, pallid woman about his own
age, naked except for a pillow which she hugged fiercely to her navel.
Her bleached hair was a frayed bird's-nest.

In bed, decently clad in a pair of blue and white striped pajamas, was a
rather distinguished, gray-haired gentleman of about fifty, leaning on
one elbow and watching the woman with an expression of mild astonishment
and interest. To Sextus' practiced eye, the man was guilty of nothing.

The house detective arrived at that moment, but Sextu