Page 21 of The Mystery Guest

Sunitha nods and rummages through her trolley to extract a small white garbage bag, which she passes to Detective Stark.

“Got any gloves?” Stark asks.

Sunshine grabs a fresh pair of disposables from the trolley and passes them to her.

The detective puts them on, opens the bag, fishes around for a bit, then produces something from the bottom, a crumpled note on Regency Grand stationery. She smooths it out as I read over her shoulder:

You are an angel.

Regards,

Your Chiefest Admirer

The penmanship is perfect, written with a fountain pen, judging from the finely tapered curlicues and loops. It looks so familiar, and yet I can’t quite place it.

“Is it Mr. Grimthorpe’s handwriting?” the detective asks.

“Definitely not,” I reply. I can tell that much immediately.

The detective stares at me, her brow furrowed. “What makes you so sure?”

My mind races. My heart pounds. The edges of the room start to darken. “I know because…because he signed books earlier, for me and for many others,” I blurt out. “This handwriting is not a match.”

“Hmm,” Stark replies.

Sunshine and Sunitha have been following the conversation between us as though it were a tennis match, but trained as they are to serve guests rather than question them, they ask nothing about what in good heavens is going on.

“Ladies, did Sharpe leave anything else behind in this room?”

“Yes,” Sunshine says. “Those.” She points to twelve red, long-stem roses in a glass vase perched atop her maid’s trolley. “Molly, we kept them. It seemed like such a waste to throw them out. We wanted to ask you—is that okay?”

I immediately sympathize with the conundrum faced by my well-intentioned maids. On the one hand,A Maid’s Guide & Handbook to Housekeeping, Cleaning & Maintaining a State of Pinnacle Perfection(an official rule book I conceived of and wrote myself) states that items left behind by guests shalt be delivered unto the lost and found at Reception. However, a subclause also says that if and when items left behind by guests are deemed discarded rather than forgotten, said items may be acquired by maids for personal use.

“You may keep the flowers,” I say. “Waste not, want not.”

“What about Mr. Grimthorpe’s room?” Stark asks. “Was there anything left in it?”

Sunitha shakes her head.

“Nothing in the trash?”

“Nothing in the room at all,” Sunshine offers. “No suitcase, no garbage, nothing. Just a downturned bed.”

“So her boss dies suddenly and she hightails it outta here, just like that?” Detective Stark squints. She folds the note from the rubbish and puts it into her notepad, then walks over to the trolley, dumps the garbage bag she’s holding into the bin, and discards her rubber gloves.

“That will be all,” she says as she starts down the hall.

“Where are you off to?” I ask, trailing after her.

“To the station.”

“So your investigation is finished?”

She turns suddenly, and I almost face-plant right into her.

“It’s far from finished. You better hope for your sake—and for the sake of your little sidekick—that everything in the tearoom comes up clean.”

“Oh, it will,” I say. “Everything will be spotless once I’m done.”

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