problems. William, therefore, ran the investment department on his own, until Matthew's arrival. The winter of 1929 turned out to be a depressing period for William, as he watched small firms and large firms alike~ run by friends he had known all his life, go under, For some time he even wondered if the bank itself could survive.
At Christmas William spent a glorious week in Florida with Kate, helping her pack her belongings in tea chests ready for returning to Boston. 'The ones Kane and Cabot let me keep,' she teased.
William's Christmas presents filled another tea chest and Kate felt quite guilty about his generosity. 'What can a penniless widow hope to give you in return?' she mocked. William responded by bundling her into the remaining tea chest and labelling it 'William's present'.
He returned to Boston in high spirits, and hoped his stay with Kate augured the start of a better year. He settled down into Tony Simmons'
old office to read the morning mail, knowing he would have to preside over the usual two or three liquidation meetings scheduled for that week.
He asked his secretary whom he was to see first.
'I'm afraid it's another bankruptcy, Mr. Kane.'
'Oh, yes, I remember the case,' said William. The name had meant nothing to him. 'I read over the file last night. A most unfortunate affair. What time is he due?'
'At ten o'clock, but the gentleman is already in the lobby waiting for you, sir.'
'Right, said William, 'please send him in. Let's get it over with.'
William opened his file again to remind himself quickly of the salient facts. There was a line drawn through the name of the original client, a Mr. Davis Leroy. It had been replaced by that of the morning's visitor, Mr.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 three months to appreciate the full extent of the problems facing the Richmond Continental and why the hotel went on losing so much money. The simple conclu sion he came to after twelve weeks of keeping his eyes wide open, while at the same time allowing the rest of the staff to believe that he was half asleep, was that the hotel's profits were being stolen.
The Richmond staff was working a collusive system on a scale which even Abel had not previously come across. The system did not, however, take into account a new assistant manager 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 him long to figure out that each department had perfected its own system for stealing.
Deception started at the front desk where the clerks were registering only eight out of every ten guests and pocketing the cash payments from the remaining two for themselves. The routine they were using 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 from another state for only one night. He would then discreetly make sure they had no business connections in the city, and simply fail to register them. If they paid cash the following morning, the money was pocketed and, provided they had not signed the register, there was no record of the guests ever having been in the hotel. Abel had long thought that all hotels should automatically have to register every guest. They were already doing so at the Plaza.
In the dining room j the system had been refined. Of course, the cash payments of any casual guest for lunch or dinner were already being taken. Abel had expected that~ but it took him a little longer to check through the restaurant bills and establish that the front desk was working with the dining room staff to ensure that there were no restaurant bills for those guests whom they had already chosen not to register. Over and above that there was a steady trail of fie, titious breakages and repairs, missing equipment, disappearing food, lost bed linen, and even an occasional mattress had gone astray. After checking every department thoroughly and keeping I iis ears and eyes open, Abel concluded that over half of the Richmond's staff were involved in the