14 July 2027
Wednesday. The fourteenth of July. I wore my good sash and hummed the anthem on the stairs. Croissant howled the harmony.
Visitors still ask me how a hotel in Paris comes to be at the bottom of a staircase under Hay Street Mall in Perth. I do not ask how the gendarmerie arranges its postings, and I suggest the visitors do not either. The address is the address: down the stairs from the mall, a short walk from the underground station, and one comes out in 1920.
The hotel has neighbours, too, all along the corridor. A western gaol, a bank vault, an Egyptian tomb and more besides. On a busy evening one hears all sorts through the walls. I have learned to ignore everything that is not a telephone.
A party tonight played the hotel and then went straight on to the western gaol for a second case. I admire their stamina. I have one case, and it has taken two years.
— Insp. A. Brochard, Gendarmerie
