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 Sextus dismissed him with a wave of his hand. He went in alone.
"I'm the manager, madam," he assured her. He noted that despite her excited wails, her eyes drooped half shut. A bottle of sleeping pills on the table was uncapped.
"Thizz man, thizz man, thizz man!" she kept repeating and pointing her elbow at the bed. The man in question raised his eyebrows and shook his head.