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Williaain to remind himself quickly of the salient facts There was a line drawn through the nainal client, a Mr Davis Leroy It had been replaced by that of the ’s visitor, Mr Abel Rosnovski

William vividly remembered the last conversation he had had with Mr

Rosnovski, and was already regretting it

It took Abel about threethe Rich so much money The si his eyes wide open, while at the sa the rest of the staff to believe that he was half asleep, was that the hotel’s profits were being stolen

The Rich a collusive system on a scale which even Abel had not previously come across The systeer who had, in the past, had to steal bread from the Russians to stay alive Abel’s first problem was not to let anybody know the extent of his discoveries until he had a chance to look into every part of the hotel It didn’t take hiure out that each depart

Deception started at the front desk where the clerks were registering only eight out of every ten guests and pocketing the cash pay two for the was a simple one; anyone who had tried it at the Plaza in New York would have been discovered in a few minutes and fired The head desk clerk would choose an elderly couple, who had booked in froht He would then discreetly make sure they had no business connections in the city, and si ned the register, there was no record of the guests ever having been in the hotel Abel had long thought that all hotels should autouest They were already doing so at the Plaza

In the dining room j the system had been refined Of course, the cash payuest for lunch or dinner were already being taken Abel had expected that~ but it took hih the restaurant bills and establish that the front desk orking with the dining room staff to ensure that there were no restaurant bills for those guests whoister Over and above that there was a steady trail of fie, titious breakages and repairs,food, lost bed linen, and even an occasionalevery depart I iis ears and eyes open, Abel concluded that over half of the Richmond’s staff were involved in the conspiracy, and that no one department had a completely clean record

When he had first coer, Des on under his nose a long tily assumed the reason was that the man was lazy and could not be bothered to follow up complaints Even Abel was slow to catch on to the fact that the lazy er was the masterinind behind the entire operation, and the reason it worked so well Pacey had worked for the Richle hotel in the group in which he had not held a senior position at one time or another, which made Abel fearful for the solvency of the other hotels Moreover, Desmond Pacey was a personal friend of the hotels’ owner, Davis Leroy The Chicago Rich over thirty thousand dollars a year, a situadon Abel knew could be redee with Desmond Pacey `that posed a problem, because Davis Leroy had rarely fired anyone in thirty years He sio away

As far as Abel could see, the Rich the hotel blind until they reluctantly retired

Abel knew that the only way he could reverse the hotel’s fortunes was to have a show - doith Davis Leroy, and to that end, early in 1928, he boarded the express train from Illinois Central to St Louis and the Missouri Pacific to Dallas Under his are report which he had taken three months to compile in his small roo through theat him in dismay

These people are my friends,’ were his first words as he closed the dossier ’Some of them have been with me for thirty years Hell, there’s always been a little fiddling around in this business, but now you tellme blind behind my back?’

’Some of them, I should ffiin~ for all of those thirty years,’ said Abel

’What in hell’s na to do about it?’ said Leroy