Arthur HaileyArthur HaileyArthur HaileyArthur Hailey

HOTELHOTEL

• Hotel is a 1965 novel by Arthur Hailey. It is the story of an independent New Orleans hotel, the St. Gregory, and its management's struggle to regain profitability and avoid being assimilated into the O'Keefe chain of hotels. The St. Gregory is supposedly based on the Roosevelt Hotel.

• "Fast-moving storytelling rich with interesting and bizarre characters."

——THE DENVER POST • "Instant readability... catches the

reader by his lapels and holds him through its last crowded page.“

——CHICAGO TRIBUNE • "A great story.“ ——CLEVELAND PRESS

AS FOR THE BLACKMAIL PART…

• most important point is the mental activity. This article is mainly talking about the psychological warfare between Ogilvie and the Duchess. This fighting is quite wonderful. They are trying to find each other's real thinking, trying to overwhelm each other with their own momentum, after a long mental struggle, finally the Duchess won. Psychological warfare aspect is a very important point in this article, it worth savoring.

• The Duke and Duchess arrived back at the hotel and try to find a way out, so that there is left a slightest print of them being involved in an accident.

• When the waiter arrived in the presidential suite with dinner, the Duchess intentionally hit the waiter so that her dress gets spoiled. The Duchess created a big issue over this, just to make her presence felt in hotel so that it can be interpreted that she was in

the hotel.

• But the chief house officer Ogilvie gets hint of it and tries to blackmail the Duke and Duchess. They finally reach an agreement that Ogilvie would drive their Jaguar to Chicago and a total of twenty five thousand dollars would be paid to him. The travel was supposedly on Thursday night at 1 am. Ogilvie gets a written note from Duchess asking for permission to drive her car out of garage in case the garage officer asks for.

• The moment he was driving the car out of hotel, Peter (the general manager )was entering the hotel and they had eye contact, though Peter did not think much of it. However, recollecting all the events - a Jaguar being driven by Ogilvie which belonged to Duke and Duchess - the broken headlight of the Jaguar - the fuss created by Duchess on waiter - all established a link towards the involvement of the Duke and Duchess.

• Peter inquired from the garage officer and was informed that Ogilvie had a written note from the Duchess and so was allowed to drive the car away, but somehow the note got misplaced.

• Peter informed the police captai

n Yolles of the incident, but they could not prove it without any evidence. After working hard, the incinerator ( 废物的焚化炉 ) officer, responsible for garbage recycling, managed to find the note.

• When the note was produced before the Duchess, she frowned.

• The Duke then decided to admit his crime and decided to leave and stepped into elevator no 4 of the Hotel.

• Keycase Milne: A hotel thief operating in the St. Gregory.

• When he saw the duke and duchess in hotel, he thought, if he could get the key of their room, it would be an excellent breakthrough. He managed to get the key from reception playing trickery, got a duplicate （复制品） prepared and stole from duchess room her fifteen thousand dollars and jewelry. After obtaining so much of amount he decided to leave the hotel and boarded the elevator no 4.

• Climax: The meeting to take over the hotel scheduled at 11.30 am Friday was in place. The boss was Albert Wells, the hotel guest, whom Christine had taken care and thought of as not a rich man, had bought the hotel. (Christine is the secretary to Warren Trent. Peter and Christine has a liking for each other. They share many things in common and feel they could be happy together. ) To the utmost surprise of peter, Peter was appointed the Executive vice-President of St. Gregory

~~~~~~~~~ENDING~~~~~~~~~~

• It was within the meeting itself that Christine came running and told that elevator no 4 met an accident and had a free fall.

• The Duke was dead on the spot in the elevator. The duchess still cold on hearing that, had no expression.

The policeman, Captain Yolles, thought now the blame of hit-n-run could be easily moved on Duke as he was already dead and Duchess could save herself.

Keycase managed to be safe and ran away from the country with all that money.