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nodded promptly when he mentioned his name.
    "Oh, yes. They're waiting for you. Go right on in."
    She gestured toward the door marked PRIVATE. Dusty opened it and went in.
    The manager was seated behind his desk, crisp and cool looking in a white linen suit. Tolliver, the superintendent of service, sat a little to one side of him, his fumed-oak chair pulled up at the end of the desk. They were studying some papers when Dusty entered, and they continued to study them for a few moments longer. Then, Steelman murmured something under his breath and Tolliver laughed unctuously, and the two of them looked up.
    "Sit down, Bill." Tolliver motioned to a chair. "No, better pull it up here. We'll get this over with as quickly as possible."
    Dusty sat down, a faint feeling of nausea in his stomach. It was almost a physical shock to come into this air-conditioned, indirectly-lighted room from the blinding heat outside.
    Tolliver went on. "Now this is strictly confidential, Bill. Not a word about it to anyone, you understand? Good. Here's what we want to know. You've been working with Mr. Bascom for about a year. You've been around him more – presumably talked with and observed him more – than any of the rest of us. What can you tell us about him?"
    "Tell you?" Dusty smiled puzzledly. "I guess I don't understand what-"
    "Put it this way. Has he done or said anything that would lead you to believe he wasn't strictly on the level?"
    "Why – why, no, sir." Dusty shook his head. "I mean, well, I don't believe that he has."
    "Has he told you anything about his past, what he did before he came here? Any of his experiences, say, at other hotels?"
    "No."
    "To the best of your knowledge, he's an honest man who does his work as it should be done?"
    "Yes, sir." Dusty looked from Tolliver to Steelman. "I'm not being inquisitive, but maybe if you could tell me what the trouble is I might-"
    "Here's the trouble," the manager said crisply. "We've received an anonymous letter about Mr. Bascom. It's not at all specific, doesn't give us any details, but it does indicate that Mr. Bascom's character leaves something to be desired. Ordinarily, we'd pay no attention to such a communication. If one of our other clerks was involved, someone we knew something about-"
    "Someone you knew something about?" Dusty frowned. "You mean, you don't know anything about Mr. Bascom?"
    "Practically nothing. According to his application blank, he'd always been self-employed, kind of a small-time jobber. He bought novelties and candy and the like from wholesale houses and resold them to retailers. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, of course, but it doesn't tell us much about him. Doesn't give us anything we can check on. And it's the same story with his character references – the director of a YMCA where he lived a few months, the minister of a church he attended. Virtually meaningless. Those people hand out references right and left."
    "But" – Dusty spread his hands – "but why did you hire him, then?"
    Tolliver laughed wryly. "Doesn't sound much like the Manton, does it, Bill? But you see, Bascom was hired during the war, right back at the beginning of it. We had to take what we could get, and very few questions asked. Afterwards, since he seemed to have worked out very well, we simply let matters ride. We can't very well start questioning him about his background at this late date. Always assuming, of course, that questioning would do any good."
    "It wouldn't" said Steelman. "When a man's applying for a job, he tells everything he can that will be a credit to him. No, we have to go on accepting Bascom at his word, which is just about what it boils down to. Or we have to let him go."
    "I'd hate to do that," Tolliver said, "with nothing more against him than an anonymous note. I – yes, Bill?"
    "I was just going, to say that the bonding company must have investigated him. As long as they feel-"
    "He isn't bonded. We've never felt it necessary to bond the night